Inspiration

These beautiful bags came my way via a Tweet by Pamela Angus, I think. I am really drawn to the colours and patterns - so intense and detailed.

Spotted

I saw this yesterday and totally fell for it. Lyrics from one of my favourite albums from the 80s by ABC. I love the way the designer at Spotted Sparrow says, "There's something about combining vintage images with 80s song lyrics that makes me giggle." I couldn't agree more!

Found

I've been wearing lots more jewelry lately. And I'm back to wearing gold tones again after years of wearing silver - I love it. These gorgeous, very feminine pieces are from a Canadian designer that I noticed on Etsy - New Fashioned Whispers. Her work is lovely and her product shots are to die for. Enjoy!

Found

Okay, I confess, I am a total sucker for these tiny felted animals - aren't they cute? He he he! Allow me to indulge - because I know you like them too . . .

These were all produced by the very talented Natasha Fadeeva.

Happy New Year everyone.

I'm so glad you stopped by this morning!

2010 is going to be a great new year. How do I know that? Because I've been planning it for weeks now! I'm excited to announce this morning that, as of today, it's a whole new world for us here at the Cartolina studio.

If you've been following along for the last year and a half you'll know that there's seldom a weekend that goes by that we're not working hard in the studio taking care of everything that needs to happen to keep a small publishing company up and running smoothly.

Cartolina is 3 years old now. We started as a small collection of everyday greeting cards - but we came out of the gate really fast - growing to a substantial sized line, with multiple categories, in a very short period of time. It's been a steep learning curve over the last few years and, just like every other small business owner, I've had to wear multiple hats in the studio - everything from designer to accountant to shipper and marketing director! I'm a firm believer in mastering all aspects of your business whether it be changing the ink in the printer or writing code on the website.

At some point in the last few months I realized that Cartolina had grown bigger and faster than I ever would have expected and I had to start planning for 2010 - that meant hiring the right people to take care of all my sales, distribution, marketing and shipping so that I can concentrate on designing. It took a lot of research and negotiating(and a few sleepless nights) but I am very proud to announce today that we are expanding our global reach with wonderful new distribution partners in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. A whole new sales force to take care of our retail buyers and great customer service to back up our product. As of today, all our US orders are will be shipped directly from Oregon - so, no more costly international postage rates from Canada - and of course shipping is way faster now too! We have great new prices and lots of pretty new product - we are excited to be licensing our imagery this year for some fabulous Cartolina Home products - I'll have more info on this soon.

I'm hoping to have a lot more time to design and to blog. I think that Cafe Cartolina has some room for growth and I'm planning on making a few fun little changes around here - now that I have time! So now you know what I have planned for this year - how about you? What do you have planned for 2010? Why don't you leave me a comment below . . . .

To start things off this year we have some exciting trade shows - If you are a retailer and you are planning on attending any of the following shows why don't you stop by our booth and pick up a fun little gift that we have for you? I'll be at the Toronto show and I'd love to say hi!

Here's the spring schedule so far:Top Drawer, Earls Court in London, 17-19 January, Booth H45, CGTA Show in Toronto Jan 31 - Feb 4, Spring Fair, Birmingham, 7 -11 February, Booth W06 Hall 3. Contact me if you need any more info on these shows.

Inspiration

Here's some stitchin' inspiration for the New Year. Love this first one don't you? These images are from Tunderholmi and I think they are produced by Facile Cecile - beautiful! I'm really hoping with some of my newly found spare time I can do some more sewing.

Found

Here are some great images from Knut & Svea in Sweden. I've said this before but what is it with those Swedish antique stores - they all stock these great vintage pieces in a very limited palette - white, black, grey - and so utilitarian - I love it!

Vintage

Hmmmmmm, I'm really loving these sheets from UO. That slash of green is fabulous against the vintage floral print - great to see something unique like this for a change!

Swoon

I followed a link on Twitter yesterday and found myself drooling over this ring on Vicente Agor's website - isn't it wonderful - I love it to bits. I think if Cartolina had a jewelry line it would look a bit like this! Which reminds me, we are introducing some new products in the new year - I'll tell you all about it next week!

Vintage

How sweet is this? A vintage, handmade, tin carousel from Elemental. Love the colours and the patterns - very inspiring!

Inspiration

Here's another fun thing from Elemental to inspire you to be creative this weekend(after you've nursed your sore head!) I'm not suggesting you take up forged iron work but I do think there's the potential in this vintage mirror to inspire a wonderful repeat pattern or some curled paper work or . . .

Inspiration

So I guess you'll be getting all gussied up tonight and heading out to a glamourous New Year's party. Well don't forget to do your hair - here are some ideas a la Amy Flurry and Nikki Salk (I'd suggest you wear a tad more make up than these gals!)

Found

Good morning everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful few days off last week. Can you believe that it's almost the end of 2009? I ran across these images over the holidays and stashed them away to share with my creative pals here at The Cafe. These are from a Flickr set - interior images from Anthropologie. What I was curious about was the amazing sculptures created from unusual materials, take a closer look . . .

Rolled newspaper and plastic knives?

Recycled paper, chopsticks and plastic spoons?

Plastic spoons and forks - amazing!

Inspiration

Super fabulous moth pillows from Utilitarian Franchise - love the oversized graphics - very inspiring!

Found

There are so many cute things I found when I was shopping online for the holidays. Including this little pin from Marisol Spoon's shop. She has some wonderful illustration some of which she applies to interesting items like this . . . .

Found

Have you seen these? - Cut Out and Sew Glove Puppets from Alice Melvin. These remind me a lot of similar items that were quite popular when we were kids in the 70s. I remember there was an orange striped cat that you could buy, cut out and sew into a pillow - do you remember those?

Happy Holidays!

This is my last post for a few days. I'm looking forward to taking a well deserved break. It's been a simply amazing year here at the studio - especially the last 2 months. Cartolina will take on a whole new life in 2010 and I'm looking forward to sharing all the exciting news with you over the next couple of weeks. Preparing posts for Cafe Cartolina has become my favourite part of the day and every morning I look forward to reading your comments. I'm going to have lots more time on my hands in the New Year and I promise to update the labels list and some of the permanent image links we have on the side bars - just a little bit of housekeeping to keep the Cafe fresh! Thanks for visiting everyday and for commenting. Happy Holidays! {I'll be back here on the 30th!}

These images are from the amazing Katrin Cargill - enjoy . . . .

I'd love to know what plans you all have for the holidays. Why don't you leave me a comment - I'd love to know!