all things girls can tell

Rittenhouse Fair & Square

Hello! We've organized a pop up shop to welcome in the spring!

The Rittenhouse Fair & Square features Philadelphia superstars of handmade giant dwarf, miss millie, made by hank, betsy ann paper and, yours truly, girls can tell. please stop in for some lovely locally made wares. the shop will be open from 11am - 5pm (sometimes later!) at the Art Alliance (251 South 18th Street - just off Rittenhouse Square). This event coincides with the opening of the Rittenhouse Tavern in the same building at the end of this month - so fun! For more information, see the Rittenhouse Fair & Square blog or like it on facebook.

see you soon!
xo!

bbc travel: passyunk ave.

over the holiday, several of the shop's passyunk avenue neighbors were featured in a BBC article on how great the avenue has become and its importance as a corridor full of independent businesses in philadelphia. you might recognize some of the diagrammy wares featured in the slide show photos from green aisle grocery. xo!

holiday shipping deadlines!

the shop is all gussied up for the holidays! which can only mean one thing: shipping deadlines for online shoppers are nearing!

i do my very best to pack up your orders as soon as they're received all year long. all orders ship within 2-3 business days from the time payment is received (some even ship sooner! like i said, i really do my best!). however, even if i'm as speedy as can be, delivery can take a couple days. most US orders are sent via 2-3 day priority mail, and international orders are sent via first class international mail - please allow enough time for delivery when ordering!

to ensure you all get your holiday goodies in plenty of time for gift giving, the following are the last ordering dates for which i can be sure you'll receive your packages in time:

 

US holiday shipping deadline: order by dec 19 for dec 23 delivery
Int'l holiday shipping deadline: order by dec 7 for dec 23 delivery

as always, if you have a special gift giving event that you're ordering for, please let me know when it is! while i make every effort to ship as quickly as possible, i'm much better at drawing diagrams than reading minds. a heads up with your order is much better than us scurrying to find a solution at the last minute!

thanks so much! happy gift giving this season! shop small + support independent businesses!

special project: coasters for knack!

lovely lady barb at knack studios has been making pure magic lately, bringing new life to great pieces of furniture. when she asked about having some custom coasters made as a thank you gift for her lovely customers, i agreed to the project without hesitation.

here is a super post she wrote at her own blog on the results, with some photos (how did i forget to take photos! gah!). take a peek, and also skip on her site to see some of the really beautiful projects she's taken on lately. amazing.

beautiful illustrations + handmade shows

in my inbox this morning popped this great graphic on an email for the always amazing art vs. craft show in milwaukee. i've seen a lot (a whole lot, actually) of illustrations for craft shows, but this one is by far my favorite.

speaking of art + craft shows... this weekend, pittsburgh! erik + i will make our way across the (deceptively huge) state of pennsylvania for handmade arcade! check out this little sneak peek steeltown anthem did on some of the vendors to get excited! (with links to great shops if you're not in western pennsylvania...)

if you're in philadelphia, the shop will be open all weekend! from 12-6pm on saturday + sunday, the ever so awesome yara will be here to answer your questions + help you begin your holiday shopping!

 

autumn eats: pizza + chianti

in college, we had the option to take fun supplemental classes - ballroom dancing, wine tasting, etc - just things to use the other part of the brain. i, of course, snagged a spot in the wine tasting class as soon as i turned 21 (actually, if i recall, i think the class actually began the week before i turned 21 - i was always the baby in school, with a mid-september birthday).

the instructor wanted nothing more in life than the talk about wine. he was great. i'm sure the class was full of amazing information, but my number one take-away nugget of wine knowledge? there are few food/wine pairings in this world better than pizza + chianti. so last night, erik made a simple, awesome pizza for us from the pizza dough i made a few weeks ago + topped it with sausage. the house smelled amazing when i got home from the shop - like baking bread, salty sausage + pizza-y goodness. i immediately remembered that important life lesson from college, so we uncorked a bottle of chianti. perfect for the first chilly night this fall. yay!

top picks for supermarket

this week, the lovely people at supermarketHQ asked me to curate a selection of picks from the designers on their site. it was hard to choose from all the amazing things - take a peek at what i selected!

the big news!

it just occured to me that i failed to mention some super giant news here...

while we were in california earlier this summer (for renegade craft fair san francisco, one of my all-time favorite shows), erik proposed!

