Nonpareil

Helena Carrington has drawn, quite possibly, one of my very favorite illustrations ever: the campervan. I’m smitten. You can buy it in either a pillow or a card..but I love the little pillows! Her other work is fantastic as well…little fiats, “camping in Paris”, and photos from Italy and France are all just splendid!

It would never occur to me to make jewelry out of a simple smooth stone. But, I’m crazy about the stone bracelet from Stonz jewelry…and really love all the beach glass, silver hearts, rustic chains and pearls in the pieces too. Very cool stuff…all of it!

I’ve been doing design work and making stationery for 15 years now…I started selling notecards in a little Colorado coffee shop just after my son was born…and then partnered with a girlfriend in Oregon & made baby announcements, note cards and note pads. When we moved to Illinois, I met my business partner, and started Zuzu’s Petals. We sold a gazillion notepads to people all over the US…My favorite part is seeing clients from their bridal shower invitations to their birth announcements to their babies’ first birthday! It’s been great!

We’ve decided to change the direction of our biz a little bit, and discontinue the stationery/invitation side, and only sell our illustrations on Cafe Press…it leaves us with the fun stuff {illustrating}, and leaves the grunt work to the kind folks at Cafe Press {printing, packaging & shipping}. It’s a little bittersweet, but I think it’s just the direction our business needs to take.

Which brings me to today. I’m embarking on a new career in a totally different direction. I’m going back to school to become certified in Thai Yoga {also called Thai Massage}. It’s a 6 month program {at the Chicago School of Thai Massage}, and I start tonight! I’m super excited, and just wanted to share! If you don’t know what Thai Yoga is, check out the video…and, if you’re in the Chicagoland area, I’m going to need guinea pigs to practice on, so send me a message if you’re interested!

I was recently searching Etsy for “yoga wear”, and stumbled upon the fabulous ceramics by YogaGoat {named after the artist’s doodle of a goat doing yoga}…I love the lotus designs {can you tell? four out of the 6 photos have the lotus}…and also love the beautiful periwinkle blue that she uses. Gorgeous.

And, how fabulous would the porcelain fortune cookies be as wedding favors?!

I felt the need to alliterate the title of my post for some reason. My English-teacher mother would be proud!!

Golly Bard‘s jar of hearts was the first piece of work that caught my eye from Virginia based artist, Holly. Lately I’ve had a little “thing” for hearts {not sure what this is all about}…and I especially love the paintings Holly creates. I love all of her work, really…from her botanical paintings right down to her buggies!

Holly has also collaborated with Polarity, and has a couple of fabulous lockets in their shop.