smaller

small photo- still lives

We are getting into still life photography and have commissioned shoots for the next two issues. We just got in the first by Grant Cornett (check out his still life work here), which you will be able to see in the next issue (out soon!).  Scheltens and Abbenes have some wonderful and inspiring still life photography (and textile art by Abbenes) on their site.

small threads - Little Warrior

 

I spotted Little Warrior at Children's Club a few weeks ago and loved the sorbet color palette and american indian graphics mixed with classic silhouettes. (that poncho is to die for!) It's designed and made in LA. Look for Little Warrior in the next issue of Small.

Little Warrior

small play - smartplayhouse

It's wonderful to come across an alternative the the traditional country cottage or plastic playhouses for kids. SmartPlayhouse designs ones that are definitely a little more pricey but the great architecture and best-quality materials are worth it. Plus after the kids are grown your left with a pretty cool garden shed.
 

 

 

on a side note.....

I just wanted to share with you the local blog I started with some talented ladies here in Dallas. Although local, we also blog about great kids stuff....so check it out!

tinyDallas

Small giveaway- Winter Water Factory

Winter Water Factory is the work of the Brooklyn based duo, Margaret McCartney and Stefanie Lynen. Their signature designs are colorful, freash and bold fabrics - all hand printed on organic cotton and made into gorgeous clothes entirely made in the USA.We have featured Winter Water Factory in Small several times (here and here to show just a few!)

This week, hooray hooray.... Winter Water Factory are giving away a perfect spring dress (girls) AND a print tee shirt (boys) both pictured above.  Check out their website and leave a comment here telling us how you would dress your little one in these designs. (....dont' foget to specify boy or girl and leave your email address in your comment).

playtime new york favorites part 2

A nod to sailor stripes by Little Esop.

 

Charcoal wool, thin engineer stripes and camel colored linen by Little Lief.

 

Army green and owls at Bobo Choses.

 

Feather embroidery by Coral & Tusk.

 

Brand new circus and pirate series wall stickers by Love Mae.

 

  
 

Classic dressing by Dagmar Daley and art by Carin Berger in her booth.

 

 

Artists installations all around the venue of Playtime New York.

playtime new york favorites part 1

Colorful accessories by Lucky Wang (look for these in the next issue!)

 

Beautiful neutrals by ESP no.1

 

Feminine skull necklaces paired with soft florals by Vent Contraire.

 

Recycled sweater booties, scarves and how cute are these felted ice cream necklaces? (these may be in the next issue too!) by Seven Smooches.

 

Denim done a million cool ways by Kutie Protocol, plus the famous couple names of each garment.

 

Luxe miltilary coat and cloud details by newcomer Pale Cloud.

Small type- Meredith Gaston's first book

 

The lovely illustrator Meredith Gaston has published her first book....all about bed. Filled with stories and facts about snoozing, 'Tucked in'  is perfect for anyone having a 'doona day'.

Small photo- siblings five

Next weekend Davina Zagury is doing her fifth instalment of the Sibling Project at the lovely Pomme store. We have loved her work since we first saw it and asked her to be in the third issue of Small. To secure a portrait slot at Pomme in Dumbo log on here and make a booking. In order to secure your session, a non refundable $30 deposit is required ($10 will be deducted from your print order). Fee includes: a 10 to 15 minute session, image editing, online gallery, $10 credit toward prints, participation in the exhibit. Prints will be available for order after the exhibit opening.

Pomme: 81 Washington St at York
DUMBO, in Brooklyn

inspiration 97

a weekly dyptych of work that ins[pires us from all fields of art.....

Dirk Santvoort- oil painting 'little boy in white' (check out their unique hand painted oils in the childrens collection on the same website)

Hendrik Kerstens (his daughter)

we would love to do a shoot inspired by dutch portraits- anyone interested...?

.....thanks for the link in the comments to Stefano Azario - 'girl with the pearl earring' inspired shoot. Here are the images.

