Up Up & Away...

Lately, I've been fascinated with vintage hot air balloons. I love their beautiful shapes and colors. I can imagine how lovely they would look as a theme in a nursery. Something about these puffy balloons remind me of fairy tales and the endless possibility of the imagination. 

* photo credit- a gift wrapped life & veranda.com

Hot air balloons easily lend themselves to themes in storybooks and portray the limitless places children can "go".

* photo credit- amazon.com

I found this beautiful screen printed illustration by Jen Skelley on Etsy. I think it would make such a beautiful added touch in a frame hanging in a nursery. The black and white image below it is also a work of art. It's a digitally restored illustration by Spotted Sparrow, printed directly on a page from a Russian-German dictionary. How clever and aesthetically beautiful!

After realizing my strong admiration for hot air balloons, I decided to incorporate them into my organic baby clothing line. I came up with two designs for my "fairy tale" series using vintage looking images and a typewriter font to emulate the font you'd see in a story book and to promote the importance of reading to children.

Take a peek at my shop for the new away we go and the far far away  organic onesie.

Let me know what you think!

Portland's Hidden Gem

I just recently returned from a great trip to the Pacific Northwest. I've always wanted to see Seattle and re-visit Portland since it had been many years since my first visit there. Seattle was an amazing city, as was Portland. It felt so refreshing to be visually stimulated by so many things from a simple flower to shops with so much character. One shop that really caught my attention was Oblation Papers & Press.

Oblation is a stationary and gift shop that also sells high end decorative paper and ribbons. Of course I was inspired by all the beautiful patterns and colors in their paper selection.

One of the things that I found fascinating was that they had a letterpress print shop right there in the store. It is where they print special orders and even some of their own products that they sell. Letterpress is such a beautiful process, I kept thinking how much I'd love to work there. Just watching their process made me feel like I was in a time warp back in the 1500's.

I hope to go back some time in the near future and discover some more hidden gems in Portland. I think it's a place that everyone should visit at some point.