Happy Weekend!

I'm heading off for a few days to Vancouver Island to visit my good friends Martin and Cate from Blanket. I'll be back here on Tuesday morning. I hope you have a sunny weekend and feel inspired to create something beautiful - like this pretty butterfly bouquet from Martha Stewart.

Found

There's something quite wonderful about this watch. It's so utilitarian looking with the strange small face. I also love the cream coloured face and the red strap - what do you think? If you'd like it, it can be yours right here.

Interiors

I like this quirky Dutch interior - lots of white with shots of colour(and yes I am getting close to cracking open that can of white paint and slapping it all over our place soon - thanks for all the white suggestions, I think I will use BM Decorator's White) Photographs by John Dummer.

Inspiration

I thought you might like this collection of beautifully curated bookshelves from Julie at Remodelista. Look closely - they are so wonderfully organized. The first example is so haphazard, I love it and second one is steel coated to look like zinc - it's fabulous. More information here.

Here is the first of my collections images - I don't think I did a very good job, it's kind of small and looks like it's missing something in the bottom right corner - the next one will be much more interesting - but I want it to be impulsive too! So I will include a little description with all images - starting clockwise from top left - small wood hand from junk box in Dougs studio(looks like it fell of a santos), bunch of small luggage tags on wires from millinery stall at Paris flea market, round paper box from Paris flea market, 2 Chinese paper boxes that used to contain tiny imported glass animals, fat Lyra pencils from Waldorf School shop in Nelson that are too pretty to use, tiny paper greeting labels from stamp market in Rome, wine bottle marker with bendy copper arms to go around bottle neck from Paris flea, handful of beach glass from the wee beach right below the Mile Zero sign in Victoria, key that my mother insisted was antique but I don't believe her, original luggage label from package of mixed ephemera bought from Argentinian seller on EBay. Stay tuned for more fascinating collections. Bet you can't wait ;-)

Inspiration

So I bought some of that wonderful Japanese masking tape(washi paper tape). There are so many fun things to with this stuff (partly, I think because of it's semi-transparency)including a few great crafty ideas from iDiY which I think you will love - be sure to check part 1 and part 2.

Found

I have answered a few questions over at Formspring recently about my work process - someone asked me the other day about how I plan my blog - I don't plan at all I try to keep it completely impulsive - which is why I am posting about this fabulous dress which I spied exactly 7 minutes ago. I am so smitten with this vintage Nina Ricci dress that I found on French Essence - the post is so cute too, this is what she writes,"I have often pressed my nose against the window of Didier Ludot in the Palais Royale and dreamt of the red carpet occasion where I might be royally frocked in vintage haute couture. It's funny how the imagination can run wild with a small glance and thoughts can multiply into a thousand different scenarios in the space of thirty-seconds. The hallucinogenic power of the fabulous dress is under-rated. The emotions that can race through the body - danger, disaster, disappointment, impulse, seduction and ecstasy...It is amazing that window shopping has never been classified along side other naughty substances! Je plaisante, really....I am just kidding, but it can be a very addictive past time. Image taken outside didier ludot (far too dangerous to go in....) "

Random Object

I absolutely love this - I could stare at it for a long time. And I think it's interesting because of the 2 different leaves - oak and laurel(or olive?) It's quite fablous don't you think? And its authentic! I found it at Paris Hotel.

Found

Doug took this picture of this amazing 'tent dress' in one of our local galleries on Saturday. This piece is one in a series of tent dresses by Angelika Werth. The dresses are actually made of real tents that have been lived in and have been witness to a variety of amazing adventures - each one comes with it's own story. You can find out more about this dress and see more of Angelika's work on her website.

Found

These interesting things are all from Plumo. I think they have a very cool mix of styles in their catalog - for instance these candles look very late 60s Italian, the tea set almost looks like Chinese enamel ware and the bowls look handmade form Kashmir. It's a very worldy yet contemporary look - quite unique.

Window shopping

How can you not be inspired by these wonderful piles of antiquarian books? These are from an online antique store called Appley Hoare - they are quite pricey but we can window shop can't we?

The other thing that caught my eye at Appley Hoare were these beautiful framed prints.

Pink Pony

I ran across this when I was searching for vintage storefronts the other day for my Blog It Forward post(which I am still recovering from - longest post in the world!) So the Pink Pony looks like my kind of place - have any of you been here? Lower East Side, NY? Let's go! You know, I have been trying to get Doug to write restaurant reviews on Cafe Cartolina - he plans all our eats when we go to NY, Vancouver etc and he does a great job. He's a very good writer, good photographer and good wine drinker - that would make him a good restaurant critic, right? I think we should get him to be a contributor here at The Cafe! (he recently started Tweeting - you can follow him here)

"Perhaps one of the best places for an uptowner or out-of-towner to observe the hipster in his natural habitat, this tin ceiling-ed Lower East Side café is the quintessential Bohemian hangout." --New York Magazine - I think Doug could have written that!

Sweet stuff

These pictures are so sweet they might hurt your teeth - but it feels so spring-like in the last few days - I'm in the mood for pretty florals and wee chirpy birds :-)

All images from this sweet little blog

Inspiration

It was love at first sight when I first spotted the work of Rebecca Thuss. You've probably browsed through her work, in the past, on the pages of Living and Blueprint. These days she has a photography and graphic design firm with her husband - but you can see lots of her extremely inspiring work right here on her website.