My Kind of Town

Another print I did for the "Limited Run" Show at Open Space. These new prints will be available on Etsy and my webshop after Christmas.

Toggles

Chad's coat

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This guy=

Toggles! Specially made for Open Space "Limited Run" Show- opens this Saturday.

Squirrel pic: Moldovia on Flickr

Owlette in Action

As you know I've made some laser cut felt ornaments for the holiday, I love them but we don't have a tree at home, so I am so happy to see my little Owlette in this close-up tree shot by Clay Wood & Cotton in Beacon, NY, they carry some of my stuff there! It's a new store run by a couple of very nice ladies, one of them, Kristen, is actually a Clinton Hill neighbor. I also have a special connection with Beacon because my favorite gallery Open Space where I have shown in a couple of group shows is on the same street as CW&C (well ok, Main Street is a pretty long stretch but it's only a 10 minute walk from each other). I've been working on a print for this year's group show, hope they'll like it, and if I have time I will work on a couple more, will post pics soon. Think we might go on a day trip to Beacon next weekend!

I also want to mention this great shop where I got some nice flowers from called Stem, I can't believe that it is only a block away from me in Fort Greene, the selection is really amazing too, plus it feels good to support small local businesses in our neighborhood. Have a great weekend guys!
photo: CW&C

New Designs at Marimekko

I really like the new accessories collection from Marimekko. They are designed by Vivra Launo- who is the new creative director at Marimekko. I'm so happy that I found the concept store on the Upper East Side that carries them and has an online shop as well! The clutch with hand-drawn "embroidery" details is my favorite, and this suede cup key fob makes such a perfect holiday gift (it's not available online).photos: kiitosmarimekko.com, marimekko.com

Love- Hedi Slimane Diary

There's nothing that Hedi Slimane can't do, and he's become quite a great photographer! I can't stop looking at his photos on his website, the rock and roll ones remind me of the works by David Bailey, the skull is as beautiful as a Caravaggio painting, and the picture of Kate Moss is one of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen of her!photos: hedislimane.com

Shop Red At CHetCH!

New print this week- Rainbow Chart by Shannon Lucy, a CHetCH exclusive. This is a print of an original painting, it is printed on textured art paper to maintain the aged look of the original. Shannon has had a few solo gallery shows in New York and her works have been sold to some pretty high profile people, like this guy. We are so lucky to have this painting at home, and now, this Rainbow Chart! Only 50 prints are available.

Another CHetCH exclusive, a festive version of the Skull print by Faiyaz Jafri. We have the black version at home but I think the red one is perfect as a holiday gift, well, for those who are into skulls. Only 25 available!

Riding Hat, made to order by Siu Yin Chau. Silly me, I used the wrong picture on the site and this blog for weeks and didn't notice that it's different from the riding hat that I wear all the time! Anyways, here is the hat and I LOVE it, I'm really into red lately and this is another accessory that will go well with my usual dark outfits!

Memphis necklace made by CHetCH. Another red accessory that I can wear with my dark outfits, we created this cluster as a tribute to Memphis, the architecture design movement in the 1980's.

Watermelon USB Drive. This slice of watermelon looks so real and juicy that I actually had mistakenly picked it up and thought it was real! It holds 4GB of space and comes in a tin case, only 3 left.

Beach Bag in December is Essential

Found this beach bag on Etsy by PloylyMingzyBb' from Bangkok (the name is a little funny, wonder what it means???) I think it's perfect for city dwellers as well, I do wish that I could carry this bag to a beach right this moment! The store has lots of beautifully crafted totes with nice leather straps, I love the red of this bag, with all the black that I wear this bag will really stand out!photos: PloylyMingzyBb

Apple Cake

At 10pm last night I decided to bake an apple cake, I found the recipe from House Beautiful and it seemed easy enough to make, and it only needs 2 granny smith apples. As a clumsy baker I did everything I shouldn't have or didn't use the right equipment to bake this cake. The recipe calls for light brown sugar but I only had dark so I used it, I mixed the butter and sugar when the butter was not soft enough resulted in sugar flying out of the bowl, to eliminate further splattering nightmare I mixed the batter by hand (with a spatula) instead of the mixer, I didn't use a springform cake pan because I don't have one, and I didn't sprinkle the thing with powder sugar coz I figured that it's sweet and pretty enough. I learned that I don't have to follow the damn recipe to a T, like I used to, and the cake turned out pretty good, actually delicious! It's a nice cake to have in the morning with a coffee, it's not too cakey and dense so it doesn't feel like I'm eating dessert (I'm kidding myself right now, but it IS lighter!) Let me know if you want the recipe, or buy the December issue of House Beautiful!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a safe trip home and eat lots of great food! My favorite thing on Thanksgiving morning is to watch the Parade (on TV!) Here is a picture of Tony Sarg blowing up a balloon. Sarg designed some of the most iconic balloons for the first Thanksgiving Day Parade- Felix The Cat, the elephant (above), dragon, and toy soldier, you can see them and more vintage pics here.
source: www.designrelated.com

Brilliant Cards!

