From the Desk Fridays: Printing Moose Bags

I was printing up a storm this week prepping for some special deliveries. Today, Katie & I are playing Santa's elves and delivering goodies to editors we've had the pleasure of working with this year. And there are a bunch! We've been so lucky to be featured in some great publications this year - Elle Decor, InStyle, and Better Homes & Gardens were just a few of the ones this month! We're even luckier to have the uber-thorough and super sweet Connie on our team to make all of this happen. (I think she has a magic wand.) We heart you, C!

So we're on foot today spreading some L&H love to our local editors. And then we're taking a Christmas lunch in the city. We've been so busy this season, I don't think I've crossed the bridge to Manhattan in weeks! - they don't call this the better borough for nothing:)

Have a great last shopping weekend before Christmas, everyone!

And the winners are...

#12 and #4 - katy and amber, the amber show. Congrats, you two! Email me at liz@lindaandharriett.com with your address & we'll get these out to you today.

Calendar Giveaway!

We rarely do giveaways of our own products here on the blog - but I thought this was pretty special. As you know, we've sold out of our 2010 Calendar. And for some reason, we were a couple runs short on the month of December - so I decided to take two of our December-month misprints and make a new December to complete the calendar (the rest of the months are the same) - for just two of you lucky readers.

Just leave a comment below by midnight tonight & we'll draw tomorrow! That doesn't leave you much time, so get going!

And good luck!

Winners!

Congrats to readers Alex Keller & Candace & Eddy!

Email me today at liz@lindaandharriett.com with your shipping info & message you'd like Matteo Pericoli to inscribe on the note that will go inside.

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Sold Out!

It was a busy busy day here at L&H yesterday - hence, no post. We sold out of our 2010 Calendar! I can't believe it. We never sell out before the end of the year. I usually have enough to give as Christmas gifts, but not this year. Stupid me didn't think about setting aside some for myself! I'll have to think of something else to give as gifts that's on par. It's going to be hard though - I really love this calendar. So good for all of you who ordered one! If you missed out, there might be some retailers out there who still have some. Find a store in your area here.

L&H Holiday Newsletter

Our first big newsletter went out this morning. We hope to keep this up each month, updating customers on happenings at L&H - like promotions, new products, new retailers and press. Today's newsletter announced our holiday discount of 15% off when you enter "Jolly" at checkout. (Good through December 15.) This was our first big newsletter, and we're excited to have finally got it up & running.

Sign up for our newsletter over there on the right column at the top.

Giveaway: The City Out My Window

The folks over at Simon & Schuster have been kind enough to give us two copies of Matteo Pericoli's beautiful book The City Out My Window to give away. A great gift for any New Yorker - current dweller or not. I can think of at least five people off the top of my head that would love this book. Pericoli illustrates views from the windows of 63 New York artists, writers & thinkers (like Mario Batali, Annie Leibovitz, Mikhail Beryshnikov, David Byrne & more) with a description from each of the views' "owners" - showing us that your window is the frame through which you see your own picture of the world, a picture that is yours and no one else's.*

Simply leave a comment by midnight this Sunday, December 13. I'll choose the two lucky winners at random & announce them on Monday morning. Don't forget to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck!



*from the introduction by Paul Goldberger

UPDATE:

Matteo Pericoli has generously offered to dedicate these books for the two winners!

So if you win, tell me to whom you'd like the book made out to and I will pass it along to Matteo, who is going to mail notes to me from Italy, which I'll tuck inside each book before mailing them out. How incredibly nice is that? Don't miss out on this one!

Weekend in Photos: Fish Wall

Besides driving to & from Vermont this weekend, I took on this little decoupaging project. Several owners ago, this room used to be a recording studio. (It even has one of those big double-paned windows that looks into our living room.) We're using it as our home office - mostly for John, since I "already have an office." :)

I decided to surprise him with this Charley Harper wall - not knowing how he'd react. (My friend asked me before I started, "Does he even like Charley Harper?" My answer: "I don't know, but I do." But it really was for you John, I swear.) I love Charley Harper's illustrations, so I color-copied six fish illustrations from Charley Harper, an Illustrated Life and glued them to the one wall. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I looked online for suggestions & figured it out pretty quickly. It's basically one big craft project - lots of cutting & gluing - and running out to the copy place when you run out. So fun and so instantly gratifying.

