happy valentine's day!

Kate Spade has an amazing selection of e-valentines to send someone you love (or those you just like a great deal).

A few more of my faves...

royal tenenbaums + max dalton

The immensely talented Max Dalton created a Royal Tenenbaums series and participated in a Wes Anderson tribute show. Right up my alley!
See more of his work here.

already planning for 2011

My search for the perfect planner always commences around this time. New calendars and planners are being introduced for the new year and I am on the hunt. I start this early because it really does take me months to find the perfect one that fits my strict criteria. Yes, I have rules for my planner.

a. It must have full page monthly calendars. None of this weekly calendar stuff.

b. It must be small enough to be portable, therefore, it needs to be able to fit into my purse. The 5.75”x8.75” size is ideal. I shy away from the notebook sized planners.

c. I need adequate square space for writing. I really do write EVERYTHING in my calendar so it needs to be able to accommodate it.

d. I also don't like them to be burdened with all the extra bells & whistles such as daily planning pages, address pages, future planning calendars that extend to 2020, or the entire periodic table of elements. I usually find a way to eliminate those because I pack it full of my own things. It quickly becomes home to all my little slips of paper, lists, and pay stubs. I am slightly flexible on this element, however, I understand I'm asking a lot.

e. And finally, it must be pretty. I have to carry this thing around for 12-months! That's a longer commitment then I make to the purse that it will be in.

So, you can understand my amazement today when I was browsing online and came across this. It might just be the one! Now I don't want to jump to any conclusions but it meets about 90% of my criteria. It does have a lot of extraneous pages, but even I can concede that a few might be helpful. Who knows, maybe I can actually use the "notes" pages provided versus writing my ideas or sketches on random post-its and scraps and tucking them in between the pages. I think I may be in love...but I also have strong feelings for this one as well. Oh dear, who would have guessed that I'd find 2 strong candidates before it is even October!

[images via fred flare]

needs vs. wants

I can completely relate to the idea of this project. I always want things I don't need. In addition to her great designs, the Recovering Lazyholic is also a super talented photographer.

Below is my favorite (green thumb) and the bf's (waffles).

new julia rothman

A preview of her new illustration work. She can do no wrong in my book.











See more beautiful patterns here.

watercolors

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums, even visually it is what I gravitate toward. I found this work by Michelle Armas months ago and just rediscovered it on my desktop. I love the simple elegance that watercolor creates and feel like it's the closet thing I have to a "style."
image found here on frolic way back when.


Speaking of watercolors, I get just as excited to see the illustrations that accompany the DailyCandy emails as the deals and finds they send. Below are just a few of my favorites. I especially love the bottom map one that can be seen of some of their travel correspondence.

bird and banner

I have long admired the work of Bird and Banner. They are most known for their wedding work and other invitation design. I think one of the reason's I most like them is because their work is similar to my own. It is comforting to see another succeed with a similar design aesthetic and approach. Their work focuses on a hand done quality, especially incorporating sewn elements and screen printing methods. Bird and Banner is a source of continual inspiration to me and their website is loaded with darling examples.

illustration goodness

I've been really inspired by illustrations lately and finding that I am incorporating hand drawn elements into my work as much as possible. Watching Antiques Roadshow a few months back I realized that I was introduced to one of my favorite artists at a very young age. Madeline was one of my favorite books as a child. I think the series is what initially drew me to my love of France and probably had a lot to do with my choice of studying French as my foreign language throughout school. I had never realized that the author and illustrator, Ludwig Bemelmans, had a career far beyond that of Madeline and Ms. Clavel. A quick google search showed me a lifetime of his illustrations just waiting for me to fall in love with.

The original illustrations brought to Antiques Roadshow that inspired my search. Very jealous! They are absolutely stunning. From pbs.org


Illustrations from the Madeline Series, from http://www.vinland.org/scamp/nuns/clavel/


Additional illustrations by Ludwig Bemelmans. Left: Children's Book Gallery, Right: From The Books of Exlibris


Eric Sturdevant's Flickr Photostream