These plate mats from Solitaire offer an easy way of adding a touch of vintage style to your dinner table. Each cotton mat is hand printed with a colourful illustration of a vintage place setting, complete with plate, knife and fork. You just need to hope that your actual crockery isn't shown up by your place mat!
The mats cost £6.50 each.
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If you liked the Have a Nice Day London Bus poster we featured earlier in the year, you may be interested to hear that Illustrated Living are stocking a wider range of posters by Takashi Furuya. All his work has a retro feel but while that poster looked like it came from a British artwork tradition, the four posters shown here are made to look deliberately Scandinavian.
The poster in the top right is another variation on the Have a Nice Day message – this time in Swedish. The top left image represents Love, the poster of the boy with the bottle of drink who looks like he stepped straight from an advert carries the phrase for 'delicious', while (believe it or not) the man in the bottom right shows an optimist. Something to appeal to everyone then!
Each poster costs £14.95 from Illustrated Living
2009 has surely been the year of the owl revival. They've been everywhere, from clocks to prints to tea towels. What better way to mark the end of the year then than sending an owl Christmas card? Solitaire have produced this lovely retro-style design showing our favourite feathered friend amidst a snowy scene of pine cones and snow flakes.
It's hand-screen printed and uses recycled materials for the card and envelope. Solitaire also have several other designs with a similar feel that show traditional festive subject matter such as Christmas wreaths and crackers. Each card costs £3.
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Bourjois have made it easy to add a touch of French chic to your look with their new set of limited edition make-up. They've used Parisian artist Nathalie Lété to create new packaging for some of their little round pots featuring vintage looking illustration of famous Paris landmarks for the collection, called Rendez-vous à Paris.
The images are reminiscent of old-fashioned tourist souvenirs of the city with the Arc de Triomphe, for example, featuring on a pot of shimmering white eye shadow while a blusher case shows the Eiffel tower. The result manages to capture some of the romance of the city and reflect the long of the association of the city with fashion and cosmetics.
The range is available exclusively at ASOS in the UK. At £5.85 for an eye shadow and £6.85 for the blushers, it probably works out cheaper than going to Paris and buying them there!
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An attractive new product from Ikea that manages a whole lot of cheep on the cheap. This Bärbar tray is covered with colourful images of birds that has more than a little look of Charley Harper about it.
It measures 33cm square and costs just £4.99. Sadly, you'll have to brave your local store to pick one up as it doesn't seem to currently be available through their website.
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Shinzi Katoh's retro-styled illustrations are an ongoing favourite with this site. Fellow fans will be pleased to hear that Lazy Oaf are now stocking some Shinzi Katoh stationery including the notebooks pictured above.
The 'Friends' notebook on the left is a sturdy spiral bound number, while the 'Rain maker' notebook on the right comes with lovely illustrated pages and a sticker sheet. There are equally charming notebooks available in a 'Lion' or 'House' design. All the notebooks cost £5, apart from Friends which is £6.50.
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