When I was a kid, there was nothing better than a fresh 64-pack of crayons. All those colors, freshly sharpened, perfectly organized. It was almost better leaving them untouched. Then again, I’m a control freak. My son prefers to smash his crayons. These dinos are way more his speed.
My dad has a Nikon Rangefinder SLR from the 1950s that I love. The camera has a snap-on leather case that wraps around the body of the camera, with a drop flap to uncover the lens. The extra lenses are stored in leather cylinders that resemble mini thermoses. Today’s digital SLRs don’t even come close to the class and style of the vintage models, but this handmade leather camera bag at least wins you back a few cool points.
There’s a crafty little workshop around the corner from my house that teaches Etsy 101 basics like screenprinting, quilting, and knitting. I’ve never had the attention span to finish a scarf, but DIY fire-escape gardening or glass jar terrarium building? Sign me up!
This vintage card catalog made me time-warp back to high school study halls. I can only hazily remember those hours of doodling in the margins of spiral notebooks, running a yellow highlighter over passages of text, and tapping equations into a scientific calculator whose buttons would baffle me today. But the thought of sitting at a desk in a library for an hour with no electronic distractions seems so incredibly soothing and peaceful to me now. Wow, I really need to put away the iPhone.
Just got the new West Elm catalog in the mail and I kind of wanted everything. OK, not everything, but certainly more than I could afford, as if I even had a place to put it. They nailed it this season with the handmade theme running throughout (even down to the Etsy pieces on the walls). But I guess if I had to pick just one, it would be the hand-blocked leaf quilt. Well played, WE.