we were outside the city for the day, in yountville, at the indescribably beautiful gardens of the french laundry restaurant, just soaking up the sun and admiring how stunningly gorgeous everything was + poking around the artichokes, when he totally got down on one knee + asked if i wanted to get married. so perfect! i, of course, had a completely spastic reaction (mostly i kept asking "what is this!", then i giggled for a good five minutes before i got it together).(and said yes, of course.)

so the timing was a bit of a surprise, but the biggest surprise was the ring. it's absolutely gorgeous, handmade, and is exactly perfect. erik worked with the ladies of bario neal here in south philadelphia and i couldn't love it more. the two smaller stones on each side are sapphire, which is not only a traditional stone for engagement rings, but also my birthstone. perfect!

we are planning a wedding, though we're obviously in the earliest of early stages right now. as we make progress, i'm thinking about posting bits here along the way, but i don't anticipate being one of those ladies who loves planning her wedding SO much that it inspires her to blog about the entire process and develop a whole new business plan around it. i'm fairly wedding-obsession-resistant at this point (much to the dismay of theknot.com, i gather).

that's the news! yay!

super city!

lately i've felt so fortunate to live in a city that's just full of artists i respect and admire. having peers here in philadelphia, as well as around the country, who understand the ups + downs of how it is to run a tiny creative business is not only incredibly helpful, but downright pleasant.

in the past week, i have had the pleasure of seeing many of my peers. the week began with lunch with the lovely rachel of rachel shoshana jewelry, who makes incredibly delicate yet bold jewelry, and happy hour with sharif of masters of none, my favorite guru of design + lasers.

over the weekend, elissa of nice things handmade (our neighborhood handmade boutique here in south philadelphia) organized a few dozen of us to sell just up the block from the new workshop at bang! boom! craft! where i met the incredibly sweet + smart kathryn kelly, who was selling really great cards + hand printed totes. i got to see old friends kim + chris of rogue theory, who were just named "best of philly" for their laptop + techee covers, jay mccarroll, who had his fabulous circle totes in tow, and, of course, was hilarious as always. and the nicoles were there! one nicole hand stencils shirts + the other makes totally fun kitschy jewelry + wares.

this coming week, i'm looking forward to meeting up with fantastic ladies melissa crotty, of porcelian awesomeness miss millie fame, and katie henry, also known as made by hank, who makes the most unbelievably wonderful hand sewn bags you can imagine.

i didn't, of course, post this list of all these creative peple just to boast what wonderful artists i'm surrounded by here in philadelphia, though - you should definitely click through and check out their work. amazing!

a word on knock offs

I've been hesitant to post on this topic for a few reasons today (not the least of which being that I'm supposed to be packing up the studio to move into the new work|shop today), but I've been mulling + mulling... Here goes...

If you'd prefer to have a random towel that you traced artwork that isn't yours onto with (what's more or less) a sharpie in your kitchen, so be it.

Professionally handmade work isn't for everyone. If you don't want to buy a towel that I hand printed through Anthropologie's website or through my own website (where I've been selling these towels myself for years), I probably can't stop you from making a cheapie version for your own use.

However, you should know the hours upon hours that I've put into sourcing the very best floursack towels (100% floursack cotton, in what I've deemed the best size ever, milled in the US, that gets softer with wear) and that I've honed my style of illustration for years as my little tiny business has grown (I don't have an MFA, rather a degree in Architecture, but that's a whole other story). I've printed thousands of towels over the past few years for a living (hereby making me a professional). Most importantly, I've worked so very hard over many, many long hours to build my little business and perfect my products.

But if you'd prefer your traced-on sharpie version, knock yourself out.

I stand by my work. And I support my peers - other independent artists - whenever and however I can. I buy less, but sleep easier at night, knowing that how I spend my money is aligned with what I believe.

Those who know me (virtually or, gasp!, in person) know I've been doing this for some time, and that I'm a real person (brutally honest at times, and with a weakness for locally crafted beer). I work really hard and I'm generally pretty nice. While I've been more than fortunate in enjoying some unbelievable successes lately (seriously, pinch me!), I certainly won't be wallpapering my bathroom in benjamins anytime soon. So if you'd rather make your own cheap knock off than support someone who has inspired you in even a tiny way, and if that gives you satisfaction, so be it.