John Ward

We have a new café in Nelson. My friend Amy opened the John Ward Café 2 days ago in THE BEST location in Nelson. I'm very excited for her and very excited that she asked me to design a logo for her. Thanks Amy! So I headed in to Nelson yesterday morning to have my first latté and I was so impressed with the space - especially the cool vintage wall treatment. Apparently a friend had found these old boards, from vintage packing crates, in the wall of an old house they were renovating in Nelson and asked Amy if she could use them - she's so creative(as is her whole family) So they put them to good use, on the wall and I thinks it's fab fab fab! I couldn't wait to show you because I know you are going to love it too. . . . .

Giveaway!

Would you like to win this Cartolina print? It's one of my favourites - the background is an 18th century copper engraving from Italy and the 'wood'carving is one of Doug's illustrations - so pretty and so much detail. My friend Kate from Pennello Lane is giving away this poster and a goody bag of Cartolina loot - all you have to do is go to her blog and enter - right now! I LUV GIVEAWAYS!

Vintage treasures from La Sirena

I would like to show you a couple of the pretty vintage pieces that I picked up at La Sirena on my trip last week. The first is a reproduction advertising piece that I just had to have, love everything about it. The second is this small chalkware sheep. I don't know much about it - I expect it was from a series of collectible animals, Noah's Ark or a Nativity set. I have this thing about small sheep figurines - having grown up in Scotland - ha! Do you like it?

Hand Shadow Cards

I've featured a few things from Cog and Pearl here in the past. I spotted these reproduction 'hand shadow' cards at Pursuitist and couldn't resist. So wonderful!

More information here.

SF storefronts

I always like to include a pictorial selection of my favourite storefronts when we get back from a city trip. Here's my selection from San Francisco. Love the trendy one-bright-colour look. This first yellow establishment is a newish, very hip, German Gasthaus - Leopold's. I think if you head there for a beer after work you won't be disappointed ;-)

Vintage signage

So many great vintage signs in SF - I especially love this first one - it goes so perfectly with the surrounding architectural details. Enjoy . . . . .

Card spinner lampshade

Look closely at these lampshades and see if you recognize their construction. If you're in the same biz as we are you will immediately see that they are inspired by wire greeting card spinners. Each card slot is fitted with a piece of birch plywood. Quite effective really! Saw these at Salt House in SF.

A perfect showcase

This display is actually outside, in a cabinet, next to an antique store in Carmel. The store is in a tiny courtyard with lots of pretty flowers and old benches - so charming, as is most of Carmel. The yellow wallpaper on the back of the 2 cabinets is quite jaw dropping (I'm sure that some of you would know the design and maker) and with the blue and white porcelain, well it's positively perfect.

Antique french books

Unfortunately Doug can't remember where he took these pictures of antique french books. It was a window display. I can't believe how beautiful the tiny illustrations are on the covers. It wasn't until I zoomed in on the details that I could see how pretty they were. Aren't they amazing?

More holiday pictures ;-)

I think I said this yesterday but I'm finding it quite tricky to edit and sort all the images that Doug took last week in SF. here are some of my favourites in the 'general' category! Tomorrow storefronts and vintage signage.

Happy Monday!

Hello everyone!

Thanks for visiting today. It's so nice to be back here! What a great week we had in California. Doug took so many pictures, it was a bit overwhelming to organize them all last night. So today I'm starting with a few iconic San Francisco images and then on to a couple of favourite shops. In the next few days I'll show you some other highlights of our trip including the usual fab, vintage, store fronts and vintage signage that Doug always takes such great shots of. We had 3 days in San Francisco and then 4 days in Carmel - we had a blast and if you are interested in any details, hotels etc I'll post some of those tomorrow. But I can guarantee we will be heading back to Carmel again this year some time - we absolutely loved it. Enjoy the photos . . . .