Poppies for Grace // Party paradise

Have you met Poppies for Grace? They make the loveliest paper decorations that could turn even the most unlikely of things into a party paradise. Giant balloons filled with confetti and pop-out character cards... makes for a cuteness overload!!



I especially love the paper pom pom garlands and the idea of the 'party in a box' sets. Bring on silly season!

Loving these links

+ The gold foils and geometric shapes on the new stationery collection of the new stationery designers, Souvenir Society (one half of whom is the ridiculously talented book designer, Allison Colpoys) (shown above top)

+ Kitiya Palaskas and her DIY glitter projects for Inside Out magazine this month . Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy later today. (shown above bottom)

+ Beci Orpin's new book, Home, came out this week. It looks amazing (no surprise though really!) She is interviewed about it here

+ These insanely great wallpapers... you might accidentally water those flowers they look so realistic!

+ Loved seeing Sydney (& Melbourne) through Jordan's eyes on her epic trip last month (& the AMAZING 6ft long cake at her West Elm party)

+ There is a new (& divine) little baby in my family now so this card round-up resonated especially well this week.

This weekend we're going to cuddle my sisters divine new baby, kick a football with Leo's little friends and maybe sneak in a swim or two. Bring on that bright springtime sun!!

Christmas // New cards from Hammerpress

Whoa... is it really nearly that time again?!! eek. New Christmas cards in my inbox this morning from stationery superstars, Hammerpress. The badge shaped cards are especially nice (for all occasions in fact!)





and the overprinted colours in these cut corner varieties are ace too!

Childrens table DIY // from salvaged to special delivery

It has been mini-people birthday season in these parts of late. Every weekend sees a new little soul that needs celebrating! When Leo's oldest little friend (they met aged 1 week), Cholé celebrated her second birthday, we made her a special present. I found a little table and chairs from the side of the road (people chuck out such good stuff it amazes/horrifies me) that was begging for some TLC.



We sanded, primed, painted it (with chalkboard paint on the tabletop) and painted it in preparation for it's adorable new owner...



This precious cargo fitted perfectly into the boot of our (on loan) fancy Silver Ford Focus Titanium (big old boot for a little hatchback innit?!) to deliver it for her birthday.



I discovered that painting is HARD.... and also that painting with oil paint is a BAD idea (not only does it take forever to dry but it's damn tricky to apply evenly) Lumps and dribbles galore all over this but all the more gloriously handmade looking because of it!

(Below is a picture of my little cub chowing down on a gingerbread man in the princess tent at the said birthday party... just because!) 



This post is one of three written as part of Ford Australia's 'Choose Your Own Adventure' challenge (in conjunction with Kidspot, Voices of 2013). I was not paid to write this post nor was I told what to write. But, I was given a swish car to drive around in for 6 weeks which is proving pretty nice!

Origami Notes // Lollipop Shop

Cutie pompootie! What a way to send a note to someone... in the core of an apple, in a little foxes snout or behind the eyes of a glamorous geisha. Edible! (they're not really/literally though)

Browsing the aisles : Talent Gallery, Stockholm

I discovered Talent Gallery while roaming the (amazing) little streets of Sodor, Stockholm. It is a print shop and exhibition space full of the loveliest of things made by designers and illustrators both old and new. I asked the very lovely Sara Rosenquist, gallery founder and director, about her space, swedish design and other assorted printy things.



What is Talent Gallery?
Talent Gallery is basically a gallery and gift shop for new, emerging graphic design and illustration. I let designers exhibit if I find their work interesting, independent of wether they are established or not. Most of the items are handprinted, which I think is an important part of the whole idea with the gallery. I think that nice prints should be of a good quality, but not necessarily expensive. It is also much more fun to sell a limited amount of prints. The items that are being sold at the gallery either come from earlier exhibitions, individual designers that just want to try and sell one or two prints, and some other items that I import from the US and UK.



