Day 1 at Life Instyle

So a week ago we set of for Melbourne for Trade fairs!! Although it is an exhausting trip its something i really look forward to, not only because we find lots of goodies and see our lovely supplier and meet with new ones, but i have my family down there and it so nice to sit at night having a chat and many laughs!
So while we were at Life Instyle we thought we would take a few pictures so u can see what lovely things we get to see...and bring home yipeeee!!

Down To The Woods


Poppies for Grace as always is such a beautiful stand to compliment their amazing products! Cant wait for the new arrivals





TMOD
OMG the chalkboards paint kits are fantastic and i hope they arrive very soon!

Cards that are also Party hats...Genius as always

MT Masking Tape
MT XMAS Tape OMG cant wait for its arrival

New MT Tape...this is very very exciting!! its thin and stripy

OOoooo this bad boy will be available in store very soon!!



It was very exciting to see these stamps as i had viewed them at the NSS in May so very excited to have them in store very soon!

A lovely place for lunch

Paper wallets from Dynomighty wallets a few select designs are on there way

our lovely animal heads from Made590...some of their friends are on the way to the shop yippeee


There is approximately 600 metres per kilo on this roll of twine! about 10kg, almost 6 kilometres of twine!
Lots of lovely colourful twine on the way



East of India Stationery and YES Xmas is so soon, we will have so many Xmas goodies this year its very exciting!




Jade Imports will be in store very soon, its on its way :) YAY

Competition Time.

Anyone feel like winning the very limited Hokey Croquis Fashion Sketchpad from us? The original Sketchpads are in hot demand as they have now changed to a new format, and these are the very last of this edition!
We have some for sale, and because of the hot Aussie dollar right now i am excited to be selling them for $29.95 now! They were $39.95. So if u don't win u can still grab your copy :) but hurry cos once these are gone...they are forever gone!

So basically what you need to do to enter is go to Memoirs of a gay guy blog and see what you have to do to enter!
HURRY competition closes in a week!

Easy Paper decorations

PAPER HEART DECORATIONS
I have been unwell for quite some time now and very very over it! But the positive that has come from it all, is that i can trawl on Pinterest lots and find inspiration and fun things to create!
If u haven't been to Pinterest yet, its time you visited! its Just a visual feast!! So today is so rainy and i am starting to feel a bit better and feel like making something and came across some fun and easy things to make with paper!! I know this is the last weekend of holidays for some and now here in Sydney its cold and rainy, so some of these decorations may be a great way to keep not only the kiddies entertained but also make your house that bit more special! So the first is pretty straight forward
-cut out hearts from old magazines
-stick fishing wire on the back with double sided tape,
-attach a heart in the same size to the other side
-hang up
pretty simple
for those with golden sewing hands you could sew a few in a line!

photos from Fiskars Craft

COFFEE FILTER LIGHT SHADE
So the next may be a little bit more adventurist, but the end result is quite beautiful!
i would try a much smaller version if this seems a little bit too over the top, and by changing the size of your paper lantern this is quite simple!
All you really need is
- a hot glue gun
-paper lantern
-coffee filters
You can have a look at Parlour Home where i found this paper puffy goodness for more info and pic's. Its pretty straight forward though. I love colour and i think experimenting with some water colours on the filters would look amazing as well. Even if you just brushed the ends of the filter with your chosen colour it could be quite beautiful! I will be trying this at some stage so will let you know how i go!!



MAGAZINE BUNTING
So a party that i very much wished i was able to attend was the Pinterest meet up that was held at another Paper Boutique in LA called Urbanic Paper. unfortunately due to not have ridiculous amount of money to fly over on a private jet to the other side of the earth, i will have to make do with pictures from my very good friend the Internet :)
One thing i spotted was that they had made bunting from what looks like magazine pages!
quite simply all you would need to do to make would be
-cut triangles of equal sizes from old magazines
-sew them together if you can sew
-if u cant sew, punch a hole in the top corners and use twine to thread through!
-i would use jute as i like the rawness of it and i might even add random pages from old books or newspaper just to bring something a little different to the whole look!


You can buy this spoil n scissors from Little Paper Lane as well as the balls of brown string refills

Cover your world in Washi...literally!

Holy shit balls this is awesome! So i am sure most of you follow the very lovely Hello Sandwich Blog and u have probably seen this today already, but i HAD to pop some pic's up just in case u haven't seen it!!
I actually first saw it onPoppyTalk which is another exceptionally awesome blog if you haven't read before, and every one's talking about Washi Tape for your walls! Sincol and MT have come together to create washi wall paper....and i want it all now!!
like i want to cover my car, my shop, my floors and furniture in it! Amazing!!




