Inspiration Monday: Ruff Translation

The thing I feel like people ask most of our work is, 'How did you guys ever think of that?" I'm compelled to quote the ever-wise Lucas from one of my all time fave movies, Empire Records: "Who know where thoughts come from. They just appear."

It's true. Like pure kismet, ideas do just appear. Unless they don't. And that's when we hop online to our trusty design blogs for some distraction and, perchance, some inspiration. Kis...net. (Yes. I just did that.)

One of our latest series of cards was born of just such fortunate blog-wandering happenstance. Our design idols at Apartment Therapy had some lovely things to say about adding ruffles to your home. We fell in love with this chair from Aiveen Daly.

Now, this isn't the first time we've found divinity in fabric, but it was less about the fabric itself and more about the way it's been used. The ruffles add such an unexpected touch to a classic chair!

And, so, we asked ourselves, could we be so lucky that fabric ruffles could have the same awesomizing effect on a set of letterpressed thank you cards? More wisdom from Empire Records, and we knew we were guided by a force muck greater than luck. We were sitting on top of a good ole fashioned good idea!
Mixing solid and patterned fabrics with different colored thread and ink made for an eclectic little batch of fun notes.

Throw in some colorful envelopes, and there you have it, folks--some tactile, gratitudinal note cards that would hopefully make anyone's day. Would it be totally ridiculous to send a thank you note to the blogger gods for inspiring us with such a rad thank you note?

} jp-c

email us at info@farewellpaperie.com if you're interested in purchasing some ruffle cards of your own. they'll also be up on etsy very soon!

Fall Flop

The weather in Atlanta has been HOT. Normally I really enjoy warm weather, but 85 degrees in the middle of October is not pleasant, even for me. Since I'm originally from Pittsburgh, I start missing the cool weather around this time of year. The leaves are supposed to be changing. I should be wearing sweaters with leggings and cute riding boots. I want to smell leaves burning and fireplaces... It was a "balmy" 60 degrees this morning and I could still feel the humidity in the air when I walked out to my car this morning. Needless to say, I am OVER summer.

This past weekend Jen and I had a lovely event at Urban Cottage to showcase some of our new letterpressed cards. It was called "Fall Love", but it felt nothing like fall. It was, again, at least 85 degrees and all the vendors in the show were sweltering. As I was sitting there, wiping the sweat from the pits of my legs (you know, that area behind your knee) and fanning myself with one of our cards, I thought to myself, "If it can't feel like fall here, I'll at least do something fall-oriented to suffice my craving for all things autumnal." (Well, I really didn't think that, but I did call Justin to see if he was willing to go to North GA the next day to find some fall activities. Of course he complied.)

.... Enter the Corn Maze.
So, I thought it would be super fun to go through this corn maze in Cleveland, GA. The website brags that it's the largest corn maze in GA , so it had to be good, right? After an hour-long car ride my anticipation was building. I couldn't wait to see this awesome maze. Pulling up to the farm, my hopes began to sink. Country music was blaring from a loudspeaker near the parking lot (aka: a field next door) and the owners (or maybe friends/relatives of the farmers?) were sitting in lawn chairs right beside the opening of the maze staring at everyone that was going into the corn. Granted, there weren't tons of participants at this point in the day, being that it was 4pm on Sunday AND it was at least 90 degrees, but there were some kids running in and out of the stalks of corn, so we thought it couldn't be that bad. At the entrance Justin and I were handed this:


And were told to find all the checkpoints in the maze. THAT WAS IT. That was the game. You were supposed to trudge around dead corn and look for checkpoints 1-7 to win.... NOTHING. I thought this maze was going to be massive. I thought we were going to get lost in all this luscious, green corn and after milling around for an hour we'd emerge on the other side of the corn like in Field Of Dreams and feeling victorious.

Let's just say we were in the maze for 10 minutes. Between the blazing sun, the phony paths that other people made through the middle of the maze, and the outrageously loud country music we gave up. I didn't even use my map to get out of it! I felt defeated and deflated. My fall fun was a huge flop. The car ride home was quiet. I must admit, I was pouting and cursing the stupid south for their hot weather and country music. "If we were in Pennsylvania...." I kept arguing. But we weren't.

The "view" as you approached the maze

Supposedly you could see the maze from this high view point, but it just looks like corn to me.

Trying to make light of the situation...

As we are leaving the mountains, Justin decided to pull over and check out one of the roadside stands that advertises the typical produce,trinkets and BBQ. I hesitantly got out of the car and walked around the grounds with arms folded and a frown on my face. I saw bushels of apples, some lawn ornaments and planters full of mums. I walked around the corner and spotted pumpkins... Then I saw squash... and apple cider.... and jellies and jams... I went inside the store and there were TONS and TONS of canned fruits, homemade breads and apple fritters! NO BODY makes apple fritters down here! I began to run around the store and went into a shopping frenzy of "pumpkin-this" and "apple-that". This was the Fall I was looking for.

One of the many rooms in the little roadside stand we stopped at
on the way home. Jellies, jams, honey and dressings as far as the eye could see.

Sixty dollars later and a car full of pumpkins, we head home. I am quietly content and glad to have found such a cool place in my hour of desperation. Now if only the cool weather will follow suit.

-LGT

Fall Love at Urban Cottage

Well, it's been a hectic summer. Weddings, honeymoons, trips to San Fran, cars being stolen, computers breaking, moving to a new place, turning 30... you see where I'm going with this. Somehow, though, amongst all the madness, Jen and I have still managed to stay busy. Not only have we been working our booties off on our custom work, but we have been working on our retail lines as well! To help kick off our retail line, we are going to be at Urban Cottage's Fall boutique show. It starts October 8th and goes through the weekend. So if you're in Atlanta and have some time to browse the Highland shops, stop by Urban Cottage to see our new designs. It starts at 6pm on Friday.