+ Katydid Paper Goods

Happy Monday to you!

How was your weekend? Ours was good, lots of food and friends, and even a couple of neighbourhood discos! - there's nothing like a rainy cold day, a lounge full of neighbourhood kids, the stereo turned up loud, and lots of dancing, giggling and acrobatics!

My computer however has not wanted to join the party and towards the end of last week, was crashing every couple of minutes (arrgghh!). A bit of fiddling here and there and it seems to have calmed down a bit, but it does mean we are going to jump right over I and J and start the week where we should be, on K...

Are you ready? I am!

Katydid Paper Goods

Katie Sims is one of those people that not only has exceptional taste, she is super clever to boot - you can imagine my excitement when I got a note from her telling me that her long awaited online Emporium is now up and running. (YAY!)

Katie produces a range of hand made cards using her trusty Gocco machine, and her Emporium not only boasts her own work but it is also chock full with a whole heap of other fab goodies - like vintage copies of collectible books by M Sasek, Japanese Washi Tape and all the good stuff from Darling Clementine... you really should check it out!

"My inspiration comes mostly from my fascination with, and hoarding of, lots of old stuff - like vintage stationery, children's books, nature books, figurines, kitchenalia, annuals, romance comics... etc!"

(images and quote from Katydid Paper Goods)

NOTES:
visit Katie's emporium
read Katie's blog

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My husband and I have been working on a project ourselves... are you keen to check it out? take a peek: www.skbinsamoa.blogspot.com

See you soon!

xxoo

+ I Heart Natural History

Hello!

I hope it's OK if we get started right away...

Natural History

You may recall in past alphabets my obsession with vintage classroom tools and accessories.. recently this obsession has been growing and changing, and well, evolving - which I'm sure is important when it comes to obsessions, don't you think?? : )

Don't get me wrong, old school maps and anatomical posters still send my heart a flutter, but the new love that I have for natural history and botanical prints really does make me swoon...

Check out the absolutely gorgeous collection of published Natural History prints that can be found over at etsy store Love Elizabeth... oh my!

(images from Love Elizabeth)

NOTES:
visit Love Elizabeth

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Have a wonderful day!
See you soon for I! xxoo

+ One Million Giraffes

Hi there,

We've got a couple of letters to catch up with today, so let's jump right in...

One Million Giraffes

Have you heard of the One Million Giraffes Project?

In 2009 Ola Helland from Norway, was having a discussion with his friend Jørgen about the limitlessness of the internet; how everything and anything was possible now, and how Ola was pretty sure he could "easily get one million of anything if I wanted to"... And that was where Jørgen laid his challenge - for Ola to collect 1 million hand drawn Giraffes by 2011, solely using the internet.

So, what started as a quick Facebook update, has turned into just over 830,000 giraffes and counting... Contributions come from all over the world and include detailed watercolours, beautiful pencil sketches and crayoned children's drawings.

This is such a fun project I think I might get my family around the kitchen table with paper, pencils and paints and make our own little contribution - are you keen?

(images from One Million Giraffes, quotes from One Million Giraffes and Telegraph)

NOTES:
visit Ola's website
visit Ola's Facebook

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Pop back soon for H : )
xxoo

+ Floating Your Boat & Pia Jane Bijkerk

Welcome Monday!

How was your weekend? I hope if was full of fun and laughter : ) Our weekend was good, we had a double dose of football (soccer) on both Saturday and Sunday mornings, and my lovely husband and I got to spend Saturday afternoon child free - which is a rarity for us...it was bliss.

I got to meet (for the first time) the lovely Amanda this morning which was great and a fantastic way to start the week...All is good.

Are you ready to venture into F? - Let's go!

Floating your Boat

Do you know what floats my husband's boat? Boats!

I'm not so nautical, but Steve, well he could sail off into the sunset at the drop off a hat! We have a plan that we will do a stint of living aboard sometime in the future which we are all pretty excited about.

Pia Jane Bijkerk is living the live aboard dream on a canal boat in Amsterdam, this super talented woman not only manages to inspire the world but rents a dreamy house boat to boot...


If you jump over to Pia's blog here, you can read all about what it is like for her to live on the canal... here's a snippet;

"...When the sun shines it hits the surface of the canal and then bounces the water reflections onto the ceiling of the boat. The reflections dance and play, and move across the ceiling as the sun moves across the sky. "

Go take a peek:

(images and quote from Pia Jane Bijkerk)

NOTES:
visit Pia's blog

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Have a great day!

See you tomorrow for H!
xxoo

+ Endemic World

Happy Friday!

Well, this week sure flew by! It's been pretty good here - how 'bout with you? My oldest son is home sick from school today, all though feeling much better than he was last night which is good. We're going to hang out a bit today, watch some movies and eat lots of good nutritious food! I'm looking forward to it!

Today I thought I'd delve into some NZ goodness... ready?

Endemic World

I've mentioned Endemic World on the Alphabet before - remember? "endemicworld.com is New Zealand's online design store. It's a selective mix of fresh & creative design products from New Zealanders around the world." It has an impressive collection of NZ goodies on display and I thought I'd pick a few of my faves for you today... take a peek:

Print. Fantail by Flox. I LOVE all of Flox's work, and who can by pass Fantails? - they've got to be the cutest Native bird ever!