Photo's from Sincol

Message in a bottle

So this week i have been at home with a lovely cough. One of those delightful coughs that sounds like a dog barking and also swallowed a squeaky chew toy at the same time...mmmm nice! so i have been a little exhausted and sore from all the flipping coughing and on Tuesday i thought I was getting better and went to work(sorry if i coughed on you). It was a nice enough day, lovely customers, but not very busy!
In the afternoon an older gentleman in his 70's popped in for a little look. He has been in before and he is always so lovely and has a little chat. He is also not one of these older guys that go on and on, he just seems to know how to tell a good story then buys something then off he goes! He reminds me of a fisherman. He wears one of those beanies that old salt's wear with a duffle coat like before they are about to set off to sea on a cold winters day! In summer he wears one of those cricket hats that Sir Donald Bradman wore...What a stylish guy, he is great!
Anyway, he spotted the O CHECK message in a bottle that we sell and thought it was quite awesome. He told me that he was the caretaker and lived at Palm Beach Lighthouse for 8 years and whenever there was a westerly wind he would write a message in a bottle and throw it in the water for someone to find! He told me that he received a few messages back in the years he was the caretaker and that he received a letter from someone on Norfolk Island 5 years after he sent a bottle out! He always put a self addressed stamped envelope in it so that the receiver could write back.
What an amazing feeling to receive a message back after so many years! He received them from all over the place including Western Australia!
He told me that recently a bottle washed up a shore in Australia he didn't say where, but the bottle with its little letter of happy was written by a man who was on board a ship in the Navy during World War 1. It had taken this long to come ashore. I feel like the message in a bottle is so romantic and old school and although its kind of littering the sea, I love the thought of putting your thoughts out to sea in hopes that one day someone would read your words!
Now I'm not suggesting we litter the sea, but maybe 1 day on some very special occasion we could all put our own thoughts out to sea in hopes that someone you don't know out there in the world can read them!
Maybe a beautiful thing to do when you get married! Together with your partner you could write a message about your love to each other and put it out there. That would be a very special thing to find!



Message in a bottle is available in store now at Little Paper Lane





photo from Jervis Sparks

if u ever want a great walk i would totally recommend The Barrenjoey Headland Walk up to the light house! The view is amazing and if its a cooler day and the sky is blue its perfect for Palmy. a little tip from a local...Palm Beach is quiet Monday to Friday, its so perfect for visiting, but the weekends are chaos even in Winter when the weather is nice!