Been spending too much time looking at greeting cards today, here are some them that I really love:
Assorted Biscuits card by a Japanese company called Buono Buono. They look so real and delicious, and such a smart and simple design!
Present & Correct is definitely one of my all-time favorite giftware site, they carry new and old products from designers all over the world, but I am a die-hard fan of their own designs. Here are some of the cards that I absolutely LOVE: (picture on top) my favorite Cute As A Button card, Tree or Snowman decoration that is also a card (below), and X'mas Stocking Thaumatrope card (second one below).
sources: http://matomeno.in/products/item-667.html via ffffound, presentandcorrect.com

Muji x Lego

I know that thousands of blogs have already posted them, but I must write this post because they are the best DIY gifts ever... for those who live in Japan! These toy block sets are brought to you by Muji and Lego. They are not just some Lego blocks, they also come with paper and little joints so that you can create Muji-esque characters with the materials provided. Look at that squirrel, and I love the color of the paper, the only thing that's bad is they make you buy the hole puncher separately.
photos: muji.net

Tuesday Night, See You There

Our good friends Jen and Nick of our favorite sneaker store Classic Kicks is having a new t-shirt release party at their Soho store, above is the t-shirt design, they will have 2 more releases in the coming weeks. The party is from 6 to 9pm, there'll be drinks, music and t-shirts! Come and support local business and have pre-Thanksgiving drinks with us if you're in town. Classic Kicks is located at 298 Elizabeth Street (Between Houston and Bleecker)

Will Cotton Bakery

Our friend Hans works in the office where the bakery took place, it was actually a bakery/installation by artist Will Cotton at Partners and Spade- a design agency and sometimes store in Noho. Cotton is a renowned painter who uses beautifully baked and frosted dessert as his subject, he created art with these tasty treats which he also created. His macaroons were like crack, the lemon one was our favorite, it was light as air and had just enough crisp on the outside. Chad and I devoured the 3 in no time so we went back to get more, but I noticed there was a sign that said 3 macaroons limit per customer, so Chad smooth talked the lady into giving us more macaroons that we devoured in no time again.

Back to Cotton, he is a talented baker as well as an excellent artist, seeing him yesterday was very inspiring and really made my day.images: www.willcotton.com and www.eatmedaily.com

CHetCH

I am really excited about the launch of my new web shop with my husband Chad, called CHetCH.com. It went live today! It's still a work in progress but we want to sell a few of our favorite things for the holiday season, in the coming weeks we will be adding more new products.

I did a little jewelry line called "The Plastics", it's really fun to do something with bright colors and bold icons. That ampersand necklace is our logo that I designed, we'll be using it on a lot of products.

The jewelry line is just a small part of the store, we carry products designed by very talented friends that we know, like knit accessories by Siu Yin Chau. You might have seen her cool knitwear before, I'm really in love with the iPurse and the little red riding hat, the best thing is, everything is hand-knitted and made to order!

As you guys know, we love skulls and we have quite a collection here, our friend Faiyaz Jafri has done this absolutely amazing skull print for our shop and our wall! It is available in black, red and blue, each one is a very limited edition of 25.

Big Announcement Moved To Friday

It's no secret that Chad and I have been working on a web shop called CHetCH*, it's going live tomorrow. We planned to open today but we still have lots to do on the website but we'll be open for business tomorrow. Here's a pic** of the plastic jewelry from our own label. Stayed tuned tomorrow for the "big announcement"!

* CHetCH is a combination of the first 2 letters of our names. The ampersand on the necklace is our logo.

** Big thanks to Alex who is our unofficial house model

Holiday Fun- Free Cards with Purchase!

I just released my new holiday cards and felt ornaments, you can get them on Etsy now. I am extremely happy with how they all came out, especially the Rejoice card, I should always use kraft paper! The holiday icons card is great too, the gold is crudely printed and off registered because that's what I love about vintage cards, flaws and all! I will post everything on my wonting shop next.

I am giving away a couple of free cards with each purchase of the ornaments and holiday cards (any holiday cards in my shop), while supplies last. I did some cards with a company in the UK last year and they gave me a ton of them so I might as well give them away and spread the love!

I've been working non-stop these days on a bunch of different projects, tomorrow I'll have another big announcement, so stay tuned!

In Love With Bat For Lashes

I can't stop listening to "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes aka Natasha Khan, it's from her latest album "Two Suns". You can watch the video here. I am also in awe by her beauty, don't we all dream of being an indie rock star like Natasha?! The picture above reminds me of Chantal Goya from Goddard's Masculin Féminin.images: http://www.batforlashes.com

Work In Progress

This year I'm doing 2 gocco holiday cards and 2 laser cut felt ornaments, I was going to make them as ornament/card, but the felt is very thick and won't look very good in an envelope, so I'm selling them as ornaments. As you can see the dove card and the ornaments are 99% done, the brown card is missing 2 layers but is already looking really good, it makes me think that I should always print on color paper. Everything will be available on Thursday in my shop and Etsy.

MUNNYWORLD

Went to the opening party of the MUNNYWORLD exhibition, it's only open for 3 days, from November 13-15 at the Eloquent Delinquents Gallery, 41 Wooster Street, New York. The party was also to launch the new DIY toy characters- Trikky, Bub, Raffy and Rooz. Kidrobot asked some of the world's most talented artists/designers to create their own 20" Munnies and friends, they are all so amazing that I can't say which one is my favorite, but here are some highlights.