Whatever happened to the simple pleasures in life? Taking a leisurely walk on a sunny day, a home-cooked meal, or a hand-written note? Walks now accelerate into shoving other pedestrians out of your way, home-cooked meals are made in someone else’s foreign kitchen, and hand-written notes are typed and sent through cyber-space.

But it doesn’t always have to be that way.It has now become a lot easier to reinvent the time-honored tradition of the hand-written word with the help of Carrot and Stick Press.

Sure, there are a lot of stationary companies out there, but Carrot and Stick Press’ products caught my eye with their cool collection of colorful journals, placemats, photo, table and folded note cards.  The company was recently founded in 2000 by two dedicated grad students who turned their love of playful prints for every occasion into one they could share (and we’re sure glad that they did!)