 

Small beats- lullatones

Some stills from the brilliant new Lullatones video- Experiements from around the House. The music is from the new album Elevator Music. ...Believe them- your two year old is going to love this!

If you haven't heard about the Lullatones check out there wonderful and whimsical approach to kids music and read more about what inspires them in our interview with them in the Autumn issue of Small.

Right now they are offering listeners the chance to download their albums (and pay what they want) with all proceeds going to help the Red Cross in Japan. Click here for more information.

 

 

small threads- annie larsen

These hats are for adults but I think they would look great a bit over sized on a kid. Annie Larson's website is full of bright, hand assembled and uniquely patterned wooly sweaters, scarves, skirts and other knits. So fun!

small hands - jess brown and rae dunn

While sifting through many, many images snapped at Playtime (report coming this week!) I totally forgot about this great tea set I meant to share with you guys last week! Jess Brown and artist Rae Dunn collaborated on this sweet ceramic tea set with drawings Jess' daughter did years ago when Jess started making her now famous, rag dolls. I am loving how the clean lines compliment the drawings. It even has little sewing stitch drawn details on the back of the cups and pitcher. You get 2 cups, 2 plates and 1 pitcher.

Jess Brown

small finds- marvellous maps

My Bearded Pigeon has lovely organic pillows with printed maps from around the world. I love the New York one.

A map of london cut (yes hand cut!) out of a sheet of paper from Studiokmo. Karen has many other great map prints as well on her site.

 

inspiration 96

lost boys...

Kai Samules-Davis  (you can buy very reasonably priced prints at his etsy shop- Windy Lane Studios)

Bill Henson (always lovely and sometimes controversial)

small art - rock that horse

These posters from Rock that Horse would add just the right amount of edginess to any kid's room.

small type- book party

Dallas Clayton is one of our favorite authors/artists and have featured both his books in Small. Check out our current issue to read about the making of his books and his fun philosophy. For the spring Dallas Clayton is planning an 'awesome world tour' and will be making a stop at Little Bean in Dallas, Texas on March 20th at 2pm.

If you are interested in having Dallas come to your venue to read and sign books then you can get in touch with him through his website. You can order his books or read his book for free on line here.

Recently one of our readers, Sharon Garufolo of Cupcakes and Cutlery (a party ideas blog) hosted a Awesome Book of Thanks themed book party. Anyone who has held a kids party knows how much effort goes in to the planning. She sent us a few pictures and wrote a little about the day.

"I am huge fan of Dallas Clayton.  Aside from his amazing illustrations, his messages are so important for kids to hear. I don't think they can hear them enough.  So... knowing that by next year my son will have a say in his birthday party theme, I relished the chance to choose this last one.  When I heard about the newest Awesome book, An Awesome Book of Thanks, I knew that is what it would be.  It was great to do this kind of party, one that is not traditional or found in party stores, because it allowed me to be creative and different.  

I had been wanting to work with Amber of Pitbulls and Posies. Amber had given me the idea of doing an activity for the kids by printing some of the pages on watercolor paper.  I tweaked the idea a bit by choosing three pages that said "Thank You", changed them to black and white and added some extra lines below for writing on.   Even though some of the kids were too small to write, they all enjoyed using the watercolors.  It was an easy activity to set up and pretty inexpensive.  

All of the guests told me how much they enjoyed the party and it was by far my favorite party to plan.  I look forward to seeing what books Dallas Clayton shares with us next."

Thank you Sharon!

Sharon Garufolo of Cupcakes and Cutlery

Small finds- my knight in shining armor

Dragon in a cave from the Play Store

Wooden sword with leather pouch and natural wood Sheild from Birch Leaf Designs

Castle wall blocks from Romp

Knight dress ups from Wovenplay at Acorn

(all four of these stores are great resources for imaginative and well made toys and gifts)

small inspiration 95

Davina Feinberg from the 'enameled' series

Dianne Arbus  Portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt's sleeping infant son Anderson Cooper (interesting family!)

small shops - Playtime NY POP UP SHOP

I am so excited about the Playtime NY Pop Up Shop this weekend! Small will be there covering the trade show so we can report back to you what all our favorite indie designers are up to. For the first time Playtime NY is open to the public for their Pop Up Shop. Shop collections from Atsuyo et Akiko, Dagmar Daley, Winter Water Factory, Lucky Wang and Wovenplay. So if your in NYC this weekend stop by and check it out!