Watermelon makes kids wee a lot, and Poo story

Warning this story involves kids poo and wee

Ok so i normally write about paper and things surrounding paper, but i have had one of those days and i think in order for me to let go of this day, i need to write it down!
So this morning at about 5am my husband bought our very sad 4 year old into our bed. He has nightmares quite a bit and i thought he had had another bad dream, once he cuddled in he went straight to sleep. I remember thinking YESSSS its 5am and i still have a couple hours sleep and i went back into a deep sleep with my little man cuddled under my arm!
My Husband left at 6am and he is working on the road until Thursday so i remember saying goodbye in a haze. Luckily for us our little man is one to sleep in so when my alarm went off at 8am i happily hit the snooze for 10 minutes! i started to get ready before he woke up as i knew when he woke up it was breaky and getting ready for kindy..He has to be there about 9:30 and then i can be to the shop before we open at 10:00am......SO at 8:30 my little sleepy eyed, bed head, beautiful morning boy that he normally is, woke with very rosey cheeks and tears in his eyes :( "Mummy Meine nose not working" AWWW poor thing had a stuffed nose that for some reason was also running, and a delightful cough. Now for Iggy to even mention that he doe not feel good is strange! He and my brother Sam(22yrs) are the only humans on earth that will not even mention or act sick even when they are very ill. I remember my brother was in hospital after an operation and clearly looked in pain, and when my Mum asked him 'are u ok dahl, should we get a nurse' he just shrugged and said ' nah its all good'...it was not 'all good' at all....they just never complain and just seem to suck it up, so when my little man had a tear running down his face, i knew he was feeling yuk!
We have all had this stupid cough/cold/body aching sickness all last week, so i guess it is Iggy's turn. Steve and I are the type of parens to keep Iggy home from kindy when he is sick cos well, we are caring, plus i dont want the other kiddies getting sick, cos that's just mean, and they all end up continually getting sick. This is where my dilemma started. My brother is stayng with me and was ok to look after him at night but had a training thing on in the day, My mum not only works for me but also has other jobs, my Dad was working on the other side of the city, my other brother works full time and his partner is at home but their little girl has been sick and clearly didn't need to get sick again and Steve is away!
So in the small time frame i had, i had no choice but to take him to work with me....BUT i needed artillery....i grabbed the beanbag, his crotchet blanket, luckily my husband had made his kindy lunch the night before so i took that in his kindy bag(THANK GOODNESS more about that later) and trains, track, colouring, sticker books, DVD's and my laptop!
I was starting sewing class tonight so i had my sewing machine, all my sewing bits n pieces as well as my work stuff and we somehow got out the door at 9:36 which is fine cos it takes 10 minutes to get to my shop so all good.
THEN as i was loading the car with all the bits, luckily i have a 4WD witha good boot i needed it today, i saw it....FLAT TIRE...oh my freaking goodness...c'moooooon.....its just a slow leak LUCKILY and i have a petrol station very close so i filled her up and off we went coughing and snotting all over the place.
1 minute later as we approached the Bilgola Bends traffic was stopped..FUCK, just perfect!!
it was backed up the entire Bends because they were sweeping leaves in Newport. Thank goodness for all the signs that people put up, u can have a little look at some signs we get to see every day at Round The Bends!!
So finally when i approached Mona Vale i was feeling a little less anxious as it was only 3 minutes to 10:00 which is annoying but not as late as i thought it was going to be. As i turned into the driveway(i have parking out the back of my shop) i realised this week they were starting reno's on the building which meant...tradies...tradies and their many vans and Utes and trucks taking up my fucking parking spots....bitches...there is nothing that pisses me off more than someone parking in my two spots that i pay shit loads of rent for every flipping week! i felt my heart start to race and pretty sure i went red not only in my face but my hair ends were sizzling. Luckily there was one spot in front of the fish n chip shops spot but they don't often have two cars there. I parked and tried to calm my soul, unloaded the car which felt like i was unpacking for a holiday there was so much stuff. Got Iggy out, who 'needed to be carried' of coarse, then asked the very lovely fish n chip man if it was ok if i parked in his spot and he was so happy as always and said 'of coarse', which seriously made my day and we then got in the shop!!!
Now usually Tuesday is the quiet day so this was why i wasn't too worried about Iggy being with me at the shop....but today, we started with 6 very lovely gals from Newcastle ready to shop!!!
