Productivity has come to a standstill

Seriously. Had I known a blog like this existed out there I would have had many more hours disappear from my days, weeks...years. There are ideas up the wazoo and so many photos to look at, I mean come on, just look at this!(I'm so overloaded with crazy ideas at the moment I think I need to find a white room with nothing in it to lie down in.  Plus, I had to create a new label for this post to properly describe it!)

Creative shoes

Sometimes it's nice to have some stripes going on to liven up an un-creative day.

Lurvely

Photos via James Merrell

Ta-da! Sweetbean!

My sister had an idea over the summer to start a little business for herself (she's a new mom and working from home), and she wanted to do something that involved baby clothes. She bounced the idea off of me (and bounced, and bounced, AND bounced, LOL!) and we worked on a name and a concept. I'm not too involved with the business (she's the go-getter and one with the huge amounts of motivation -- I'm just the little creative brain that does logos and draws things), but I'm her number one fan so I thought I'd post a little introduction on Sweetbean and let you all see what we've done:

Logo (of course).

And the 'core' Sweetbean family, made up of:

If you need to get your little hands on these for yourself...click the banner over on the right and it will link up to the current Etsy site.
*Oh, and remember, copyrights do apply to these (and other original photos on this blog). Be kind, don't rip them off or copy them and use them for yourselves. And if you do want to post these on your site, we nicely ask you to link to the Sweetbean site. Many thanks! :)

Glögg it

Blossa has a much fancier glögg than Ikea, and they release a new one every year with a redesigned bottle.
via the dieline

Pretty, fabulous

Super talented Carolyn Mason creates these über cool dish soap bottles from cast porcelain. Stunning.
(Be sure to take a look at her other work, especially the 'frosting' series!)
via Design^Sprout

A litta bitta illustration

Sometimes you can't beat hand drawn illustrations. The work of Yehrin Tong is fab.

via d.sharp

Vintage signs

Nice set on flickr.

via the serif

Poster inspiration

Cool posters for the Museum of Childhood.

via the serif

S-M-R-T logo

Nice new logo for Bobby's Burger Palace (yes...'palace', strange!) in Lake Grove, Long Island. Best part is that the interior designers based the restaurant interior on the logo.

via Creative Review Blog

Just one more post before tomorrow

Ferry Staverman does some seriously impressive work. Think of those Hallmark decorations that you could pop out and make table top centerpieces for Christmas...but these you could keep out all year (although not near a blustery open window...).

Get your pattern on

I'm posting an uncharacteristic entry at the end of the day (as opposed to my usual A.M. bursts) since tomorrow morning I'll be standing in line, bright and early, at the passport office.

The pattern work by Nippy Sweetie is faaaa-aaaaa-aaaa-you get my point-bulous. I am so taken by the last pattern (but love all of them):

Rolling ball sculptures

It was agreed upon last night that if we ever have a gazillion dollars to blow and have a large enough room, we'd have a rolling ball sculpture custom made for a wall in that room. For those of you who don't know what these are (and never visited West Edmonton Mall in the 80's, or saw the movie 'Fracture') take a look at these:
I think our custom one would have the metal powder coated to match the wall colour (or stainless steel?), have custom glass balls made, and use some really nice woodwork (Trevor has a vote in for rosewood...don't ask me what that looks like).

Take a look here at one of the artists.

Deluxe cupcakes

I always love seeing how people use laser diecutting, and this idea of cupcake wrappers looks too nice to eat!
via Oh Joy!

A new definition of tea lights?

Sure you can get them in bags of 10,000 at Ikea, but these take lighting to a new level. Too cool for school these are.
via domestic construction

Found objects, fine art

I love the way these random items create shapes on the wall. I'm thinking of doing something like this myself, but with vintage letters from signs (that's a few weeks on eBay and then some...).

Good inspiration though!
via Daily Poetics

Sponge chair

There's something very funky about the combination of squashy sliced sponges against the slick chrome of this chair. Kind of makes me want to grab it and squeeeeeze it. (And I wonder how handy this chair would be for spills...)
Via Freshome

I would go blind trying to make this

Frances Trombly has some serious patience. She hand-stitches replicas of her old receipts. Crazy...but very cool!
via Creativadoration and Designers' Block UK