Because we (like most other people) love looking at vintage things, we couldn’t resist rolling up our sleeves, digging through some really dusty books for ideas, and adding some old school flair to the shop.

Here are the results: three very skinny exercise booklets, each filled with 25 blank pages of sugarcane paper. The pastel paper covers are printed with our original designs pairing vintage images with sage quotes from The Science of Culture (a stuffy book on etiquette from1923). Each set comes wrapped in a recycled kraft paper package. Available now in our store.

Working on these new designs yesterday afternoon was a really welcome break from the big three-(now four)-month-long project I’m still up to my shoulders in. Somewhere in the midst of this, we are also working on the spring/summer collection of our signature photo-cover journals. Please do continue to check back in during the coming months to see what new things we are adding to Five and a Half!

This morning I read an article in The New York Times about a hundred-and-one year old lady who started painting when she was sixty years old using a paint-by-numbers set her husband gave her. Coincidentally, a couple hours later when I was on the computer, I came across Something’s Hiding in Here’s new work, states, that uses old paint-by-numbers sets. And from some random googling because I was looking for a completely unrelated reference image, I came upon an old post at Drawn, about a paint-by-numbers charity auction at the Corey Helford Gallery (click on past shows, “Charity by Numbers”). Oooh. Very nice.

even when they’re almost thirty. And of course he paints it blue.

Oh and check out Shawn’s new apron. We like! Made from a real vintage flour sack, you can get your own one here.

I’ve had this glass jar sitting on my shelf since December. I set it up for the DWR Modernmart event back then and had it on my table for passerbys. What’s inside? Little paper fortunes, pieces of wisdom, well wishes. Whoever stuck their hand in the jar pulled out a nice saying, and a few lucky people ended up with a gift bag filled with Five and a Half goodies to take home.

I’d like to reenact the jar of wishes online, for all you who couldn’t be there to draw from the real jar of wisdom.  Only this time, it requires a bit of participation on your end. And yes, there are gift bags involved!

Interested? Here’s what to do:

Write in the comments section of this post your own original well-wish or piece of wisdom. (Include your name, e-mail and website.)

From the submissions we get, we’ll choose our favorite 3,  who will each receive a Five and a Half journal. Also, Shawn will hand-letter those 3 sayings into notecards (with each credited to its author of course) which will be printed and mailed to all of you who participate (we’ll ask for all your mailing addresses when the cards are ready, don’t put your mailing addy in the comments section for the world to see!).

To get you started, here are a few of the pieces of wisdom and well wishes that we had in the jar of wisdom (I was in such a hurry I didn’t think of any of my own):

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” ~Mark Twain

“If life seems to have more questions than answers, try to be the one who asks the questions.” ~Lucy as Madame Fullcharge, Peanuts

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.” ~Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Remember, these examples are by other people. We’d like to hear your own original sayings, created by you.

Okay, now it’s your turn!

{Update, April 22nd, 2008: Thanks for writing in with your quotes! We’ve picked our favorite three and are making them into notecards to send to the first 22 of you who wrote in with your original sayings. We’ll post pics of the notecards online soon!}

Another beautiful winter morning. We’re smiling at our new sculptures by Chris Rom and Geoff Buddie that we brought home last weekend when we went to Greenjeans to pick up our plants that Amy took care of for us when we were away.

There was a lovely treat waiting in the mailbox this afternoon, lillie’s companion cookbook. The recipes in the cookbook are a compilation of favorites from the kitchens of her family and friends. She made these beautiful handmade books as holiday gifts, and it is such an honor to receive one. Now, once I get over how pretty it looks, I’ll pick out some delicious dishes to make. Thank you Lillie!

“We went to Red Hook, Brooklyn to look for a community farm built on an old asphalt field. The farm was closed so we went to the pier nearby. There was a gigantic cruise boat floating and two families fishing. On our way back we saw a beautiful dusk sky. It was the first chilly day after an unusually long summer.”

