My white Olivetti Valentine

I finally won an Olivetti Valentine typewriter on eBay. I won it while on vacation in Yachats. Since our cabin didn’t have wifi, I had to run to the Yachat’s library and do my bidding...from my car...in the parking lot since the library was closed. To my amazement, it didn’t end in a bloody bidding war. It was the best feeling since I lost a similiar typewriter a few weeks earlier at the last 5 minutes of bidding (damn Auction Sniper).


My favorite part of the typewriter is the cool German letters (like ß) that don’t exist on the standard red Olivetti. It was purchased from a seller in Köln, Germany.

**We stayed at the cozy Shamrock Lodgettes — ‘twas magical.

Doodles

I love Stina Persson’s watercolors. One of her illustrations is in the latest Cookie magazine. Taking inspiration from her work, I took a stab at illustrating a gum drop. It’s a really fun process because you can only do so much before the paper is saturated...then you wait for it to dry. Sometimes, the results are surprisingly better. Other times, the watercolor just looks overworked. I'm still trying to figure out how she gets the subtle gradients where two colors bleed together.

Sneak peek

Here’s a sneak peek on a project that I’ve been tinkering away at. I was inspired by the cool drawstring bags that retailers like Fossil and Anthropologie use with their merchandising. For the holidays, I’d like to sell these Scandinavian-inspired bags on etsy. I used a Gocco machine to print the three different colors—it was a registration disaster. The final design is a simplified version of the one you see here.