So the day was busy but ok not too out of control, but a fatal mistake that was made today by me was giving Iggy at 10:30 some watermelon...if u are a Mum u should know, this is the fruit of choice to induces many many wee's through out the day!
I do not have a toilet in my shop, there is some in the upstairs office, and also some out the back near the car park. As Iggy only just turned 4 he cant just walk off to the toilet when needed, he needs his Mum or Dad or responsible adult to help! i was alone in the shop and Iggy by 12:30 had done 6 wee's...6 WEE'S!! i was lucky that at one point of the morning Jack(16yrs) who i used to be the Nanny for their family, popped in for a visit and bought me a sugar free redbull...LOVE YOUR GUTS JACK, and he took him for a toilet visit, but the other times we had no choice but to use a jar i had out back....now some of you may think this is gross, but if you are a mum i am pretty sure there has been a situation in your life where u have had to take your child to some strange 'toilet' whether it be a jar, or a bucket or a sink or wherever the hell you can find! Thank goodness for the sink and washing up liquid for cleaning and the fact he a boy and well its a lot easier, but man watermelon makes kids wee a lot.
So by 2pm Iggy was doing very well, he had snuggled on his beanbag and watched movies and played Thomas the tank games on the Internet and played puzzles and really been a very good little man. THEN i smelt something, there was a customer in store and for a minute i thought she had let one rip...trust me it happens a lot haha, but then i had a thought...Iggy has been very quiet for a while...as a parent we know that quiet means they are either asleep, doing something naughty or doing a POO.....OH GOD...the smell. I asked Iggy quietly, 'bubby, do u need to go to the toilet' his little face was a bit pale and he said 'nahhh i just popped' haha, so i was feeling a little bit relaxed, then i got chatting with a customer and a cute little face was standing next to me with those very big blue eyes and said 'mummy, i really need to do a poo'... i said 'can u hang on for two seconds lil man'.......'mmmmmmm' was all he said.....i think we were in the 'turtle head poking out' point and he couldn't hold on for any longer...the customer who was chatting with me clearly didn't understand the seriousness of the situraton and just gave him the 'awwww cute' smile face and continued to try and chat with me...clearly not a mother. She finally left and just as i was grabbing the keys to run another person was in the shop...Iggy was dancing up and down really needing to get upstairs. Luckily for me the customer that was in the shop didn't like smiling and didn't like that i said 'hello how you going?" to her and left...and then we bolted....i left all the stock out the front of the shop shut the door and threw Iggy over my shoulder and bolted....we didn't make it....i wrapped the undies up and threw them out....i wont describe the severity of what was happening but lets just say...THANK GOODNESS I BOUGHT THE KINDY BAG WITH SPARE UNDIES AND PANTS.... so now, we were dealing with this cough,snot, hot head, diarrhea situation...with no toilet access easily and only 1 spare pare of pants. the next 2 times it was going to happen, no one was around and i bolted and it was cool....at 4:35 my dad finally rang to say 'hey i will be there at 5:30' to get Iggy so you can go to your sewing class and i was being optimistic about everything thinking it was all going to be sweet, then a lovely lady was in my shop looking for cards and gifts and i was telling her Iggy was unwell and wow what a day and she was very understanding as she has 3 kids, and just as i was putting her sale through that cute little pale faced blue eyes angel was looking at me. The lady was so nice and helped me throw everything in her bag and grabbed things out of the way and pulled the door shut for me cos she knew it was time to run...THANK YOU LOVELY LADY IN MY SHOP AT 4:48pm today!
Iggy had already ran up the stairs ahead of me and as i was getting to the top of the stairs where he met me and he said 'my bum exploded in there' and laughed and i really had to laugh but i also realised his pant had been pulled up no wipe...that's our job still.....GAME OVER!!!
Usually i shut at 5:30, but for the sake of my sanity and my poor little mans bottom i shut up shop and cancelled sewing, because well Mums are probably the only humans on earth that can deal with 'poo' issues! there was no way in hell my dad would even know how to change a nappy when he was a baby let a lone deal with diarrhea and my brother can hardly get his washing done let alone deal with his nephews poo, NO this was a job only Mummy could handle today! So as we drove home dreaming of how wonderful that bath would be and the loads of washing to be done, just as we came into Avalon. Iggy fell asleep...with poo stuck to his bum and my car smelling delightful.