How did the gallery come about?
I started the gallery in March 2011, just 6 months after I had returned home from NY where I lived and studied for three years. Because of my years abroad in NY, I didn't have any contacts or experiences within the graphic design and/or the illustration business when I returned to Stockholm. I started to ask myself if there was any place where I could exhibit my works, just to get some attention within the industry. When I didn't find such a place, I did some research and found that there was no such place for graphic designers in Stockholm, so I decided to fix the problem myself! My background is within the art world, and having mainly worked at large institutions and galleries, I wanted a place that would be accessible for everyone without the pretentious part. I found it very interesting that no such place existed in a design - fixated city as Stockholm, and dedicated most of my time to try and develop the idea and to find a good space for it.

How do you select the works to be shown in your shop?
That's a hard question, I think that I go with my gut feeling most of the time. I try to think about what I haven't seen before, and that goes for new graphic techniques as well. I really try and find something special independent of trends, but most importantly, designers who likes to take risks. My main goal I think, is to find things that aren't sold in other places, and that have a childish feel to them. I've discovered that childish prints and items always have a nostalgic quality that almost everyone can relate to in a way or another. Sometimes when you discover a new designer, you can almost feel that they've had fun while working on their prints, and that's when you should invest time in their works.

How often do you have exhibitions and how do these come about?
Graphic designers and illustrators can exhibit at the gallery for up to two weeks at a time. During this exhibition period, they can sell either all exhibited items or just a number of them, but the idea is that all exhibition items should be for sale. Because I wish that all people should have access to nice prints without having to pay a fortune, the price ranges are quite low, where the average cost for a print is roughly 400 SEK (approximately AU$65). After the exhibition period has ended, the exhibitors can chose if they wish to continue to sell parts of their exhibited works at the gallery.

Is there a certain design style that you can identify as being particularly Swedish?
Yes! It's funny, but most of the Swedish designers are very creatively "safe", that is, they rarely take risks. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, I think it's good sometimes, depending on what you do within the design industry. In most cases, Swedish design is simple, clean, sometimes very childish and naive, and color-wise, safe. I think Scandinavian design is formed through our idea of functionality that design should always fill some kind of function. I guess that's why many people admire this kind of design in a way, since it's almost never too much or too boring, and in this way relates to a large audience. But this is of course a big generalization!



A few of your favourite things...
Books - In terms of design related books, I must say all the Moomin books, and everything on Olle Eksell and John Melin, the two latter ones two of the most amazing Swedish graphic designers I can think of.

Magazines - I like Monocle a lot. They have some great illustrations in there, as well as interesting articles. Icon is very nicely made as well, a Swedish lifestyle magazine that tries to resemble Monocle in a way.

Websites/blogs - I like to check on www.itsnicethat.com, www.ycn.org, and www.graphicporn.com.

Designers - Not really favorites, but here are some that I think are pretty great: David Pearson, Olle Eksell, John Melin, Alvin Lustig, Alexey Brodovitch, Tove Jansson, and many more that I don't know the names of…I'm so bad at names! I tend to get more inspired by architecture actually.



What is your favourite part of running a design shop and gallery?
That I really enjoy my workspace. After this, I could never work in a place without graphic design on the walls. It feels really great to sit in a space covered with all these beautiful prints, and to see how these prints make so many people happy and inspired.

What is the least fun part?
All the administrative stuff that comes with it! I didn't know anything about how to run a company before I opened the gallery, and it still brings on a huge amount of frustration sometimes. But its definitely worth it.

You can find this lovely hole in the wall at... 
Kocksgatan 23 / 116 24 Stockholm / Sweden / +46 8 641 22 00
& online here

loving these links

+ These gold speckled little forest pop-up cards by Jurianne Matter.

+ The bold new packaging for Liquorice Allsorts. So clean and so clever. It makes me wish I liked the contents... they look so pretty... why must they taste so yuk?!

+ The stunning new florals in the Rifle Paper co. stationery 2013 lookbook. That girl can do no wrong. Beautiful!

+ All of these awesome indoor swings. If that were in our house though, we would be at Emergency within a few hours I'm sure it!

+ A week in pictures by the loveliest of Art Book Editors at Chronicle Books, Bridget Watson Payne.

+ A lovely looking desktop pattern for you the northern hemispheres autumn.

