Step right up!

Aren't these stairs fantastic? I love this idea - especially in a casual, cottage-like house.

Yellow stairs from here and grey stairs from here.

Inspiration - bon bon tins

Fabulous vintage french packaging from here. You can't go wrong with gold stripes and big black bows!

I'm obsessed with this vintage soap packaging - it's so inspiring on so many levels. I hope you love it too. The colour combination on the 2nd one is incredible.

Inspiration - vintage papery

This vintage inspired times-table chart is so charming - and I could probably do with one! Also the graphic, black and white journal is fabulous. All of these are from Avida Portuguesa.

Inspiration - Viarco

I am completely smitten by this Portuguese product. I have seen the most extraordinary packaging come from Portugal - starting with these fab pencil crayons. I simply LOVE the Viarco logo - don't you?

Inspiration - framed book covers

Did you see this great post by Esta Sketch at Apartment Therapy yesterday on framing your fave vintage books - really nice!

Inspiration - band posters

Up until now I felt there was little competition for band posters - The Decemberists won hands down. But I think that these posters for The Swell Season definitely give them a run for their money.

All poster available for purchase at Poster Cabaret

Inspiration- press sheets

This is kind of interesting - at least I think it is! This is an uncut Cartolina press sheet from our printers. We don't get to see these very often because they get sliced up and sent to us as individual cards but my guy at the printers thought I might like a few of them. I can't wait to dry mount one of these and hang it on the studio wall. It's quite large, 50" x 30" - holds 16 cards. I had a friend over to the studio at the weekend and she snapped one up - not sure what she'll use it for - maybe she'll hang it on her wall too! If you have other great ideas - let me know below . . .

Inspiration

Thought I would stop by Bonjour Mon Coussin to see what's new. I love the way they use vintage images on their pillows and now they have very nice bags too. Their product is very high quality and their new designs are really fun.

Changes

I've made a few small changes around here in the last few days. I've had a nice quiet week so I have updated our web site with some new images, changed a few things around here on the blog and spent 10 minutes making a little Cartolina iPhone icon. I thought you might like to make one for your own sites so the directions are below.

iPhone Home Screen Icons

Did you know that when you're checking out one of your fave sites on your iPhone that you have the choice to ADD BOOKMARK or ADD TO HOME SCREEN. So yesterday I figured out how to make a little icon that will appear on my iPhone home screen as a short cut to our site - see the little elephant, bottom right next to NYTimes? (Just ignore the fact that I have 193 unread emails!) here's how you do it. Make a little icon 45 x 45 pixels. Name it apple-touch-icon.png and add it to the root directory of your website. When it loads on your iPhone it will have nice round corners and the 'wet look'. Voila!

Inspiration

Thanks to one of our readers, Simon, I have something really special to show you this morning. Check out these long lost posters hidden in a disused tube tunnel at Notting Hill Gate in London. They are fabulous. 1956 - 1959. I especially love the River Thames poster, last picture. Imagine switching on a flickering light and finding these? They are apparently going to stay right where they are! Thanks Simon!

All pictures from London Underground.

Inspiration

You know how much I love vintage store fronts? Well I was alerted to a fabulous book of New York storefronts yesterday - thank you Linda! the book is called STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York by James and Karla Murray (Gingko Press) ISBN:978-1-58423-227-8 $65.00. I am definitely going to buy this book. Enjoy . . .

Another Great Big Cartolina Giveaway!

As is the tradition around here, we have new product so we are having a new product giveaway! The prizes are fabulous - the 2 winners shall receive a full set of all our new goodies - cards, notebooks and pocket mirrors -yay! I love sharing the excitement every few months. So all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of the post - tell me who you'd most like to send one of our cards to. It could be your granny or it could be someone from history - anyone. I'll leave the giveaway open until Sunday at 4pm Pacific time. Now if, for some reason, you need to get your hands on some Cartolina loot before next week then you can always get yours right here from Modern Paper Goods - the whole collection at great prices and great service options.

One of the best things about designing and producing a product is that I can share it with friends :-)

And I'll have 2 winners on Monday morning for you :-) If you'd like to enter more than once you just need to blog or Tweet this post! Thanks for entering! Good luck!