Above: Patch Me Up Tights. From SpiltMILK. These cute little legs are perfect for adventures : )

Above: You're Lovely Pillowcase Set. From Nice Work. Nice work, Nice Work!

Above: Tui Tuckshop Bird Feeder. From Nuzilla. Definite fave!

Above: Butchers Block. From F3 Design. Perfectly Industrial (and practical too!).

Above: Kid's Wooden Stilts. From The Black Stilt Company. One of my favourite childhood memories - so may hours spent on the stilts my Grandfather made us - round, and round, and round the house we went!!

(images and quote from Endemic World)

NOTES:

visit the Endemic World store

read the Endemic World blog

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Have a fabulous weekend!

See you Monday! xxoo

+ Otto & Elisabeth Dunker

Hideehi!

I hope the end of the week is shaping up nicely for you. I'm looking forward to sliding into the weekend not too stressed and hopefully with an outfit for my brothers wedding! I am also on a mission to make 21 tissue pompoms for wedding decorations : )

Something fun and inspiring to share with you today - ready?

Otto and Elisabeth Dunker

Are you familiar Elisabeth Dunker's (from Studio Violet fame) blog Fine Little Day? At the beginning of this week on Elisabeth's blog she announced a new side-kick - finelittleday.com...

"Fine Little Day is a multidisciplinary art and design platform and brand.Sprawling, impulsive and inconsistent. It is not faithful to any single line and does not have the ambition to be cohesive or even well thought through.

Fine Little Day specializes in playful creating based on pleasure and joy.The main goal is to work with interesting and stimulating tasks. To produce happy and environment-friendly products, work shops and lectures for both adults and children. Our desire is to be kind, friendly and of course to have fun on the journey. The aim is also to have collaborations with creators of various kinds."

What is super duper cool about Elisabeth's first collaboration is that it is with her 8 year old son Otto. Otto (just like his mama) is super talented and has created two wallpapers for Elisabeth's .com store. How cool is that!?

Take a peek:

(images and quote from Fine Little Day)

NOTES:
visit Elisabeth's .com
read Elisabeth's blog
visit Elisabeth's store
Think you might like to try your hand at wallpaper design? visit photowall.eu

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Happy Thursday!

See you tomorrow! xxoo

+ Cecilia Carlstedt

Happy Wednesday to you!

What do you have planned for today? I have lots of work to do on a project I have on at the moment, I'm at one of those 'stuck' points - do you know the ones? I really do need to take it to the next step, so I've lit the fire, I'm about to go for a walk, and then I plan to go head-long into it.

I've chosen some beautiful work to share today. Let's take a peek:

Cecilia Carlstedt

Since the end of alphabet*ten I've been a bit out of the blog loop. I haven't been delving into my daily dose of blog reading and inspiration-finding, so there has been major catchup happening this last week or so. One of my favourite places to linger is at Elsa-May.

I've told you about Elsa-May before - do you remember? My recent visit was the first in a what seems like a long while, and as always, Annie has collated a gorgeous collection of art, fashion, photography and poetry...and, introduced me to Cecilia Carlstedt, an amazing fashion illustrator.

There isn't much online about Cecilia, but there is this interview with ACAD design student Vishu Mahajan, which you should pop over and read...

In the meantime, ponder over these pieces from Cecilia's portfolio - beautiful!

(images from Cecilia Carlstedt, with thanks to Agent Bauer and Elsa-May)

NOTES:
visit Cecilia's website

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Have a wonderful day!

See you tomorrow! xxoo

+ I Heart Birds

Hello!

I hope your day is going well : )

All is good here in Alphabet-land... are you ready for the next installment?

I Heart Birds

A little while ago, when both my husband and I were home working, an extraordinary thing happened; a flock of seven Kereru (Native Wood Pigeons) had their lunch in our front yard. They feasted for a good twenty minutes on the berries that grow on the trees outside.

What makes this so extraordinary is when I was growing up, I would of been lucky to have seen 1 Kereru, 2 was unheard of, and well, SEVEN!! I spoke to my mother about it and she said she wouldn't of seen seven in her whole life!!

My children, who are privileged to have this sort of carry-on happening in their front yard were rather blasé and said "huh? they're only wood pigeons mum". Little do they know that the regeneration of this bird has taken probably longer than my lifetime, and, that they are so, so lucky to have had it happen.

This picture above (courtesy of my lovely husband) only shows three birds (they are about as big as a chicken). When I did a wee bit of research, they can apparantly grow up to 51cm from beak to tail tip. They are truly beautiful : )

"So, where is all this bird talk leading to" I hear you say... Well, it leads us here, to the work of Ryan O'Rourke and his absolutely gorgeous Bird Houses - not that a Kereru would fit in them mind you!

Ryan O'Rourke is a super talented illustrator who's portfolio and 'I Heart Birds' store are definitely worth a browse - and his bird houses? - oh me, oh my!!

(images from Ryan O'Rourke)

NOTES:
visit Ryan's website
visit Ryan's I Heart Birds store

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Have a wonderful day!
See you tomorrow!

xxoo