I'm Vanessa, a graphic designer living in Portland, OR, with a penchant for beautiful things, tea, learning to bake, tattoo collecting, dreaming of far away travels, and capturing life through photos. Here I share bits of my life along with things I find inspiring and delightful.
Category: Portland
One of the shops we visited, Ink & Peat, has the most amazing natural light you could ask for. I couldn’t help but snap away with pictures while we were enjoying everything they had in store. While we were shopping a couple of the employees were busy working on Valentine’s Day floral arrangements and they were ah-may-zing! I might have slipped a hint or two to the mister.
Just across the street from Ink & Peat is a letterpress and retail shop, Lark Press. They make their own line of letterpress paper goods and carry a number of items from other print shops. I spent so much time soaking up all of the amazing talent and design that goes into creating each piece. You know when you go home after window shopping and you can’t stop thinking about the things you saw and SHOULD have purchased? Yeah, these two shops have been on my mind. Lark carried a number of vendors that are after my heart including Quill & Fox, Bookhou, Shanna Murray decals, and of course Egg Press.
I’ve been seriously wanting to find a new place to live in Portland primarily just to be closer to a good neighborhood (like Mississippi, Alberta, or North Williams). We’re a quick drive away from those neighborhoods but I want to be able to walk and explore my neighborhood. I’m realizing that natural lighting is a major requirement for our next move. It makes all the difference when the days are so short. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
Our weekend went a little like this. It was fun, productive, eye opening, amazing. We started the fun on Friday night with our friends Andrea and Mike. Dinner at Los Gorditos and our first real comedy show experience – we saw Garfunkel & Oates! The show was pretty awesome, those ladies are so funny.
Saturday we woke up late and decided it would be fun to check out Old Town Pizza in Old Town Portland. It’s located inside the old Merchant Hotel, a 132 year old building. The pizza was really good – we shared a small Dragon Lady pizza and it was really tasty.
We decided to add a little adventuring into our day so we checked out the Mississippi and North Williams neighborhoods.
Porch Light is a really cute and thoughtfully stocked antique boutique currently located on Mississippi Ave but soon moving. I’m going back next week to take advantage of their moving sale.
I really loved these wrapping papers of old typewriters and beautiful hot air balloons. I don’t know if I’ve shared my love of hot air balloons here, but I’m a crazy fan of hot air balloons. It’s serious.
Flutter is an amazing eclectic shop full of amazing oddities in the form of books, home decor, apothecary, clothing, toys, and many things in between. It’s one of my favorite stores in Portland. These Q&A books were hanging out waiting to be picked up.
The lightbulb store. Enough said.
What a grudgey park name
North Williams! One of my favorite cocktails at one of my favorite bars and a fun street with a few addictingly beautiful shops and lovely homes. I loved the simple design for this restaurant sign.
Ink & Peat is an amazing store – I’ll have to share more about this place later. It deserves a post of its own.
Alex and I both enjoyed the color scheme of this house. I especially like their little globe sitting on their front stoop, perhaps by accident? There’s a cute, surprised Alex.
Purchased from Flutter, now living on our walls.
I’ve already dove into the Handmade Marketplace book I bought at Ink & Peat. So many great ideas that I’m already putting to use. My moleskine that I ordered in December finally arrived and is now full of ideas, lists, plans, and sketches. One plan now recorded is a letterpress class that I registered as soon as we came home. I’m so excited! I’ll let you know how it goes… Hope you have a good week!
After hearing a number of people talk about Schoolhouse Electric and their new showroom Alex and I took a couple hours out of our Sunday to explore. This place is exactly our cup of tea. Our expensive dreamland cup of tea, but still… We made at least two rounds through the building to soak up all of the details and examine everything.
I can’t wait to go back and be in the market to purchase. We were so inspired we came home and instantly started going through closets, searching for things to put into a yard sale. It’s not exactly yard sale weather right now, but we’re getting a head start and having fun. We rearranged our extra bedroom, the entryway, and living room today. The next project is spring cleaning, oh boy! If you’re in Portland you need to visit Schoolhouse Electric, located on 2181 NW Nicolai.
We’ve been having many quiet winter mornings around here. Morning fog, geese flying over, and puppy cuddles.
This past Saturday the only time I left the house was to take my car in for its’ oil change. While it was being lubed up (har har) I walked over to the Fabric Depot and walked around this giant building looking at fabrics galore. I wish I knew how to reupholster furniture, they have so many great patterns and textures that I would love to use to liven up some old furniture. The only thing I bought was a skein of red yarn to crochet a hat.