Playing With Paper

Over the weekend Lexington had their annual Woodland Art Fair, and while I successfully avoided eating an entire funnel cake, I discovered a great local artist. Jenni Phillips is a fellow Kentuckian, who creates beautiful and fanciful paper art and paper toys. I was drawn to the dark, dream like, quirk of her art. What I like the best about her art is a lot of her pieces have movable and adjustable parts; so even a seemingly flat piece of art almost becomes a toy.

You can check out her etsy shop for more of her work or her tumblr site to see more of the pieces like the ones below.

"Marooned"

"Ursa Major 2"

"Trust Your Instincts" 

Illustrative Cuteness

Try to look at these illustrations and not laugh or smile. Impossible I say! Totally by accident I stumbled upon the artist behind these, Matte Stephens, on Pinterest. I am totally in love with Alfred, the scuba diver sporting the awesome mustache, pipe, and trident. You can bet that print is already in my cart over on etsy. Matte is a painter living out Portland, Oregon and has illustrated and created images for some big name company's as well as illustrating children's books. Everything from subject matter to color palette feels like I'm looking at vintage prints from the 60's. Find his prints on his etsy shop and check out more of his work on his site too.

Images: Matte Stephens

Dreaming of Collages

I finally hung some art on the walls of our house this weekend! I can't believe what a difference it makes. It really is starting to feel like people with some taste live here! It took me some time to find all the right frames to make up the collage above the couch in the living room, and finding the energy to do it took some time as well. But they're up there. The only thing left to do is find some fun artwork for the empty frames. Hello etsy wish list...

studiotuesday

AndILoveYouSheSaid

thelittlechickadee

thelittlechickadee

dekanimal

BlackBaroque

berkleyillustration

beethings

sarahjanestudios

claudiavarosio

handz

Pop Chart Lab

Thanks to some great friends of ours a hilarious and awesome poster has come to hang on our wall. An Etsy store called Pop Chart Lab are the ones we have to thank. A collaboration of a book editor and a graphic designer aims to "bring order to a swirling chaos," (as they put it) by creating bubble charts and flow charts of items you wouldn't think were so complex. That is until you see this brilliant duo break them down for you. My boyfriend was gifted the Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names and the creativity that is involved in this print is amazing. After poring over it, I'm seriously considering adding the Culinary Tools or Notable Haircuts in Popular Music print to our collection too. Check out my favorites and definitely hit up their store to check out more of their work.

Wouldn't this be cute hung in the kitchen?

images: Pop Chart Lab

Locket Love

I have a special place in my heart for lockets. They are my favorite type of necklace to wear and the more vintage the better. It probably stems from my childhood and my obsession with the musical Annie - I wanted a locket just like hers. I think I still have my first heart shaped locket that was bought for me to quiet my desires. I'll have to remember to find that at my parents' house the next visit home.

I used to think that I shouldn't own 20 lockets, like I want to, but have some variety in my necklace wardrobe.  But seeing this necklace on BHLDN's new website I am thinking my thoughts are all wrong and I need to stock up!

So this photo is the inspiration of my post today! I wanted to share my little collection of lockets and some ones that I'm lusting over on etsy.
 

L to R: locket cameo brooch and gold locket are vintage finds on etsy and the silver locket is from lillyella's etsy shop



The charm is all in the details...

Much like the BHLDN necklace, I am loving a monogram on the lockets right now



I also love the quirky details in the shape of the lockets and the emblems like the anchor and the bee


So what about you guys?  Do you have a special relationship with some pieces of jewelery?


etsy links top row: Dear Golden vintage, Decadence and Decay, cshadwick
etsy links bottom row: all from freshy fig

Character Cuteness

Thanks again to the wonderful magic of the internet I stumbled upon the cutest etsy shop today-fashionfucsia! Residing in Spain with her husband and new born daughter, she creates the most adorable little characters. Inspired by fashion, movies, travel, and bright colors (hence the name), her shop consists of a sweet variety of prints, buttons, bookmarks, and magnets.

Her character's little round faces, cheery smiles, and flared eyelashes are making me smile today. I can definitely see my fridge and books getting a face lift with her creations. Below are some of my favorites from her shop.

You can check out all of fashionfucsia's work on her etsy shop or on her blog. She even did a great interview for moocards too. Enjoy!

I love this one, it reminds me of myself!

All images are copyrighted and used with the permission of fashionfucsia.