One of the perks of participating in the Pika Package Project is that you get one of the packages yourself … and here’s what came in the mail for me this week:

So exciting! I was so impressed by the quality of the work by these artists. Clockwise from upper left:

print by number eight
hedgehog print by melanie wickham
worry print & thank you card by amy ng
print & sticker by bubbo tubbo
pika package zine
buttons by pretty little theives

p.s. In putting together this post I discovered that Amy is a very busy girl - in addition to putting together the august pika package, she has a shop called remakeables, stocked with some very, very appealing notions and fabrics (ack, just what I need ^_^!)

I wrote earlier about the art of the note Gocco swap at cloth.paper.string … here is what I ended up making:

My intention was to make something in which it was very evident that a human hand was involved … I’ve gotten in such a habit of ‘cleaning up’ my drawings in Illustrator, and I’m not sure it’s a good one. So this is rows and rows of loops, handwritten with my Gocco pen (first experiment with that - up to now I’ve been photocopying my drawings and then burning my screens from the copies). So there you have it! I am really happy with them and I hope my swap-mates are too. Their sets have been trickling in (and what great sets they’ve been) and I hope to post a ‘group photo’ when they’ve all arrived. (More photos on Flickr.)

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been so busy (I know, who isn’t?) but I did manage to snap a picture of an arrangement I did for a mini-dinner party I threw last night. (The vintage vase/planter is from Abbey Hendrickson’s great shop, How Now Design.)

A little something for all you Miffy fans: a profile of Dick Bruna in the Telegraph (via bookninja).

Just a quick note about these great bookplates I saw today on Etsy, by decoylab. There is something so special and warm about these illustrations … they remind me a little of vintage children’s  illustrations but of course they have a style & feel that is totally their own.   



photo : decoylab