Yard sale score!

 

I bought a vintage View Master set today at a yard sale. Model C from 1946. It came in a great Bakelite box and included loads of reels. I am totally fascinated by the old Wizard of Oz images. I took this picture through the Viewfinder. The imagery is weird and wonderful and odd and beautifully creepy - which of course is right up my alley! Thought you might like to see it :-)

 

New Cards at Cartolina!

We have new cards - yippee!

I love it when we have new releases at Cartolina - it's so fun. I always try to have a theme for the new cards and this time it's the zigzag type. All the zigzag type is original, Victorian, hand painted type. No digital fonts here! I love working with the original typefaces - they have so much character and dimension - and really look great with our vintage imagery!

For more information about our line, or for ordering our cards wholesale, check out our website at www.cartolina.com or email me at info@cartolina.com

Tattly - and a little birthday gift for you.

You may have seen me mention on our Facebook page that we licensed some very neat, vintage sailor images for temporary tattoos with Tattly recently. We have been having so much fun with these - I had no idea they would be so popular. Doug and all his friends have been sporting them since we got them - the anchor is definitely a winner (perhaps a Popeye thing?) Anyway today is Tattly's first birthday and to celebrate they are having the most amazing sale. So from Thursday until Sunday night, if you use the code '1yearold' you will get 50% off your purchase - GREAT DEAL! There are loads of fabulous designs to choose from, but of course I'm partial to the Cartolina Set!

More from the yard sale . .

So I thought you might like to see what I did with the vintage picnic table that went with the 2 benches (that ended up in my living room - see previous post!) I simply put it at the front of our house, next to our front door, where we sit in the evenings watching the sun go behind the mountain and waiting for the rush of cool air to follow. I really like it. I topped it with some herbs in old pots and it suits the rustic-ness of the rest of our home.

Yard sale score!

I had fun this weekend. The neighbour had a yard sale and, of course, I was first at the garden gate waiting to browse the offerings! Right away I spied some picnic tables and benches. Lucky for me she let me have them for free, though I would have happily paid the $5 she was looking for!  I knew exactly what I was going to do with 2 of the benches . . . I've been looking for the perfectly rustic, living room, coffee table for a long time now and I had a feeling they were going to be exactly right. So after delivering the goods to the driveway, Doug scrubbed down the benches and brought them inside - PERFECT! Just what I've been looking for . . . .

I put two of the benches together to make the perfect size table - it's exactly 6 ft by 30 inches. I think that the colour and texture look wonderful with the cow hide rug, which I got from here, by the way. 

 

Zigzag!

Here's a little chevron inspiration! Really the prettiest chevron patterns I've seen in a long time - on One King's Lane this morning!

Geometric rocks

This caught my eye a week ago on Etsy. The colours are lovely! From thepairabirds (I wish Etsy shop names weren't all one word - know what I mean?)

Before we go . . . a before and after!

Hello everyone. It's been very busy here as we get ready to go to New York tomorrow for the Stationery Show and for Surtex. I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends, clients, colleagues and partners. It's always a great opportunity to visit and socialize and do a little business at the same time! We are also going to go to Doug's Broadway show - Nice Work If You Can Get It starring Matthew Broderick. Doug did all the illustration and typography for the poster, and all the peripheral graphics. It's been fun to watch the ongoing press that the show has received and we're looking forward to seeing it this weekend. So if you're going to the shows stop by and say hi at booth #309 at Surtex or shoot me an email and I'll make time to have a visit with you.

In the mean time I wanted to show you a before and after we did last weekend on this cobwebby old cupboard that had been in our barn for about 5 years. It actually was 2 cupboards - one on the front and one on the back - so we had to cut it in half, disassemble it and then rebuild it. I added some vintage crown moulding (that Doug found in a dumpster outside a reno!) And some sweet little iron knobs. I painted the inside a pale blue grey, put a quick coat of varathane on the outside, and then put it in my studio and filled it with treasures. Hope you like it ;-)

Before(below) and After(above) ;-)

Cartolina for teNeues!

A few months ago I was asked to design some note cards for teNeues. TeNeues publish really beautiful products and I was thrilled to be asked. We designed 3 different sets of eco-friendly boxed note cards - and I think they turned out great. They will be available in retailers all over the US and Europe at the end of the month - but they are available for pre order from teNeues website right here (and they're a great price point!)

Flower Designer

I think that these are the covers of Flower Designer magazine. They are from Izutsu Hiroyuki's Flickr collection. Fabulous illustrations! Very modern folk art feeling.

American Indian inspired decorating

Pretty, American indian inspired rug. I like, I think. This reminds me so much of Ralph Lauren circa 1986 - I had that wrap around shaw collared cardigan - did you?

Plumes

This poster is from Urban Outfitters. I have an original of this vintage page from an encyclopedia. It's quite wonderful -  I use some of the details occasionally in my designs You can't beat vintage engravings.

Roses

I'm so into roses at the moment - can't get enough old fashioned tea roses and peonies - thank goodness it's the season for roses! So I wanted to share this little tutorial with you that I found online at La Dolce Villa. These are actually made from coffee filters!

New Cartolina Studios!

I know, I've been missing in action again - just when I had announced that I was back for good! Sorry about that! We decided to do some renovating and decorating in the studio so my regular schedule was thrown for a loop. Anyway, now I'm back again and I can't wait to put together a post on all the changes I made in the studio. I love it. I've been working like mad for 5 years in the same space never really having time to make any changes so it was great to have a fresh start. I'll put a post together very soon and share it with you! Here's a sneak peek . . . .

Ganesha Maidens - fab.com

More pretty things in my INBOX yesterday morning. This is an original Indian poster, complete with tears and stains. And it's quite big - 20 x 13 inches. I have a few of these and I treasure them! The colours of these posters have inspired many a Cartolina design! This one has now sold but there are more - around $200 from C.G. Sparks

Hand painted wallpaper

Hand painted wall paper scrap on One King's Lane this morning. So many people try to copy this style of vintage illustration but few succeed - thank goodness (nice to stay authentic.)