It's Canada day and I'm taking a few days off. I've been trying to take most weekends off recently but, if you run a small business, you'll know how tricky that can be. I have lots of exciting things to tell you over the next few weeks - Doug's been working on a top secret project for Cartolina which he is itching to tell you about - should be complete in a few weeks(and he illustrated a new card for us this week too, which I love.) I have to do some reprinting next week so I'm slipping in half a dozen new designs again - can't wait to show you those! Thanks for sharing in all the excitement - it truly warms my heart when you leave me comments and feedback - I read every one. Have a great weekend everyone- Happy Canada Day - wherever you are!

Found

I definitely fancy one of these - the blue one in fact - but I doubt that's going to happen, if you know what I mean! Unfortunately I am not the only one making the decorating decisions around here and the one item that we may fall out over is the sofa. I think men and women seldom agree on sofas - stay tuned, it could get ugly!

Sometimes when I'm working here on the blog I see something that catches my eye from a few months/years ago in the Linkwithin window and it still impresses me - like this pillow shot - love it - so inspiring. From Enhabiten.

Inspiration

I've started filing away inspiration for my new brighter and more colourful decorating plan - thanks for all your help this week. So many of you wrote and told me about your armoire makeovers it was great. I will have a big red armoire(in the making), 2 green cupboards, a blue table, a red bench and a green bench - I think that's a pretty good start - here are some more ideas from my file . . .

All pictures from here.

Found

Pretty colourful treats from Monsoon.

Just spotted this gorgeous piece of furniture over at Seen and Said Tumblr collection via Twitter this morning - couldn't resist an impulsive post - have a great day everyone!

A good day!

Yesterday was a big day at the Cartolina studio. If you run a small business you'll understand my excitement over receiving our first shipment of custom shipping boxes. Woo hoo! Now we have lovely double wall boxes with our logo on the side and, what's even better is, they fit our product perfectly. It was a joy yesterday to pack a couple of shipments up and see the pile sitting by the door ready to leave - it was a good day. I hope the UPS guy is as excited as I am :-)

Illustration

I love this - I saw it at Print and Pattern yesterday and really thought it was interesting - thought you might like it too. From Made It.

Inspiration

When I was in New York last month for the stationery show it was great to catch up with old friends including Lori from Marzipan Inc. We actually ran into each other at Grand Central Station which is such an odd thing to do when she lives in small town Wisconsin and I live in small town BC - it was fun! Anyway she was telling me about a vintage tea box that she had found. I was happy to see it on her blog a couple of days ago and excited to show you it here. It's in great condition isn't it? The labels are wonderful and it's lined with tin. What a neat piece to have - lucky girl!

Inspiration

This vintage seller has pretty odd and a few excellent things including these wonderful turn of the century dishes. Love this bird motif - use similar ones often in my designs.

Inspiration

Beautiful Japanese design from the Tortoise General Store in Venice, CA.

Makeover - episode I

This is going to be the first of many posts featuring our pending living room makeover.

The commitment has been made and we are painting the whole place white - probably around the end of July. And, may I say, it's about time! Here are some before pictures. We live in the mountains, as you probably know, and it's all too easy to fall into a 'lodge' look whether you like it or not. We also live right next to the lake so I like to add vintage lake props into the decorating. But it's time to update the look and bring some fresh color back into our home.

The living space is very open plan. It flows into the kitchen. dining and hall area - even the stairwell. I'm excited to redecorate. We don't have a huge budget but I think we will replace the sofa, chair and ottoman, lighting, rugs and art. I was thinking about the new brighter and more colourful decorating plan and wondered what we can do with the TV armoire. It's a big piece of solid wood furniture. I don't want to give it up but we have agreed it can be painted. I'm excited to do this. We have a big green vintage cupboard in the entry that will look way better against a white wall so I'd like to paint the armoire a cool colour. Keep in mind I do not want a shabby chic look - I think the red example below would be a great choice or a a grey/green. What do you think?

The armoire in question - above.

The green cupboard in entryway(above) - this is a very tall piece, 5'5" tall.

The last blue cupboard is from House and Home, the others are from Pottery Barn, small red cupboard from Eco Furniture and the red Spanish armoire is from Haunt !

Inspiration

I like these. We had something similar when we were growing up - the faces are very familiar to me. There was so much curious old Indian stuff in the house. Maybe they were puppets - they are long gone - not sure what happened to them. I'd like a collection of these on top of a cupboard.

From At West End