Just a little side note to totally gross u out..... on Saturday, i got some dinner supplies from Thomas Dux and thought i would get a little treat for Steve and Iggy. Steve being Canadian i bought him some Root beer and Iggy a cream soda, the fancy clear kind. For some reason Iggy wanted his Blue and Green, so i put a bit in his cup and put like 1 drop of green food dye and he loved it and when he was finishing off the rest of the bottle he asked Steve if he could have it blue.....so instead of 1 drop, Steve got a little food colour crazy and well Iggy's mouth was blue even after i brushed his teeth....soo yeah, did you know that if u give kids too much food dye their poo goes like paint green for a week.....yeah that's what I'm dealing with today!!!

Iggy is going to hate my guts when he reads this when he is older haha...hello future Iggy, Mummy loves you!

you can buy Cream Soda at Thomas Dux don't food dye

National Stationery Show 2011 NYC

As most of you know, i headed to New York city recently to attend the National Stationery Show, or the NSS as us paper peeps like to call it ;). I somehow managed to book our apartment only 10 blocks from the Javits centre where it was being held, and on the first day was happy to walk even though it was raining, but walking in New York is the best way to see the amazing city it is! So after my 10 block walk in the rain, i was all of a sudden confronted by a huge line of people...GREAT...everyone was dressed like they were going to dinner and i thought it was a little strange that people would wear heels to a stationery trade fair, when the whole day all we do is walk around. Soon i started to see flowers and presents and kinda realised i was not in the right spot, despite the HUGE flashing sign saying Javits centre. I was clearly at the wrong entrance and thought that if i got past this very very very long line i would hit the right entrance. So i started to make my way past the people and worked out it was a Graduation day and these were the families waiting to get in. After nearly every single person in this line of at least 200 people stared at me(i was getting used to the looks, the entire city had been staring at me and my 3 yr old for the previous 3 days, i somehow stand out in NYC) i ended up at the bottom corner of the Javits centre nearing water. I looked left and i did not see an entrance. There was no way i was walking past those staring eyes again, its ok when a person checks the hair out every now and then but when a mass group of people do it, its a little daunting. So i walked the long lonely wall. it took me forever to walk around the entire centre and finally i had arrived at the entrance... if only i had gone left at the long line of people instead of right, the entrance was all of about 10 metres from them! I blame Tony and Guy and their awesome haircuts..So once i was in i stopped for a coffee because i seriously needed a sit down. I was going to get a quick email check in and give my back a little rest before the big day of walking around and then a lady sat at the table with me. Now she was lovely, but she was also a talker....like a full on talker, one of those people that you cant get a word in to excuse your self and clearly wasn't taking the hint that i really needed to get going. so after 40 minutes of trying my hardest to leave, she told ME " You have to go, I just have so much work to do"...damn why didn't i rudely butt in at minute 7 with that one, and off i went!
When i was in, i was on a mission. If u ever come to a trade fair with me you will see i turn into a sort of friendly robot! i am by nature polite so i always say no thank you and smile when being pushed by people to come look at their products, and i am quick, but when i spot something i like, it can sometimes take me a little longer to leave!
I really like to chat with the creator and find out a Little bit about the background of them and their creation. I think its really important for shop owners to know where their products come from. I mean the humans behind the products most importantly!
So after lots of chats with lovely people and looking through many many products i wanted to show u a little of what i found!
I will be getting new things soon, a few people called me last Monday to find out if the new products had arrived!?!? I only got back the Sunday, it does take a little longer than a day to get products from America :) so i promise we will have new things soon enough, but u will have to wait a minute or two!!
for now enjoy a little of what i saw!

Smock is starting to pop up a lot in Australia and although i don't stock them(yet!?!), i wanted to show u their papers! its such a lovely product range and their invites are just amazing. and so so many! i think they are truly leading the letterpress world in the States.





What a very cool product line Viva Greetings really is!




Sometimes simple things are often the most visually stimulating! I had to take a little pic of Paper Boat Studios display! how lovely is it!


If there is ever an ethical and wonderfully happy brand to check, make sure its Ecojot. When i was in New York 2 years ago, i actually bought a set of two Ecojot notebooks which i still have on my shelf and when Little Paper Lane was being thought up, Ecojot was on the top of my list of products to adorn my happy little shop! I have had them in the store since day 1 and will continue to, especially after seeing the new goodies on its way!! if u have a spare second also check out their Give program. With the sale of each 5x7", jumbo journal and all eco sketchbooks, we will donate a school workbook or pencil to a child in need. - BUY 1, GIVE 1. We are so happy to be able to contribute in supporting kids in developing countries and u can too! just come and buy a notebook :)



What a visually esthetic stand this was to find! What can i say?!? just rad...check out Spitfire




I was so very excited to see Yellow Owl Workshop because i have been stocking them from the day we opened at Little Paper Lane and although our friends at Telegram are the Australian distributors now, it was so wonderful to meet and be greated with a big warm hug and hello from my friend Evan who i had only met via email. Evan handles all the emaily stuff and when i first started getting their products in, he was always so very happy and helpful and made everything so easy, even though products needed to come across the seas. I always managed to get the products in about a week...which is amazing!! it was also awesome to see the new goodies we would be getting soon enough!!



One of the most pleasant and colour soothing stalls was from Gold Teeth Brooklyn. What a happy little stall to visit. I had had a little chat and browse through the cards earlier in the day and even Evan from Yellow Owl Workshop told me to go back and look again :) i think they were a crowd favourite and they were for sure some of my fav cards and i will be trying my hardest to have them hit our shores soon!




Throughout the whole show stalls would be adorned with wonderful paper works of art! These lovely Paper roses were made to showcase some of the papers on offer from Soho Paper



I would have to say that one of my very favourite products of the show was these adorable Tooth Fairy Mail bags from Wild Horse Press. They come with 5 little letterpressed envelopes that you use for when you loose a tooth.....I hope it doesnt take too long for these little babies to be here!



I was Lucky enough to meet with the one and only Ed Roth and got to have a little chat to him about his awesome stencils. We have the Stencil book instore, but watch this space as we are hoping to have a few of these stencil packs in store in the near future


I will be posting about 'The Paper Runway' that was put on by sponsors Kates Paperie. I was lucky enough to visit their Lafayette store...but more about that soon :)