shiny suitcase

friday finds - vintage travel stickers

A few years ago I stumbled into a box of old suitcase stickers at a local antique store. I sorted through the bunch and chose the ones that spoke to me, thinking they'd make a great framed collection, or just be generally inspiring with their colors, fonts and compostision. They're still a favorite of mine.

Most of them are from Eastern Europe, specifically Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia and I'd guess they're from the 1960's.

This is one of my favorites. It reminds me of Hotel Citron in The Life Aquatic by Wes Anderson. I love the little "Inter Hotel" logo in the upper right and the simple color palette is perfect.

Who doesn't love gold, gray and pink? This sticker feels so "Breakfast at Tiffany's" to me.

This has the best mod leaf design. I love the offset printing where the light blue and the red mix. Then that little single dot of gold? Wow. It would make a great tea towel or serving tray.

This last one is a personal fave. Love the pink outline of the hotel and the vertical "Rosiza". The color palette with the robin's egg blue, electric pink and gold is right up my alley.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Find!

a cheery way

I'd pinned this awhile ago and thought this happy scandanavian pattern was charming, bright and poppy. My Pinterest source tells me it's from Print & Pattern, the fabulous trend spotting blog, and that it's a Marimekko, but I can't find any evidence of it anywhere. I need to do some more sleuthing.

Still in my kaleidoscope mind, I created this yesterday. I limited myself to just a few shapes and to the colors in the print above. This time I played with the coloring underneath the pattern and again, I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

It feels both holiday and spring all at once to me. I'm enjoying this project and the process.

kaleidoscopic color

I have a child's cheap tin kaleidoscope with plastic beads and little bits in the top section. I bought it a few months ago, meaning to use it for some color inspiration. I took it out today when the sun was out to see what kind of images I could snap of the patterns inside. I was pretty doubtful about my ability to really even see anything through the lens of the camera but these are some of the shots I got of the barrel of the kaleidoscope. They're blurry and a bit crude, but lovely and illuminated in a cathedral like way.

I just shook the toy a bit in between shots or twisted the barrel slightly and I was actually pretty happy with how they turned out.

I think I need to build some patterns and palettes based on this experiment and I'm hoping to post a few of them this week.

 

 

beautiful beetles

I love the fascinating differences in shapes and colors of these beetles. Nature has so many delightful surprises up her sleeves and this collection is so pefectly and absolutely electric. I'm a huge bug, insect and nature geek so when I found this on Pinterest I thought it would make a great base for a color palette. I can just imagine anyone of them bumbling along in their technicolor way.

cheer up gray skies!

I stopped at the flower shop amidst my errands on Sunday and found a lot of lovely blooms. I like to have flowers in the house but I don't do it as often as I should. I was happy that I able to make 4 different arrangements from the bunches I'd bought. I stopped to take some photos when I was through. Very cheery for gray November skies, don't you think?

a new kind of calendar

I came across Pattern Matters via Paper Forest and was struck by these incredible colorful calendars. The design and ingenuity that went into each piece is so outstanding! I also love the colors and the creative, unique movement for each month. You have to jump over and check out their behind-the-scenes creation photos. A lot of thought went into these and it truly shows.

As we're nearing the end of 2011, I'm thinking about working on some calendar designs for 2012. I'm inspired by the 12 months in 2012 (double 12s!)  and finding inspirational artwork like this really gets my wheels turning.

friday finds - Fall Is Here

I'm starting a new column today! On Fridays I'll be sharing fun, interesting items I've come across in my wanderings, some bits and pieces of my collections or even ask another blogger to show some of their finds.

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I've been gathering vintage children's readers for many years. These are books used in elementary school and teach children to read, write, or explain scientific, social or health concepts. I love these books for their illustrations and for their simplicity as well as for their ability to capture and idealize a time period, especially the 1940's through the 1960's.

Today I've captured some pages from Fall Is Here by Bertha Morris Parker from 1948. It is from The Basic Science Education Series. The cover illustration above is by Florence McAnelly and the page illustrations are by Frederick E Seyfarth. This reader is clearly meant for very young students, probably kindergarten or first grade.

I absolutely adore the palette in these illustrations. The themometer page on the left in this spread shares a lot of color in common with my blog mood board.

I imagine this is an Indian Summer kind of fall day, a cool breeze with the warmth of the sun and the electric blue sky.

Some of the spot illustrations like these flowers are lovely just in themselves.

This spread is my favorite in the whole book. The energy and excitement in the left page is so familiar, the colors are well balanced with the cool blues, grays and greens against the warm reds, yellow and oranges. I think the right page is unique because so many depictions of Halloween are shown after the pumpkin is carved. You can see the science, social and health lessons here. "What's inside a pumpkin?" " What are the seeds for?"  "Have a grown-up use a knife." "Father's wearing an apron so he keeps his clothes neat and clean." Besides all of that heady stuff, I just 100% love both of these pages.

The book ends with the onset of Thanksgiving which, as I've grown older, has become quite a favorite holiday of mine. Although there are plenty of wild turkeys around, we've never wrecked havoc on a poor bird like these kids.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Find!

 

 

 

project: easy halloween garland

I wanted something super easy but festive to hang up for Halloween decor. It also needed to be something that wouldn't take me very long to make. I decided to use colorful washi tape (available here), white string, and black sparly mini-poms (which I picked up at a craft supply store.) I threaded the string onto a thick sturdy needle. This part was a little tricky. Then I threaded on all my poms for the length of string that I had cut (about 6 feet.) Once the poms were strung, I could slide them on the string any distance apart from one another. When I was satisfied with the number of poms and their placement, I cut short lengths of the washi tape and taped it around the string and back onto itself wherever I thought I neeeded a flag. I varied the color and pattern of the tape I was using so each part had visual interest. Lastly, using a scissors, I trimmed the tape flags to a pretty point.

So friendly and Halloweenie!

 

mood board v. one

For the Blogging Your Way class that I'm taking, I built a blog style mood board.  It was easy to bring together the colors and texture that I like in a palette that I naturally gravitate towards. There are plenty of vintage items included, in fact most of the bits and pieces are from someone's past.

A beautiful bright mum.

In the background, an old travel label from a hotel in Roznava, Slovakia. Here's a closeup.

Ribbon curls and turquoise washi tape behind mustard yellow poms.

A worn metal mailbox label, vintage stamp and playing card.

A gold foil florist's leaf and red thread.

 

 

 

 

 

feeling it right now

I've got a thing lately for Navajo/navajo inspired rugs.

I love the colors, usually red, cream and grays(source)(source)

I love the geometry, they feel modern and vintage all at once. (source)

I love skill and the art in the repeating design. (source)

I love the texture and the edges, the repairs and the heathered weathered warmth. (source)

I'm not sure where this sudden adoration sprang from but I've been poking around, trying to find a rug in decent enough condition and not too preciously rare or expensive to live in our "antler" room. We've got an old rug from my apartment that may get the boot. I realize now it is the only rug in the house.