Vintage International Travel Posters

I’m not sure I could be any more in love with these vintage posters over at GrainEdit today (especially the Swiss one):

More HERE. GrainEdit rules, huh? I pretty much swoon over everything posted on their blog.

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The Artwork of Louise Best

Louise Best is an artist, a diarist, a designer of books and all things awesome, and the creator of one of my favorite new-to-me blogs, called Loulou Loves Books. There, Louise/Loulou offers us snippets of life “from behind the hedge and beyond,” whether in postcard, journal, or typewritten form. No matter what the medium, the effect is charming and lovely. Thank you to @Typoretum for introducing me to Ms. Loulou!

I love the Griffin & Sabine quality of the postcards and the journals. I just love handmade collage-y mail in general. So lovely.

All images above have been graciously borrowed from Loulou’s BLOG and SHOP; however, I strongly strongly encourage you to visit her in the following realms:

WEBSITE
FLICKR
ETSY SHOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (can’t sufficiently exclaim my excitement here…)
TWITTER

Paper Clips Journal – Version Française!

Considering my extensive French background and the bajillion French papers (vintage and modern) that I’ve collected over the years, I decided to create what I call The Paper Clips Journal – Version Française! Now for sale in my Etsy shop! It’s like my regular Paper Clips Journals, except even awesomer, because it’s French-centric. The result is a lovely compilation of mixed pages to satisfy anyone who has a bit of a French fetish, comme moi. 🙂

For most of my journals, I use an old postcard as a sturdy cover. For the V.F. (version française) edition, I’ll top it off with one of the fabulous French postcards from the collection I’ve accumulated from my many research trips abroad. In the V.F. journal pictured below, I used old black & white postcard of a Parisian lamp post that I got a few years ago in Paris (near the Centre Pompidou, to be exact). I slapped a red label on the front, and it’s ready to go!

Oh, and one more thing: If you ever order a Paper Clips Journal from me, make sure you always peek inside any envelopes I include. From flash cards, to stickers, to postcards, to decorative postage stamps (still very much usable!)… you just never know what you might find! I love hiding little prizes…

I had way too much fun compiling this journal and putting it together. Please order one so I can enjoy the h*ll out of making another. 🙂

Packaging is just another fun aspect of creating the journal for you. In order to seal the package up all nice-like, I plan on taking full advantage of the beautifully fun Japanese washi tape that I won in a blog giveaway last month.

See more images of this and other Paper Clips Journals in my Etsy shop HERE!

French Friday: StoriesDivinations on Etsy

Fabulous vintage papers, notebooks, and collage items over at StoriesDivinations’ Etsy shop. I encourage you to check out their items, which are beautifully photographed and often accompanied by interesting little stories. I have my eye on some vintage paper packs that include a variety of foreign language pages.

Some French highlights:

Throwback Thursday: The Illustrations of Paul Thurlby

Paul Thurlby‘s vintage-esque alphabet illustrations have been making the rounds on a lot of design and type blogs lately, but I just can’t help throwing my hat into the ring. They’re just too d@mn awesome! I love the old-school look, the fact that some of them remind me of Alain Grée, and the fact that I want to make wallpaper out of them and slap them on my bedroom walls. Talk about a throwback: I can almost taste that deliciously intoxicating “old book smell” while I look at these babies.

So, here are some of his alphabet illustrations, mixed with some other projects that I found on HIS BLOG and on his FLICKR STREAM. Please visit both, now and often. Trust me: your creative inspiration demands it.

(Note: Unsurprisingly, I’m quite partial to the owl illustration, but I want them all.)

And now for some non-alphabet-related Thurlby awesomeness:

Serge Gainsbourg + Brigitte Bardot = smoky sex

French Friday: Paris map by Mark Andrew Webber

Thanks to swissmiss for introducing me to the amazing linocuts of Mark Andrew Webber’s typographic map of Paris. The following images are borrowed from his Flickr stream:

MAW maintains an ongoing series of linocut maps and other carved wonders. Here are some additional examples from his Linocuts Flickr Set:

Amsterdam map…

London map…

Misc….

French Friday: From Flickr

The above images found on Sugar Monster’s Flickr stream