I’m getting one of these hand-lettered signs from Three Potato Four for right over the checkout counter. And maybe another one for my desk. And another one for our house, just because. There goes my budget…

IdeaPaint lets you turn just about any surface into a dry-erase board:

Transform a child’s bedroom or playroom into a place to explore and express their creativity and imagination. Paint a toy box and make it more entertaining than everything inside of it. Use IdeaPaint to keep track of appointments, chores, shopping lists and all your important dates. IdeaPaint creates the perfect spot for the family to interact and keep up with each other’s busy lives.

Just like chalkboard paint, this product has a wealth of applications. Plus, as anyone who’s bought a dry-erase board larger than a small piece of paper knows – they’re expensive. Meanwhile, here’s a product that uses less packaging (so less waste), can be applied anywhere (even old dry-erase boards that have lost their zing), and there’s nothing to throw away when you don’t need your board anymore – just repaint! What’s not to love?

Check out IdeaPaint’s gallery for pictures that customers have submitted of their IdeaPaint in action.

(photo © IdeaPaint)

The paint is sold in quarts, and each quart covers approximately 90 to 100 square feet. There are all sorts of applications – everything from kids’ rooms (paint whole walls and let them go crazy!) to appliances (a few coats of chalkboard paint on an old fridge and suddenly you can ditch the sticky notes and grocery lists). You could make gifts for friends – write their name over the top in acrylic or something – or use the paint in small quantities for place cards or retail signage. Instead of placemats, why not paint directly on an old dining room table and keep your kids (and yourself) entertained?

I wonder if you could combine magnetic paint and chalkboard paint – layering the two together – to get twice the functionality (or maybe Hudson Paint is already working on something to that effect in the lab). It might be fun to use this stuff in my office; I could find some empty wood frames at an antique store or garage sale, freshen them up a bit, and hang them up on the walls. I’d paint the walls behind them, and then sketch my own artwork that could change with my fancies.

From The Grand Daddy’s Web site:

A gleaming fleet of seven iconic American Airstream trailers have packed up their corndogs and tucked away their picnic blankets to roost on the rooftop of The Grand Daddy Hotel. Here, the quintessential African skies and the alluring outline of Cape Town’s Table Mountain are reflected in the polished aluminium of the American Dream.

Peek inside – there’s more! Each of the seven trailers has been handed over to some incredibly creative Capetonian soul to find new life through playful, eccentric and dazzling décor interpretations of how life in an Airstream can be.

Your Airstream is enclosed by a tidy garden complete with US Postal Service mailboxes. Watch an outdoor movie on hot summer nights at The Pink Flamingo Cinema and find an excuse to make this the destination for your next gathering of family and friends.

It’s interesting to see the iconic “American-ness” in a culture opposite the globe. I’m ready to pack my bags! My favorite trailer is the Dorothy – fine artist Sara Pratt “reinvents the airstream with a Duck-egg-blue foundation colour and then covers every inch with white polka dots. Some of these dots are three dimensional and hinged to contain mini exhibition items inside. The mini exhibitions will be changed every three months.” How cool is that?!? Although I wonder how long it takes for all the dots to make you a little stir-crazy – they cover everything! In the end, that’s probably a good thing; who would want to go to Cape Town and never leave their lodging?

If you’re looking for decor that’s a little less graphic, the other six trailers have designs that are just as unique.

[via Apartment Therapy Re-Nest. All photos © The Grand Daddy Hotel, Cape Town]

If, like me, you can’t resist a matched set, then head over to Three Potato Four now – they’re the only ones selling it! And it looks like they got a Daily Candy mention, so this one won’t last long…

Imagine how much fun it would be to buy a whole set of plates and connect the dots on each one with a different color.

Edith Levin’s design won a 2008 award from Fishs Eddy, one of my favorite places to shop online (besides Fluff Paper, of course!). Some of my current favorites:

• Floorplan dinnerware
• All in a Day’s Work trays
• Alphabet Pattern mugs (on sale now!)
• Brooklyn umbrella

I’m dying to ask her what scissors she uses.

Megan has some great recent work in her blog that hasn’t popped up in her portfolio yet – check it out! I particularly love the paper renderings of her dogs; how cool would it be to have a paper sculpture of your pet?

If you’re looking for a project for the less X-acto-inclined, Design*Sponge has a great do-it-yourself idea for you – some family silhouettes wall art. Lifestyle expert Alexandra Hedin provides the instructions for this easy, inexpensive project (I wonder if our cats would sit still long enough to let us snap a decent profile or two).

I took my first trip to New York City last year for the National Stationery Show. It was amazing to me how a city that isn’t all that large (compared to the wide open spaces in Texas and Colorado that I’m used to) could have so many diverse and unique neighborhoods and personalities. I don’t know if I could ever live there – I like living in the city, but Denver is very different from Manhattan. But since I have a sister-in-law who lives there and a job that practically requires me to visit, NYC could just be my home away from home. And now I have something to remind me of it often.

(image courtesy Jim Datz)

While the calendar may gently mock our obsession with social media (speaking of which – follow us on Twitter and fan us on Facebook!), it does have a point – this handy little calendar is a great way of remembering just how we spent our time this year. Instead of using a calendar to plan ahead, we can use it to reflect on our past. Pretty deep, huh?

And if you like wacky calendars, here’s another one that might tickle your funny bone.

via designspotter

• Craft Rooms 360 – a cobbled-together photo comparison of the writers’ old and new craft spaces.
• Making the Paper Cut – I want a room with nothing but drawers of beautiful paper sorted by color… sigh…
• Crafting on the Side: Blake & Corinne – …and now I’m coveting a necklace of metallic leather.

In other Martha news – a new book popped up on Amazon and I felt obligated to pre-order. The Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts covers popular crafting techniques, describes the ideal tools and equipment, and even includes project templates to make your own. And, knowing the attention to detail that pervades the Martha Stewart Omnimedia staff, everything will be described exhaustively (apparently there’s a “glitter glossary” – who knew there was so much to say about glitter?) and photographed beautifully.