Octopus on Carnaby Street in London

I've been waiting for months for, Octopus, this absolutely fun shop to put up their website. I accidentally came across them as I was perusing the streets of London last October. From one look at their pink store front and super fun name I was sold, and just had to go in. I bought this fun backpack for my 2 year old daughter. It is way cute!

I also have fallen in love with their logo. It is so simple, fun and I must give the designer, whomever they may be, props.

Anyways, I'm so excited that I now can view their items online instead of having to rely on my memory of the bright and colorful nick-knacks they sell from my stroll that day.

Typography Activity Fun Book

This is just plain awesome....a typography activity book.

Hyperactivitypography from A to Z is an activity book for typographers illustrated in a nostalgic vintage style to give it a sweet and childlike look. The book is packed with activities, ranging from silly to hard core nerdiness. It's great to test your skills on and to learn new things while having fun. Who said typography had to be stiff and boring? You can flip through it here.

Posh Designs for Puzzles

I'm in love with these Pocket Posh Puzzles and the design above is my absolute favorite. I personally only have one, but what fun it would be to collect all of them. They keep releasing more and more great cover designs. For 2010 there is another great collection of designs and I'm super excited about the Christmas designs that will be released in October 2010. You can pre-order the new puzzle books on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, or even Borders.

Current Designs






Releasing 2010









Christmas 2010 Designs

Pencil-of-the-Month Club

AWESOME! A pencil-of-the-month club, an artist's dream. At 500pencils.socialdesigner.com you sign up to recieve 500 colored pencils over a 20 month period from Japan. Each pencil has a unique name and story. How fun!

Now the question of the day...how and where to store them!

Craft Ornaments

Every once in a while I love taking a sneak peak at Paper Source to see what new craft ideas they have or products. Found these fantastic craft ornaments that would be super fun to decorate. Click here to check them out.

Easter Craft

These little paper Easter family is absolutely too cute!
For instructions, click here!

Printable Hand-Finished Paper

I was flipping through my September 2009 issue of Martha Stewart and saw their highlight on this fantastic printer-friendly paper with a hand-finished edge. I guess the paper comes in 4 sizes and are great for invitations, business cards, fun notes or anything else you want to use it for. After you print your image you remove the perforated edges to reveal a special hand-finished edge. Fantastic.

You can get them here at orangeart.com and get templates and how to's here at Martha Stewart.

Cool Buys at SusyJack

Just found SusyJack's Contemporary Paper and I am a big fan. Love the designs...love them, love them, love them!

Pen and Ink Drawings

Absolutely love these pen & ink drawings by Devon Kelley-Yurdin and just had to highlight these for inspiration!

Fantastically Designed U.S. Stamps

Just found out that the U.S. Post Office finally has two fabulously designed "love" stamps designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, and Jeanne Greco of New York, New York. I've honestly never been so excited about a design of a stamp before until now. Love it...and am rushing off to get some today. Check it out here at the USPS site here.

And to top it all off, Vale Design created some note flats and address labels that were inspired by the new stamp. You can download those on her site here.

Stitching Your Adventures on a Postcard

Now this is sure a fabulous fun postcard to mark your travels for the summer! Love the idea. Check them out here at uncommongoods.com

Fun Stationary Designs

Ran across some more very creative people online and their great stationary. Just had to bookmark them! Check them out if you want!

bookworm collection from paper + cup
yellow bird invite from Ink and Wit
mini journals by Sarah Drake
paperwink stationary

My Wish List

Lately I have been coming across all things great things I absolutely love and want. I then told myself, as I always do; "remember this when someone asks me for a gift idea"! Yeah right, I thought again. I'll never remember this gift idea and will be racking my brain to try and remember all the great things I've come across over this past year. So I thought, forget this trying to remember gig...I'm going to blog about it and then I have a running list! So here they are:

SMENCILS from Paper Source


WRECK THIS JOURNAL by Keri Smith



HOW TO BE AN EXPLORER OF THE WORLD by Keri Smith



3D DRAWING PAD from Paper Source



BIRDS WATER BOTTLE from Paper Source



HYPOTROCHOID ART SET from Paper Source



COMPACT DICTIONARY at Barnes & Noble

More Beautiful Stationary

I found a new online stationary place called greetq and have truly fallen in love with the esquisit artwork. Absolutely beautiful designs by many designers.

Designer Masking and Packing Tape

So I was browsing around on Ginko Papers this morning and saw some fun colored and designed tape. My mind started racing through the craft possibilities with tape so decorated like that.

Check them out { here }.

Puzzels with a Designer Cover

These are the coolest buys...puzzles with a designer cover! Called The Pocket Posh series, these puzzles have stylish 4 x 6 inch covers and a nicely laid out inside too.

Some people may not care about a cool cover, but I do. Makes me want to carry it around with me everywhere and do a puzzle more often. They have a wide variety of puzzles; Crosswords, Sudoku, Hangman, Logic, Word Search and more.

They are only $8 each, very cool buy and very fun designs!

Rock Scissor Paper

So I ran into this online stationary company called Rock Scissor Paper! On one page it had most of my favorite words; paper, happy, colorful, scissor, modern, vintage and even unique. So I fell in love with this place and had to look around. Great designs and great inspiration.

Another Fun Stationary Place

I'm always keeping a lookout for fun stationary places online. I ran across Tiny Prints, which I enjoyed surfing for inspiration. I then came across their "idea center" and got some great ideas. Take a look here.

Going Green

So I just moved into a new house, hence the days I missed blogging, but I'm in and loving it....yippee!

Anyways, I love green and come to find out, my husband does too. This past year Crate and Barrel has been selling green things like crazy and when my husband walked in while we were trying to figure out how to decorate our new home, he fell in love with the green. Of course I didn't fight the color choice as in my eyes you can't have enough green.

Soooo, now Crate and Barrel is putting their green on sale so that they can make room for their new colors being introduced soon, so now I'm really going green as I'm buying up all the green things I can find for my new loft/studio! It's not finished yet, but here's a few of the things that are filling up my new space.

Wrapping Gifts

Of course I love a beautifully wrapped box or a creatively packaged present as it usually involves fun designed paper, color, crazy bows and making something with my hands. With Mother's Day coming up and Graduation day's approaching there will be another opportunity to wrap a gift. The Container Store has a fun page on their website showing you how to wrap a box, how to be creative when wrapping a present, and bow making.