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 . . .

Manganaro

On Monday Doug headed off by himself to find some good food. He always researches restaurants before we go anywhere and has it all planned ahead of time. He was determined to find this Italian deli that was featured on one of Anthony Bourdains shows. Tony Bourdain insisted that Manganaros was the real thing - authentic, home cooked Italian food, a forgotten treasure in Hell's Kitchen. I have to say I love the store front and the chalk board out front (Doug managed to get these pictures before the owner ran outside an shouted at him for taking photos!) . . . . .

Above - a couple more store front pictures - I can't get enough of vintage store fronts in NY. Here's a link to previous posts on New York store fronts(these are some of my fave posts)

Back home

Hello everyone! I've missed you. What a whirlwind of a week we had in New York at the Stationery Show. Got back late last night (so this is just a quicky post!) It was so exciting to meet so many of my online and industry friends - I was amazed how many people I knew. And all the fabulous cards and paper products - I could go on and on(and I might in the next few days!) New York was, well, New York! I have to say that this was the most frenetic I've ever seen the city - more people than I ever remember seeing before. It's always such a culture shock to wake up in Manhattan on the first day of a New York trip - but I find my groove pretty quickly. We started our first morning with breakfast in Greenwich Village and then found ourselves surrounded by market stalls as far as the eye could see. Most of the narrow streets of the village were closed to traffic and vendors displayed their art, crafts and antiques. One of the best street markets I've ever been to. There was music and food, the sun was shining and the people watching was great. We had fun and Doug took lots of pictures . . . .

Managed to pick up one of these cute street fair posters for the studio!

Just loved this tiny window display(above) in an apartment window - and this cute little vintage enamel dish which I got for just $4.

We seem to have an awful lot of pictures of me Tweeting on street corners ;-)

This quilt is made of a patchwork of vintage bark cloth. The vendor said that it used to be a sales man's sample but I'm not so sure of that - it was very impressive!

I'll have lots more pictures and details for you in the next couple of days(just need to catch up on my sleep!)

Cartolina News!

Well, if you have been following along, you will know that we are off to New York again for the Stationery Show today. It's been a busy busy time here - I am constantly amazed at how fast we have grown in such a short time. I'm excited today to let my friends down-under know that, as of June, all our products are going to be available in beautiful stores across Australia including select David Jones stores. This is something that I have been working on for some time now and I am thrilled that it has finally come together.

The response to our new collection has been overwhelmingly positive and I am so grateful to those of you who wrote to tell me how much they liked the new designs - very heartwarming. So many of the readers here at the Cafe are fabulously talented and creative - it's always a bit daunting to debut a new collection here!!

So I have a little surprise for you today - Jennifer at Modern Paper Goods is offering a great promo to any of our readers who purchase Cartolina products for the next week - 50% off shipping! She has all the new product available including the notebooks and pocket mirrors. All you have to do is enter the promo code SHIP50 when you checkout - offer is available until the 21st. Thanks Jen!

I'll be back here in our neck of the woods on Friday the 21st - hope to do some blogging from New York in the next few days - so stay tuned - and have a great weekend.

Pink Pony

I ran across this when I was searching for vintage storefronts the other day for my Blog It Forward post(which I am still recovering from - longest post in the world!) So the Pink Pony looks like my kind of place - have any of you been here? Lower East Side, NY? Let's go! You know, I have been trying to get Doug to write restaurant reviews on Cafe Cartolina - he plans all our eats when we go to NY, Vancouver etc and he does a great job. He's a very good writer, good photographer and good wine drinker - that would make him a good restaurant critic, right? I think we should get him to be a contributor here at The Cafe! (he recently started Tweeting - you can follow him here)

"Perhaps one of the best places for an uptowner or out-of-towner to observe the hipster in his natural habitat, this tin ceiling-ed Lower East Side café is the quintessential Bohemian hangout." --New York Magazine - I think Doug could have written that!

Inspiration | Tord Boontje

I am so inspired by Dutch designer Tord Boontje's work. These images are from a collaboration with designer Alexander McQueen. pieces were created by Boontje for McQueens store in London. Over the last couple of years I have collected lots of images of his work, I'll show you some more soon if you like.

Last day in the Big Apple.

Well this is the end of 2 weeks of my New York snapshots - I can hear the collective sigh of relief! Here are the last few photographs from our trip and next week we are back to our normal schedule(unless of course I find some fun things to show you when I go to the Okanagan this weekend)

Pearl River Mart

You need to have a full hour to go through Pearl River Mart in Soho and see even just a fraction of what they have to offer. Its an enormous and curious collection of Chinese imported goods that stretches the full width of the block - you can come in the front door and exit out the back - and of course there's a  full basement too. Everything from tea pots to kimonos to chop sticks to pink flocked busts of  Mau Tse-Tung. There's a great selection of inexpensive, traditional decorative items like origami paper, lanterns, streamers and parasols and some less traditional and extremely beautiful embroidered silk quilted garments. This is a wonderful place to buy chinoiserie silk by the yard and tassels and trim by the bucketful. Pearl River is loud, fun and colourful and, as far as Soho stores go, it's the most affordable hour you'll spend south of Houston Street!