We have giveaway winners!

Thanks to all of you who sent me a Cartogram, who Tweeted and who blogged the giveaway! I really wanted to say thanks to those of you who downloaded the Cartolina app in the last few days - the response has been absolutely overwhelming. Thank you! So I have randomly picked 3 winners to get some fab Cartolina loot in the mail. I printed out all your posts, Tweets and Cartograms and Doug, blindfolded, picked them from the big glass salad bowl So, the winners are - Beatrice Howell, Nyla Free and Lisa Tilse. Congratulations ladies! Send me your addresses asap and I'll pop your pretty parcels in the mail!

Small dogs

I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with little dogs - I've never even had a dog! But I do love all these little dog figurines that seem to have made their way to the Cafe recently. This one and the other little treasures in this post are from Sadie Olive.

Inspiration - Northern European style

These vintage accessories are so wonderful. I love the northern European taste for antiques - utilitarian in form, function and fabric. I am so drawn to this honest style of decoration and I can spend hours at Butik Sophie scrolling through pages and pages of vintage inspiration. The plate in the 3rd picture is amazing!

We had a very old ouija board in the house when we were growing up and my grandmother used to terrify us with creepy stories about the consequences of playing with such things - so of course I have a slight curiosity(have you ever used one?) So this may be the closest I would come to owning a ouija board - a printed leather cell phone case with a very vintage game board image printed on the front - how fun - maybe?

I absolutely adore this trend for fabric flower accessories. Every time I feature some here at the cafe someone asks me if I would actually wear any of these beauties.Yes, I absolutely will - and I do! In fact if you've seen me recently you will know that I have a fabric flower pinned to every cardigan and every jacket lapel! And if you've got a birthday coming up chances are you'll get a flower from me to celebrate! Bring 'em on!

These are all from the clever people at The Honeycomb

Inspiration - botanicals

Love love love these pillows from Couture Deco - wonderful pseudo vintage botanicals. Every time I buy a 'novelty' pillow like one of these I am so happy with the whimsy that it brings into a room. I like use them on the single arm chair that I have in the front hall.

Knit one - purl one

How fun - knitted wall paper! I can hear you all squealing with delight at this. From Couture Deco via Art at Heart

Found - loud patterns

Boy this is loud. I think I like it. There's an element of art deco in this that sparks a slight amount of interest for me - but I'm still not sure. What do you think? Wallpaper and sofa from Anthropologie. I'm on the fence.

Found - french treasures!

We all love the Paris Hotel Boutique. It's amazing what fabulous french treasures can be found at such an establishment! Today my favourite finds at the Boutique are as follows: The vintage ribbon dispenser/cutter with extra unused spools of ribbon - brilliant fun - check out the striped paper and seal around the ribbon spools - fab!

Next fave has to be these 3 'alligator' storage boxes with brass accessories - amazing. The writing on the labels is SO french, isn't it?

Window Shopping - Elemental

I love this store - Elemental - it has all those cool vintage industrial pieces that I would love to find at a salvage yard. Somehow it seems more exciting to find the original pieces yourself and do the sanding and the polishing. But, in a pinch, I'd snap up any of these great storage pieces - anytime! Enjoy!

Time for a giveaway!

Wow, what an exciting weekend we had. With the launch of the Cartolina app on Friday we were kept very busy - and certain people, who will remain anonymous, got mildly obsessed with tracking it's every movement at the app store - in every country - every 10 minutes! It was so exciting to see the Cartolina app hit #1 in the New and Noteworthy section of iTunes. Here we are, just ahead of Mario Batali - so fun!

I really want to say thank you to all of you who downloaded the app and who wrote such lovely comments here, and at other blogs, this weekend. So, we are going to have a Cartolina giveaway - yay! I'd like to give away a couple of Cartolina goody bags full of all our latest releases - cards and notebooks, a whole big bundle of Cartolina loot!

Here's what you have to do: If you have the app, I want you to send me a Cartogram - you will automatically be entered into the draw. If you don't have the app all you have to do is Tweet this giveaway using @Fionacartolina in the Tweet(so that I see it!)

The giveaway will be open just until Thursday noon and we'll have a winner on Friday morning! Good luck!

Inspiration - pattern

I featured some book photographs by Jelens a year or so ago but I was reminded how lovely they are when I stumbled upon this top photograph on Craftgawker the other day - submitted by See Me Everywhere. Aren't they wonderful?Thanks for the reminder!

Found - birthday candles

Well! Who can resist these birthday candles - how cute are these? One of you please go and buy this complete set for $5.99 for goodness sake - and then let me know below. Thank You!