A new journal in the winter collection, we debuted this one at Design Within Reach’s ModernMart event in December and couldn’t help noticing how many people were drawn to it. The colors are richer and darker than our other cover images, but there’s a certain quiet grandeur about it that makes it one of my favorites. It’s now available in the store.

Some things I’ve come across online: essimar’s work with colors and x-acto knives, hand-stitched books by permanent crease bindery, and the quiet pages of an artists’ journal, elizabeth perry’s woolgathering.

And something that might be of interest to those of you who are more adept with sewing than I am: Greenjeans has posted a call for entries for a juried exhibition of small handmade quilts. The deadline for submissions is January 20th, which is coming up really quickly, but you can submit sketches and ideas if you don’t have a quilt on hand yet. You can find out more details here.

It’s a brilliant sun-filled morning over here in Brooklyn, and I’m ready to get to work (hopefully I’ll get a lot done before jetlag starts acting up in the afternoon). Hope you all are also enjoying the beautiful winter weather!

During our stay in Asia, we took a weekend trip to Hong Kong. Towering buildings, crazy traffic, streets packed with shoppers, and an occasional moment or two that reminded me of the old Hong Kong I grew up in. I also remembered the pet bird I had when I was in elementary school, a little blue budgie named Wendy.

Sightseeing aside, we ventured out to a less touristy area, Tin Hau, in search of a shop called Kapok. We followed our map to the hillside, up a winding cement staircase, and found the store on a sloped, tree-lined street that carried the light scent of incense from the temple nearby. The minute we stepped inside, we were all smiles.

Kapok is part storefront, part gallery space, part design studio, carrying products by Asian and European designers. We spent quite a while there, looking over all the things in the store and chatting with the owner, Arnault, who told us about a great teahouse that we headed over to later in the afternoon. We left the store with a bunch of things from Postalco - marbled journals and notecards, postcards, a wallet, and two booklets, sheets of silkscreened wrapping paper from Bob Foundation, and Print’em’s Shift Calendar 2008 (we’ve been so picky about calendars and this one seems to be just what we’re looking for, except it’s missing a hole at the top to hang it by, so I’ll have to use my hole-puncher).

Seeing Kapok makes me wish I had a big first floor studio with a big glass window so that I could turn half of it into a gallery and storefront ~ how fun would that be! It’s a lot of work though, and right now, I’m perfectly content to be back in our sunny and quiet third floor studio!

Our studio is closed for our winter vacation. You can still order Five and a Half journals online, but you’ll have to be patient about receiving them, shipping is on hold until the week of January 20th, 2008.

If you’d like to get some journals before then, here is a list of retailers whose shelves we’ve recently stocked with a fresh supply of journals. Remember, each store carries a different selection, so if you’re looking for a specific cover, be sure to call the individual stores to ask if they have it.

U.S.

Cog and Pearl
190 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.623.8200

Composition
7180 W. Alaska Drive
Lakewood, CO 80226
303.894.0025

Edith and Edna
51 Exchange Street
Portland, ME 04101
207.761.2800

Greenwich Letterpress
39 Christopher Street
New York, NY 10014
212.989.7464

Laumeier Sculpture Park Museum Shop
12580 Rott Road
St. Louis, MO 63127
314.821.1209

Orange Lola
330 Main Street
Wakefield, Rhode Island 02879
401.284.4333

P.A.D.
804 North 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
215.925.4005

Pulp | paper & art
418 North 38th Avenue
Omaha, NE 68131
402.319.7857

International

Beautiful on the inside
45/322 Bourke St.
Surry Hills, 2010
Australia
61.2.9360.7733

Nouvelle Nouvelle
209 Abbott Street
Vancouver B.C.
V6B 2K7, Canada
604.644.3912

Magma Bookshop, London
117-119 Clerkenwell Road
London EC1R 5BY
44.0.20.7242.9503

We’ll be back in the studio in mid-January, with a fresh supply of ideas and new work to share with you. Thank you for all your support throughout 2007, we’ll see you in the new year!