Earlier this year I found this odd little book entitled “The Ghosts of My Friends.” Inside were instructions to have your friends sign a line lengthwise down the page with an inky pen tip, and then quickly fold the page before the ink dried. The result is this oddly occult and figural looking inkblot created from their signature. The pages in my book were signed between 1907 and 1923. It’s a beautiful little object, and the concept is brilliant. I can’t imagine why such an ingenious book isn’t in print again.

Today I am driving just 4 hours away from Brooklyn to go to the epic 5000 dealer Brimfield antique show in Massachusetts. Generally I’m spooked by huge outdoor markets because they’re just so overwhelming and exhausting. And when I’m buying for the store, staying calm and collected is key–making absolutely sure I’m paying the right price for the right thing. But Brimfield is too good to miss, so I recently came up with a simple strategy for buying at these kind of events.

The number one key is: don’t expect to find exactly what you’re looking for. I’ve had terribly days when I set out to find one type of thing and can’t find it. If you have an open mind and some patience you’ll no doubt find things you need/want, even if they’re not what you first imagined. I think it’s better to look carefully in a few places than quickly in a lot of places. It’s tempting to cover a lot of ground at Brimfield, but the hustle and bustle of it all tends to overwhelm the senses, and it becomes easy to overlook treasures. And when you do find something, make sure you have cash in hand… checks and credit cards are rarely taken, and ATM’s are few and far between.

I read on one Brimfield website, that if you’re looking for something in particular you should definitely make up a t-shirt that says “I collect blank.” I’m not really sure about this strategy, but last May, my girlfriend Sara was successful in capturing one individual wearing such a shirt (below). If you don’t happen to be into antiquing, the people watching at Brimfield is unparalleled. Boy scout antiquities anyone?

One of things I love about Victorian jewelry is how clearly it relates to furniture and architecture of the same era. In the mid-1800s, when architects and designers were embellishing every building, cabinet, and vase with the Greek key, jewelry designers were carefully enameling the same motif onto tiny little rings and lockets. Lately it seems like this effect is reemerging, but instead of playing off design motifs, designers are sharing broader aesthetic concepts.

My favorite shared design concept lately is the use of burnt wood. For about 5 years now Maarten Baas has been carefully charing iconic pieces of furniture, leaving them blackened and beautiful. The Times recently wrote about J. Morgan Puett’s Pennsylvania house, in which she purposefully burned wooden floorboards and sealed them with linseed oil and polyurethane. And now the concept has trickled down to jewelry, with the French designer Natalia Brilli (an Erie Basin favorite) incorporating burnt wooden beads into her collection this fall. It’s hard not to be drawn to the rough charcoaly black surface of burnt wood!

Hello! I’m Russell and this is my first blog post ever. Thanks to Grace for giving me this opportunity– not only to join the blogosphere, but also to share some thoughts on antiquing in the modern world.

About a year and a half ago I opened Erie Basin, a small shop specializing in on-trend 19th century jewelry and objects. The idea behind Erie Basin was to make available unusual, yet affordable antiques that relate to contemporary design trends. And I have frequently visited the pages of design*sponge to inform my hunt for vintage treasures. So I’m going to talk about some old things that I think are merit modern-day inspiration, as well as some new things that I think are informed by old things. I’m also going to Brimfield this week (the epic outdoor antique fair in Massachusetts), and will share some hunting strategies.

I was working at a little coffee shop in Park Slope, pouring lattes for the Brooklyn commuters when I decided I was going to start my own business. I had toyed with the idea for a while, made a few inquiries, but I didn’t commit to it until one day at the coffee shop. There was this regular… (the real ornery, lonely type) and I think he asked for butter, but I gave him cream cheese on his bagel (horrors!). He wasn’t happy about it. He wrote the nastiest letter to my boss, telling her what a bad person I was for ruining his breakfast with my thoughtless schmearing. Anyway, the boss asked me to think of a way to apologize to him. As you can imagine, this did not appeal to me in the slightest, and it woke me up out of my indecision. I went home and composed my list that night. The list was my commitment to do everything I needed to do to get my business up and running, and to not quit until the last thing on that list was done- no matter how annoying or time consuming the task. I quit my coffee shop job the next week, and concentrated ONLY on completing that list for the next 6 months. When the last thing was done, I had a business to run!

I make lists all the time, but this one is very special to me and is something I’m immensely proud of. I thought it a fitting thing to share when I know so many people reading this are just starting out on their own, or are dreaming of doing so. You can do it! Make a list!

Thanks so much Grace, for the opportunity and for the support. I had a great time sharing all my inspirations with you and all your readers. Happy Independence Day everyone!

I’m always curious about what other people have done for their wedding invitations, especially those whose aesthetic I admire. I asked a few of my favorite married (or almost married) designers to share their wedding invitations with me.

Minhee and Truman Cho are the founders of Paper + Cup Design, one of my favorite online stationery shops.

I first came across their work thru a feature about their fabulous wedding in Martha Stewart Weddings. They made their entire set “grade school” themed to honor their meeting in the elementary school. I love the lined paper and windowed envelopes. So cute!

Lena Corwin is certainly no stranger to Design*Sponge and is another one of my favorite designers. Her blog ~>O<~ inspired me to start my own blog, and her designs for pillows, plates, and ties are to die for.

Her vintage inspired wedding was also featured in Martha Stewart Weddings. I love the restrained use of color on each separate piece. If you’re in the market for something similar, Pantry Press printed Lena’s invites and now offers a ready-made version of her suite for sale to the public. Lena also has a brand new book coming out on July 16th called Printing by Hand, which I’m looking forward to checking out.

joy’s photo by Karen Wise.

Joy D. Cho is another one of my inspirations, both in the design world and the blogosphere. Oh Joy! is daily read, and her line of stationery, Nantaka Joy, features truly elegant patterns and fantastic typography.

Her wedding stationery featured wind and butterflies to symbolize the metamorphosis she went thru with her husband during their 10 year relationship. I love the variety of patterns and iconography in this set. It all just flows…

And last, but certainly not least, Julia Rothman is one of my favorite illustrators and a prolific maker of patterns. She is engaged, and was kind enough to give me a sneak peek at her work-in-progress wedding invitations, which she plans to letterpress in two colors for her up coming fall wedding. Since this is her first attempt, she’s unsure if she’ll end up using them, but I think they’re stunning! They’ll look so fantastic letterpressed! I love that she used her own handwriting and that the background is so “overgrown” looking while still being pretty. Take it from someone who designs wedding invites for a living Julia, this is good stuff!

More inspiration via the Antique Marketplace, this time in the form of vintage fruit crate and can labels. I grabbed them for brainstorming color combinations, and thought you might like a little eye candy!

This one is my favorite, so I thought I’d take it over to Colour Lovers and try making a palette of it. This is something new I’ve been playing with. I absolutely love how easy it is to create palettes and test them out. This is immensely useful for me so I thought I’d give you a peek on how it works.

First, you enter the URL of the picture you want to use as inspiration. The image pops up in the corner window and colors are sampled from that image automatically. From the list of sampled colors, you refine your palette.

From there, you can test that palette on different pre-existing patterns. I love this feature because I can see what sort of pattern and scale the colors “like”.

You can also swap the colors around and play with the which colors you want to be where. Not only is this helpful, but it’s pretty fun!