Cafe Cartolina

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Vintage Canada

Every year, on Canada Day, I drag out my 3 favourite vintage Canadian graphics for you. . . . and here they are again - aren't they pretty? ;-)

Happy Canada Day!

It's a holiday in Canada today - it's Canada Day.

Most Canada Day weekends we go to George's birthday party. George Coletti is one of my all time favourite people. I met George the day we moved to Nelson in 1994 - we rented a very cool old apartment from him. Since then the Colettis have become like family to us and I'm really looking forward to this weekend because it's George's 90th birthday party. George and his family have owned the local junktique store in Nelson for a long time and I can genuinely say that most of the vintage furniture in my house is from their store. When we had the Dominion Café it was right next door to George's store and Lou, George's son, built the café interior for us. Lou is also the lucky owner of the best boat shed in the world - which I blogged about here. Here are a few pictures taken at George's store over the last few years . . .

3d vintage type with shadows - doesn't get much better than this. This red licorice typeface is brilliant! From the amazing collections of Agence Eureka - of course!

More paper decorations and lanterns - sorry :-]

1st one from here. 2nd one from here. 3rd one from here. Last one from here.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

New obsessions

I've become just a wee bit obsessed with paper lanterns and honeycomb paper decorations. All of these images caught my eye over the last few days. This first image is quite incredible isn't it?

1. From here. 2. From here. 3. From here. 4. From here.

Inspiration - iced cookies!

You have GOT to be inspired by the patterns on these pretty cookies. Look at them carefully - it's very clever how they are designed with dots of colours and dragged with a toothpick. Wouldn't these make great surface patterns - yes they would ;-)

Image from here.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Hello Monday!

We have a nautical theme here at The Cafe this morning including this fab letterpress card from here via Sarah Moore's Pinterest board.

Ship ahoy

I had a great weekend - did you? It finally felt like summer here at the lake and we got to spend most of the weekend outside. I love the nautical theme of this great old sweety tin - but I really must stop buying tins - so this one's yours for the taking!

Inspiration - vintage fabric

Wonderful vintage fabric from this Tinsel and Twine Pinterest board.

Inspiration - vintage ephemera

More ships, from Hindsvik. These are very cool illustrations of a variety of boats/ships. They make such a fun collection.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Happy Friday

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! We are hoping that summer will make an appearance at some point! This gorgeous image is from Uncle Beefy's Pinterest board (sorry about your computer Beefy - ouch!) Lots of amazing things to see at Pinterest and I love the way most of the images link back to the original source. Follow me here if you wish! See you Monday!

I spotted this here on Pinterest yesterday - I absolutely adore it - it has every element of design that I love and the styling is divine! Smitten! So now I am officially a 'pin head' I'd love it if you followed me on Pinterest - and I'll follow you back and we can share the inspiration!

Flow magazine

I was very excited to get this yesterday. Flow magazine is a Dutch publication which is all about paper and pattern and all the inspiring stuff that goes along with it. They asked us a few weeks ago if they could use one of our cards as their cover - I was so flattered because I know how popular magazine it is (and how beautifully designed it is too!) Anyway - I love how they designed the cover around the image - it looks fab! Thanks Flow!

Now I'm not sure that we all have Suzanis lying around that we wish to upholster an ottoman with but it's definitely inspiring isn't it? Your weekend project? From Better Homes and Garden - who really do have a great website.