+ Geometric paper wonders insprired by Arabic tiling and created by Matt Shlian

A trip to Koskela in our 'fancy silber car'

I've never been into cars at all. We have an old car. It goes. I put petrol in it. It goes some more. All good. However, for better or worse, things have now changed...

Thanks to the generous folks at Ford and Kidspot, I have been driving around in a brand spanking new Ford Focus Titanium* for the last few weeks (and the next few too). I was all ready to continue being unimpressed with cars but the technology in this one is pretty darn incredible.... and now I'm kind of smitten...



+ It reverse parks itself! seriously. That blew my mind. It finds you a space and then the steering wheel is taken over by some kind of parking god. ta da! Hello tight spot. Bye-bye embarrassing parking attempts.

+ I can literally just say the command and it will call who I want to call via Bluetooth, play music on the stereo and probably do lots of other things that I haven't discovered yet too.

+ When it rains, the windscreen wipers just go! No flicking on and off of that damned lever. That's some kind of magic right there.

+ It tells me how to get places! I am thoroughly enjoying not having to juggle imaps and the steering wheel at once... and the rest of the driving nation is probably relieved too!

So... it turns out I been living under a technological rock when it comes to cars! Who would have thought that it could actually be an enjoyable experience to drive around the city?!?! I'm thinking this may be a problem when I have to drive our old rust box around again but for now I'm just going to roll with it.

Our little trio took a drive to Koskela to see the Beci Orpin exhibition (more about that in a post to follow) and have a little peruse around the amazing (but sadly too pricey for our pockets) homewares on show.



We ended the day by driving to centennial park for a scoot (the cub did the scooting) and an ice-cream. Thanks for the ride 'fancee silber car'




*'fancy silber car' is what the cub calls our new wheels. He loves getting in it (no battles. Yay!) which makes me love it all the more.  

This post is one of three written as part of Ford Australia's 'Choose Your Own Adventure' challenge (in conjunction with Kidspot, Voices of 2013). I was not paid to write this post nor was I told what to write. But, I was given a swish car to drive around in for 6 weeks which is proving pretty nice!

Paper-crafted Gems // Lydia Kasumi Shirreff

The new issue of Uppercase magazine caught my eye this month (as it tends to each issue in fact) primarily because the cover features some pretty stunning paper crafted gems. On further note I discovered a talent I hadn't know before... Lydia Kasumi Shirreff. Such beautiful work so steeped in nature (she has quite a thing for gems, fruit and minerals it seems) and so vivid in colour. I'm slightly in love with that pineapple. Is that wierd of me?






You can have a lil look at the magazine issue in full here and buy it here.
If you like the top image too, it can be your desktop image via here

An exhibition : 'Paper' at the Saatchi Gallery, London

The Saatchi Gallery is one of my favourite London art spots. Always full of such interesting and unique contemporary works with what feels like very little art snobbery (despite it being owned by a ridiculously rich man and being in the middle of a very fancy pants part of london!)



Obviously, after finding out that there was an exhibition on Paper artworks while we were in London, we had to go there! It was full of some amazing works by an entirely new barrel of paper wizards (new to me only, probably quite well-known in the world of art) - both paper sculptors and those simply working 'on' paper.



My favourite piece of the exhibition was Marcelo Jácome’s Planos-Pipas (‘kite-planes’ in the artist’s native Portugese). Filling up a whole room, you could duck under and walk around and get totally lost in it's colourful brilliance. It was made of just bamboo, paper and thread and felt like it was just happily floating in space. Needless to say, I spent awhile in that there room!

Another highlight was the paper cut trees series by Japanese artist, Yuken Teruya. He converted a whole range of paper bags (varying from a McDonalds takeaway bag to a Louis Vuitton shopping bag) and painstakingly cut out intricate little trees from them. The result was a series of almost private lightboxes mounted on the wall at eye level. The shadows cast by the trees were almost as great as the little figures they came from too. Truly beautiful and ridiculously ornate.







The exhibition is on until 3rd November 2013 (it looks better in real life than in my below average photos)
The Saatchi Gallery is located 5 minutes walk from Sloane Square station