Emily Isabella

More adorable prints and greeting cards today, this time from illustrator Emily Isabella. Emily studied textile design at The Savannah College of Art and Design and now lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has an impressive list of clients including Target, Hygge&West, Anthology magazine and Total Girl magazine, and has also sold her patterns to Kate Spade, Victoria Secret and Gap Kids, among others.


Aside from her commercial work, Emily also has her own range of greeting cards and prints. I really like Emily's illustration style - very sweet and whimsical, with plenty of colour and cute characters. Check out Emily's online shop to see the full range, and to see more of her work, also check out Emily's website and blog.

Charlotte Love

I adore these sweet prints and illustrations by British-based Charlotte Love. By day Charlotte is a styling assistant for interiors magazines and also runs her little online shop on the side. Her range of pastel cards and prints is centred around lovely things such as ice cream, bicycles and flowers. Check 'em out here, and Charlotte also has a blog here.

Sightseeing in Chicago

I thought I’d kick off my USA holiday posts with some Chicago sightseeing highlights. We were mainly in Chicago to attend the wedding of our good friends (with my dapper boyfriend Adam as the best man), and to catch up with Adam’s family (who were also over from the UK for the wedding), but we still managed to fit in a good amount of sightseeing while we were there. Chicago is well known for its architecture, particularly its high-rises, and you really do spend most of your time walking around the city centre with your head tilted upwards. Chicago is also big on art, culture and baseball, so there was plenty to keep us occupied. Here’s what we got up to...


Went up the Willis Tower. Formerly named the Sears Tower, this is the tallest building in the USA. We took the super fast lift up to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor and enjoyed the expansive views. It was a lovely, clear day and you really can see for miles. Being up there also puts into perspective just how massive Lake Michigan is (and how beautifully blue it is!). I decided not to stand on The Ledge, a glass balcony that extends out of the building, mainly because it was filled with teenagers taking silly photographs (and also because I’m chicken).


Went on a Chicago Architecture Foundation boat tour. This was really great. The boat tour runs along the Chicago River and a volunteer guide dishes out plenty of interesting facts about the many buildings that line the river, as well as an overview of historic and modern architecture styles. I'd totally recommend one of these tours if you're visiting.


Went to a baseball game. This was organised by my friend’s dad as part of the post-wedding celebrations, and for someone completely non-sporty, it turned out to be a lot of fun. We saw the White Sox play at their home stadium, the U.S. Cellular Field, against the Seattle Mariners. It was sunny and hot and, if I’m completely honest, I didn’t really follow what was happening on the field all that much, but I did enjoy the experience, including the craft beer you could buy at the bar (for reals) and the yummy soft pretzels and hot pop corn.


Visited Cloud Gate (aka ‘The Bean’). I love a good oversized public sculpture, and this is a pretty impressive one. It was designed by Anish Kapoor (who is rather good at oversized public sculptures) and sits in Millennium Park (which is filled with park rangers on Segways – hilarious). It was designed to reflect and distort the city skyline, which is does rather well, but also works pretty well on reflecting and distorting people too.


Visited the Art Institute of Chicago. This place is huge, so we went straight to the Lichtenstein retrospective, which happened to be on when we were there. If you are visiting Chicago anytime soon, I’d recommend going to this, as it was pretty awesome (it’s on until September). After this our feet were pretty sore, so we did the culture tourist thing and picked up the highlights brochure and hit up the famous stuff.

Strolled along Navy Pier. We knew it would be completely cheesy, but Navy Pier is one of Chicago’s most popular attractions, so we thought we’d give it a whirl. And we were right, it is cheesy, but I enjoyed going on the Ferris wheel all the same.


Generally just had a big walk around. We went to look at Union Station, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Rookery Building (below) and the Chicago Theatre sign, and also visited the Shedd Aquarium.


Coming up later in the week, I’ll be covering Chicago food and shopping.

Wishlist: Black & Gold

Here's a little wishlist to round off the week – a few of my favourite black and gold items. To be honest, I never really used to be much of a gold person, and would always opt for silver. But I guess my tastes are changing, and lately I'm finding myself being drawn to gold more and more, especially when paired with black. So here's a little collection of black and gold items that have caught my attention lately.


Clockwise, from left to right: black and gold studs from Bonnilu; paper mache bowl from Etco; I Like It, What Is It? special edition print by Anthony Burrill for Nelly Duff; assorted 'Hello' cards by Rifle Paper Co.

New prints from Sanna Annukka

I'm a big fan of Finnish designer Sanna Annukka's work, and these new prints are no exception. The three silkscreen prints – named Lapinlintu, Karelianlintu and Saimaanlintu – feature beautiful birds in Sanna's signature style, and are based on much-loved areas of Finland. How amazing would it be to have all three hanging up as a set?!


Sanna recently set up her own print studio in Brighton, UK, which hopefully means new designs will be added soon. In the meantime, the three bird prints are available now in limited-edition runs from Sanna's online shop.

MOZI Knitted Textiles

It's getting pretty cold here in Melbourne, and I don't know about you, but our house is like a little ice box. And without fancy mod-cons like central heating, we must instead turn to putting the fire on and snuggling up with blankets and hot water bottles. That's why this new range of knitted textiles from MOZI is oh so appealing to me! Plus, you know, it looks pretty stylish too.


The collection includes knitted throws, cushions and hot water bottle covers in diamanté and animal patterns. The range has been designed in warm, wintery colours - perfect for those cold nights in.


To see more, head on over to the MOZI online shop.

Dominic Clifford for Keep Calm Gallery

Hi all, I'm back in Melbourne after a fantastic holiday in the USA. Apologies for the lack of posts while I was away – I decided to have a complete break from everything in the end (apart from a little Tweeting and Instagramming), which was just what I needed. I have some Chicago and San Francisco posts in the works (hopefully to come next week), but in the meantime, while I'm catching up, I'll be sharing a few new things that have caught my eye recently.


First up are these great new prints by Dominic Clifford for Keep Calm Gallery. Dominic is a London-based illustrator with a passion for old books, mid-century packaging and world travel. The three prints – London, Paris and New York – focus not on famous landmarks but on the distinct character of each of the three cities, expressing the individual and distinctive architecture of each location. Urban foxes, broken windows, fast food, pigeons, and graffiti (actually taken from the walls of each city) complete the scenes.


The prints have been screen printed by Domonic in small limited editions of 40 prints each, and are available from the Keep Calm Gallery site. And to see more of Domonic's great work, check out his website and online shop.