Fun with Geography

I'm a girl who loves the idea of Place and Home.  However, it's tough to be able to call one or the other your very own when you haven't lived in either since you were 18.  Usually the nomadic life ends when you "settle down" and get married, yet due to Mr. Bama's job, that doesn't seem to be the case.  His job requires him (and all dependents, aka-me) to move every 2-3 years.  Sadly this means that our NOLA time is almost up.  Rather than mope and lament the many moves to come, I've decided to celebrate our travels and a company I found back during my Grad school years helps me do just that.

Catstudio is a husband and wife design team using the crazy concept of designing items around a fabulous state, country or resort location (think the Hamptons....).

What started out as simply one cute screen printed tea towel my mom picked up for me after i came back from Italy, blossomed into at least six towels - from the original Italy to the most recent addition Christmas decoration (the North Pole).  Since you can only have so many tea towels, I decided to use the towels as a sort of art and thus started a framed homage to where we've lived.

Italy, Alabama, Louisiana & Virginia adorning the Bama walls

Virginia & Alabama represent our home states, and Louisiana for the first state we lived in as a married couple.  Italy's still up there, but that could be replaced by wherever we move next (who knows).

It doesn't just stop with tea towels - my last year of Grad school I used  their AMAZING hand-embroidered tote bag of Virginia as a book bag - durable and cute.

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I beat the crud out of it though in school - I'm REALLY rough on my totes (examp:  my Vineyard Vines canvas tote i had in college was threadbare within months) and the Virginia tote is slightly worn in places, but it took the beating like a champ.

My mom's kind of been lusting over their gorgeous hand-embroidered Virginia Pillow (looks just like the tote, but in pillow form) but instead picked up their satin fringed, vintage travel art inspired Virginia pillow instead -

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This past Christmas season my mom was at our local Virginia boutique that sell Catstudio and was approached by the owner -- who knows I live in New Orleans.  She had been able to snag a "Seconds Bag" featuring Louisiana and wanted to offer it to my mom to give to me for Christmas.  The bags aren't advertised for sale on Catstudio's website, but what they have done is taken the pillow/tote woven images that have small "defects" that they can't use on their full-sale products and turn them into AWESOME canvas tote bags.  Talk about reusable!

I'm simply in love w/ my Louisiana bag -- it's my second favorite Christmas gift behind my new Le Creuset Dutch Oven (more about that in a later post).

Catstudio's amazing designs don't stop with pillows and totes - They have everything from glassware, to t-shirts, to aprons and exquisite wooden trays - ranging in price from $12 (glassware) to $150 (embroidered pillows).  So whether you're suffering from a case of home state-sickness or just want to celebrate your favorite locale, check out Catstudio -- I promise you will be pleasantly surprised!