1. not exorbitant or extravagent by city standards, however in a rural setting (like upstate new york) it is in fact, quite fancy.
2. a wonderful blog dedicated to art, design and other things that are indeed upstate fancy.
READIN' NOW
Animals are your friends and it is now socially acceptable to have the perched upon your shoulder, or anywhere else you would like, all day long. These adorable little animal brooches from Kate Broughton are quite stunning. I love the assortment of creatures she is offering up to sustain all the forest day dreams, or jungle adventures running through your head. I don’t think I could pick just one, and I would probably be the crazy lady with all those animals all over her sweater.
I’m a big fan of handmade soft toys, and todays find made me almost fall out of my chair. Terry the Tortoise, from Hel Made, is self proclaimed as being the fastest tortoise in the UK. I do wonder how he would do against my one eyed walrus in his home turf. Its a battle of the sea creatures! Terry definitely will win in the uniqueness category, his shell is intricately made with layers of hexagons that demand attention. But my walrus might win a sympathy vote, due to his eye-loss from doing battle with the great corgi Einstein.
Why has no one thought of this before? I love, love, love the official tooth fairy kit by Notion Farm. A beautiful way to record a precious childhood memory. The kit contains a beautiful letter-pressed certificate of Record to file with your local tooth fairy and a screen-printed cloth bag for your past and future tooth deposits. You can now keep track of the age the tooth was lost, method of extraction and compensation for said tooth. Can’t wait to see who is going to stock these amazing memory collectors.
Creative firm SPRANQ has designed a new font to save some ink, and in turn save you some money on printing ink. This eco font is based on the sans-serif font veranda, and uses 20% less ink due to the empty circles in the font. They tested a variety of designs using lines, and squares and other techniques but decided the circle worked best. When the font is printed ( especially at a small size ) the dots are hardly visible, but definitely there. What a wonderful small simple way to make your life a little greener. And best of all, the font is free to download.
I love seeing slices of life frozen in time. I have a fascination with snow globes, and shadow boxes, and pretty much anything three dimensional with a little world inside. WIth this being said it is a shock that i have not seen these tiny wonderlands from Mossywood Lane. The colors are so bright and vibrant and she has a very well balanced design sensibility. I see a story book waiting to happen with these wonderful creations.
I work full time as a graphic designer, mostly doing print pieces. We all know the economy isn’t great right now and it affects quite a bit of things. I love that Because Studio has managed to find the humor in a situation i see on a daily basis. A lot of clients don’t have the money right now to spend on a 5 color pantone job with letter-pressed envelopes and die-cuts. These little prints say everything that I have been feeling. Pieces can still be beautiful even when you don’t have a lot of money to throw at a job.
Move over Cowboys and Indians, there’s a new game in town. I wanna be an aviator, or maybe a very fancy lady at a tea party. These adorable hats from Soil Handmade are the perfect addition to any child’s dress up box. I can’t imagine ever taking off the aviator cap as a kid, I would want to where it to the grocery store, riding my bike and even doing laundry ( yes thats right I did my own laundry at a very young age.) I wish they came in adult sizes.
I was in Barnes and Noble picking up a few books and I stumbled across the most wonderful new children’s book, Lost and Found. I’m always impressed at children’s books where the writer is also the illustrator, I truly believe any other way the writers vision gets lost. The illustration style is so pretty and modern, it reminds me of the books I loved as a Kid, and still hold dear to my heart. Let it be known that Oliver Jeffersis my new favorite illustrator. If you have some money to spend you can pick up a limited edition print fromhis shop, or you can always buy one of his books and read it over and over.
I was doing some last minute shopping online last night and came across these pillows from Brokesy. Although I have plenty of pillows in the apartment, I am sort of craving these as well. I’m a big believer that a pillow can change the feeling of any space. Not that I want my living room being a winterous land where at any minute a sasquatch might leap from behind the christmas tree and attack. But they would definitely liven up the place.
I’ve always dreamed of having one big wall and filling it with small prints and paintings. It would be like being the curator of your own personal gallery. Well if this ever does come true, I have to have a piece from Eggman Studios. Michelle Knowlen, the artist behind eggman, has very unique illustrations that fuse bright colors and antique ideals with a modern twist. My favorite piece has to be the bird on the typewriter, there is no way you could have a bad day with that painting to brighten things up. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