March 5 – 7, 2011, at SoHo’s 82 Mercer (82 Mercer Street between Spring and Broome Streets, 9am – 6pm, 5pm the last day).

I will be back next week to report on the show!

Small bites - Food is Fun

I always refer to Anorak Magazine as "a really cool Highlights". Don't get me wrong, I love Highlights and although a classic (my 7 year old does subscribe), Anorak takes a modern approach engaging kids in a thoughtful way no other magazine does. I sell the mag in my shop and often find myself coloring and reading the stories in new issues myself - without the kiddos.

I was happy to receive an email this morning that Anorak has just released Food is Fun, "THE only lil' foodie bible you will need to get inspired and excited about food." 160 pages packed with recipes, the history of the fork, and amazing illustrations by Supermundane (Anorak's art director) and written by Cathy Olmedillas, the mastermind behind Anorak.

I immediate ordered copies to sell in the shop! You can order yours here for the budding little foodies in your life (or just you!). While you are there order an issue of Anorak. You will fall in LOVE!!!!

small report - momfilter

 

We love the idea behind Momfilter, stated here in the editors letter:

"To understand Momfilter, we have to go back to a typical day at Cookie, the parenting magazine that we founded in 2004 and that folded in 2009. The inspiration for this site, as well as for the magazine where we all met, can be traced back to the questions raised in casual conversations around the office: Did Ben go through the night without wetting his bed? Did you punish Matt when got back from his long trip? Why don’t we have federally subsidized day care? What jeans are those? What is sensory integration disorder? These water cooler moments–sometimes mundane, sometimes political, sometimes deeply personal–were in fact our newsroom. Our own little focus group reveals parents’ twin desires to be informed by trusted voices as well as moved by, say, a beautiful photo of a sleeping child that requires no explanation."

Oh, and did we mention that these "editors" happen to be Pilar Guzman and Yolanda Edwards, the founding editors of the now (sadly)  defunct Cookie Magazine??? OK so enough said. We are excited they are back with their take on parenting, food, fashion, travel, and everything else in between.

Now go read: Momfilter

Small Sale - Sweet William - One day only!!!!!

 OK I am pretty upset I am missing this--I am only a few days shy of being in NYC for Playtime, but you guys will have to go snatch up all the goodies from all these amazing designers at 75% off!

Here are the details:

Sweet William in Manhattan

Wednesday March 2nd

85 Kenmare St.

NY NY 10012

Sweet William

small magazine- just thinking about the next issue.....

We started Small four years ago because at that point there was nothing similar available, and we really believed small scale and independent design deserved high quality editorial coverage and exposure. The  internet seemed to be the way we could be both free to read and, importantly for us, editorially independent. We are glad to see now that there are so many online magazines featuring childrens design. Two of our favorites are LMNOP and Papier Mache.

We have let ourselves take a little break this winter, the first one we have had from producing the magazine in over four years.  We live in different hemispheres and work long distance by email and phone, doing all the work at night after our children are asleep or early in the morning before work. We are so lucky we have such supportive families and for all the amazing work from the writers, artists, photographers, designers and stylists who have made Small possible by contributing their talent and their time. We are also lucky with our sponsors. Every one of them is a great independent designer or retailer, so please take the time to look at their sites.

We have some changes planned for later in the year but in the meantime we would love to hear what you want us to keep doing and covering in Small (...and Smaller too).

While you are waiting for the next issue of Small you can always look through our back issues!

The Spring issue should be in your inbox in about a month!