And best of all - he loves it. Hooray!

From the Desk Fridays: Sweaters

The last addition to our shop until 2010: Nordic ski sweaters!

I love ornaments as gift toppers. They're an easy way to spruce up simple gift wrap or gift bag. When I had the idea of doing a sweater gift tag, I decided it needed to be made of a sturdy material that would both function as a gift tag, but could be durable enough to use later as an ornament.

Our sweaters are letterpressed in red ink on chipboard and tied with a thick navy twine. Go check them out here.

Have a great weekend!

Birthday Card from Anthropologie

Check out this super cute candle necklace birthday card sent from Anthropologie to Jean Aw of NOTCOT. And because well, one, it's her birthday, but two, because she signed up for the store credit card! That's my kind of perk.

[images courtesy of NOTCOT]

Mantel on the Mind

How great is this? My friend sent this image over to me via terrain. I think I could get the wooden pieces from the Christmas tree vendors near me. I'm not sure how I'll affix them without damaging the wall - maybe some Gorilla glue? - but I think I have to try it. Stay tuned!

[image courtesy of terrain]

New Website Headers

I get itchy with certain things pretty quickly. I'll put the sofa in one spot & then rearrange it 10 minutes later. But sometimes, I just don't bother changing things at all - like the J. Crew ballet flats I've worn holes into. Maybe it's because I still love those flats and didn't love the sofa in that spot. In any case, it's been a while since we've changed our website headers, and they were bugging me the other day - so we changed them to reflect some of our newest & most seasonal designs, as well as some oldies. I love a good change.

Home

A couple shots from the car on our way back into the city this weekend. It's always so nice to escape & feels like home coming back.

This time of year, Mondays are always hectic. There's lots to do this morning: a few Christmas cards, a birth announcement and a save the date. Feels like Christmas is coming very fast this year so I'm trying to get things done quickly. Hoping to get our Christmas tree tonight! But until then, it's off to work!

Turkey Day Vaca

We're heading to Charlottesville, Virginia for Thanksgiving with John's family. Would have loved to have gotten it together to make something cute like these little guys - from none other than miss Amy Atlas. Seeing as I'm dressing myself in the morning by reaching into black trash bags, the cute desserts are going to have to wait til next holiday when I know where my socks are - let alone the pots & pans.

And for all you Black Friday shoppers out there - type in FRIDAY at checkout (on Friday only) and get some free L&H greeting cards!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

[photos courtesy of Amy Atlas]

Martha Stewart: Bloggers Gift Guide

SUCH a great idea on the Martha Stewart site: bloggers picks for gift ideas. I always look out for blogger gift guides, but I love even more having a bunch rounded up in one spot. And lucky us, our 2010 Calendar has been chosen by Black Eiffel. Thanks, Rachel!!

Check out more bloggers' picks here.

New Digs!

We moved on Friday. No matter how far you're moving (or in our case, how close) - moving always stinks. It's not fun & it's exhausting. But we had great movers & it was all over fairly quickly. Although "over" is relative because we now have a home full of black trash bags & boxes. And with Turkey Day around the corner, it's likely to stay that way for a while.

My two favorite things about this new place: our free! mantel and our sunny stairwell. You'd think I'd lived in a cave for the past three years the way I'm reacting to the sunlight. It's probably not blinding, but I feel like it is. And I love it.

I'll post more pics as we get closer to getting settled.

From the Desk Fridays: Wine Bottle Tags

Like I said earlier this week, no one will forget who brought the wine with the moose tag. Love this so much.

Happy Weekend!

Calendar by Nate Duval

Paper Crave has a great round up of 2010 Calendars going on right now. (Ours was featured in Part 1 of her so far 6-part round up.) So many to choose from & all so unique. Especially loving this one by Nate Duval.

New: Moose Tags!

I'm unapologetic about being moose crazy, so here we go with another moose addition! New to our shop: laser-cut chipboard moose tags.

I plan on tying them on wine bottles for holiday parties. Forget wine labels! No one will forget who brought the wine with the moose tag.


I used them as garland for our trunk show last night. I'd love to get some wire and make a wreath of these little moose guys. Maybe even spray-painted gold or green:)

Trunk Show in NYC Tonight!

We're getting a jump start on the holidays with a little trunk show cocktail party tonight in the city, along with our two friends KAGE Handbags and Anne Woodman Jewelry. Have you seen their stuff? I use my KAGE bag every day & wear my Anne Woodman ring every other day. Love them!

