Winter wonderland

Trust 5 Gardenias, one of my fave vintage shops, to list this excellent, sparkly, vintage christmas castle from the 1950s - luv it!

Random image

While I was searching for Rudolphs yesterday I came across this very cool old business card from Vintage Art Supplies

Reindeer games

And now, for your entertainment, is my personally curated collection of vintage reindeers - all available from the shops listed at the end of the post - enjoy . . . .

From the bottom up - Vintage Wise, Nina in Ruffles, Bee Jay Kay, Flea Market Treasures, All Things White, Dime Store Vintage, Vintage Goodies, Dodad Chic, Cammoo, 5 Gardenias.

Shameless self promotion :-)

I'm not sure why I always feel like apologizing when I indulge in some shameless self promotion. I think it's because, like many other designers, I'm really not comfortable selling my own product. But, on the other hand, there are only 16 days left until Christmas which means 16 days left to get yourself the Cartolina Holiday app and send all your friends and other favourite folk a pretty little Cartogram. I send out lots of holiday cards at this time of the year but this year I'm going to also use Cartograms to send casual greetings and invitations. I've received so many Cartograms from my bloggy friends and my Twitter pals - it's wonderful. Even though I designed them I still love to receive them in my inbox! So why not send something pretty hi-tech this year - or even better, why not gift an app from Apple?

Eye candy

I ran across this pretty photograph by photographer Sandra Lane. The vintage sheet music displayed against the green panelling is wonderful, isn't it?

Random objects - Tupperware lights

These will definitely get filed in the 'some people are so clever' file. Tupperware hanging light fixtures. I like the first one a lot. I think if you have a 50s style kitchen or a diner these would look perfect. From Boots n Gus.

Mingle Holiday Event - Thursday

Just a quick note this morning before I head off to work. If you're local, don't forget that this Thursday is the Mingle Holiday event at Louie's. It's always such a fun event and I'd love to hang out and enjoy a few festive cocktails with my entrepreneurial friends. This event is open to spouses, co-workers and friends too this time - so you have no excuse! Hope you can make it! See you then!

Hello Tuesday!

Good morning - great to see you here this morning. We had a wonderful long weekend in sunny Vancouver. We went to a party at our printers in Burnaby and also had the pleasure of meeting a new friend and her husband - Sharon Laxon, interior designer and co-owner of Layers and Layers - an interior design showroom that services the interior design community in Vancouver. We had great fun visiting with Sharon and her husband in their beautiful home. I'd love you to take a look at the Layers and Layers blog - wonderful posts and guest posts from some very talented designers - enjoy!

Hotel Europe

We walked past this old hotel in Gastown on Saturday. I think it's probably apartments now. I love Gastown in Vancouver - it's really one of the only parts of the city that retains its original street level heritage. This old hotel has fab old marble stairs, tiled floors and Victorian tiled walls - can you see the yellow tiled border? I love this place.

Edible type

This is fun! Our printers organized such a fun party for their clients on Friday night. One of the clever ideas they had was to reproduce type trays in very large format and hang them on the wall. Then they had hundreds of cookies baked in letter shapes that you could stand up on tiny shelves and write your name or a message etc. Here are our Cartolina cookies - I love them!

Novelty type

Great sample of vintage type on an old cigar box that crossed my path this weekend.