We'd love to see you there! It's a private event, so please email us for the location.

With Thanks: Elle Decor

We are beyond thrilled to have our 2010 Calendar in this month's Elle Decor gift guide! And with some great company, I might add. (I want that Jonathan Adler dog bed for Kingsley!) Check out all their holiday gift ideas on the slideshow here.

Thanks, Elle Decor!

[top two images courtesy of Elle Decor]

From the Desk Fridays: Gift Set

We've added our Gift Set to the shop! This year, we're packing our goodies in a little cotton bag, screen printed with our favorite furry friend, Moose. We're tucking inside our 2010 Calendar, a notepad and a box of note cards. (You can pick what note card & notepad designs you want.) The entire set retails for $60 separately, but we're offering it together for $50. Go check it out here.


Happy Weekend!

Faux Fireplace

We're in the process of moving. Slowly. And instead of packing boxes, I labor over stupid things like mantels for non-existing fireplaces. (I did the same thing for our wedding. Forget the dress - I wanted to talk table linens.) After choosing to go with the paint swatch on the lower left (Benjamin Moore #681), my next project is making this wall-jut-thing into a fake fireplace - or more like acting as the facade of the real one behind the plaster. I love mantels and am eyeing one on craigslist right now. I love how they can be the focus of a room. Distracting your guests, say, from the 57" television your husband wants to get. I refuse to get glasses, so I'm all for upgrading the size of our tv. That, and we like watching tv. But I really don't like tvs being the center of the room - blatently & unabashedly saying "this is what we do here." Even if that's true, I'd still like to pretend it's not. But is putting up a mantel without a real fireplace just masking the problem? What if I add pretty wallpaper (purple scratches below) in place of the fire? Still masking? Help!

Loving: Toast

I've been eyeing these two dresses from Toast for a while now. Any semi-boxy shape I can throw a belt around, wear with some tights & high boots is really what I'm looking for these days. I want to be comfy at my desk without wearing sweatpants, romp around the city streets on a rainy day & not have to change to go out. Might have to ask my sister in London to receive a package for me:)

[images courtesy of Toast]

Paper Chandelier

Ever since I saw these chandeliers in the Pottery Barn catalog, I've been dreaming of a way to incorporate our letterpress & offset printed misprints into our apartment - and specifically to a light fixture. We have two overflowing bins of paper here in the office & every six months or so, I get an urge to repurpose them. That's how our Redesigned line came about: gift tags, flower pins, & dress cards all made from our bins of unsellable sheets of notepad paper and letterpress misprints. I'm hoping to add Paper Quilts to that at the beginning of next year. In the meantime, I want to bring this redesigned paper concept to my home. I don't want to be surrounded by paper like I am all day here in the office, but I do love the mix of patterns & colors and would love a big-impact piece somewhere. I am skeptical about the thick cardstock working for a chandelier. And I do prefer the softer hues of those old pages with the black text. But I think I have to at least try, right?


[images courtesy of Pottery Barn]

From the Desk Fridays: New Stores

We're excited to have just sent out our first orders to these two great non-stationery stores: FredFlare & Parker and Otis.

FredFlare is a big online store that has opened up its first brick & mortar shop here in Brooklyn. The buyers at FF were first introduced to L&H by our faithful reader, Tommy. (Thanks, Tommy!! You've got a commission's worth of paper & baked goods coming your way!)


And then Parker and Otis is a specialty food shop located in downtown Durham, North Carolina - but I wish it was right around the corner because their sweet selection looks amazing and tempting.

It's so nice to have specialty stores & boutiques interested in our products. I think it's a nice compliment to other items like clothes and housewares.

If you have any shops near you that you think would like L&H, leave us a comment or drop us a line at info@lindaandharriett.com You might just get goodies in the mail, too:)

Have a great weekend.

Upholstered Folding Chairs

I'm on a major quilting kick these days. Quilted paper, quilted maps on blankets. These quilt-like upholstered chairs from Anthropologie are calling my name. But I wonder if I could attempt these on my own? Hmm. Maybe I'll stick with the paper.

[photos courtesy of Anthropologie]

Update: Thanks, Anna, for the link to Apartment Therapy's DIY project for this (click on image below to go to the site). Now I have to do it.