Christmas Tree O' Christmas Tree...

How lovely are your branches...

Christmas All Wrapped Up

My car is completely snowed in so I have been housebound for the last two days. Because of this, I've had a little free time & have gone all out this year with the wrapping.

The look is expensive but the reality was FREE! That's right completely free... well, apart from the cellotape. Do you like? I have actually wrapped most of them in off cuts of wallpaper. The offcuts were from left over rolls from decorating.

For the decoration, I asked a local DIY store whether they had any swatches and I fell lucky when they gave me a swatch book filled with tons of scraps which they were throwing out (some of these were amazing: flocked wallpaper etc). The ribbons were mainly bin ends from my ribbon supplier.

If you go to any haberdashery and ask for bin ends of ribbons, they will normally be able to sell you these at a much cheaper cost. The decoration is mistletoe (I used some spare plastic mistletoe that I had in from a greetings card design). But fresh is best - You can pick up a bunch from your local fruit & veg stall on the market for a few quid.

Merry Christmas!

Colour Co-ordinating Bookshelves

I have been the proud owner of a colour co-ordinated book shelf for years & am quite pleased with myself for that too. I started doing it when I was at school (I have always been a bit anal about neatness / colour & having everything in it’s correct place). When people come round to the house they are always drawn to the book shelf and almost always comment on how neat & tidy my books look but don’t quite understand why. Then I proudly tell them it’s because they are colour co-ordinated. The normal reaction is to ask how much free time I actually have. But it’s surprising how quick it is to organise your books in this wonderful array of colour co-ordinated neatness & it will change your life. You will get a certificate smile when people comment on your books (and they will because it looks cool).

I have been overwhelmed with work (Christmas cards are flying out) & my baby girl, Lilly, is learning to walk so tidying tasks really have taken a back seat. Part of Lilly’s morning routine after breakfast is to take each book off one by one and place onto the floor which is where they stay for the rest of the day. I'm quite happy with this as it gives me roughly half an hour to catch up on emails whilst she happily occupies herself with the task. At the end of the day I rush around tidying up, putting the books back on the shelves in a rough colour order. After weeks of doing this, my gorgeous feature of a book shelf (pre-baby) is looking very dishevelled & rather scruffy (post-baby). Re-organising it has been on my to-do list for a few weeks now and moves ever closer to the bottom of an ever expanding list (mummy hood & business running is not easy when done together).

But alas, I have been inspired by Blah Blah Blahg’s recent post to move this little task to the top & get things done once & for all. This weekend I plan to get organised and colour co-ordinate my life. Pictures to follow...

Last Posting Date For Christmas Cards

To ensure Christmas cards arrive with you before Christmas, our last order date will be Monday 21st December. Orders must be received before 1pm on this day to enable us to post in the last post before Christmas. That's only 12 days left (eeek!)
Royal Mail's last first class post for the Christmas holidays is Monday 21st December 2009.

Coulson Macleod Prints

Pheweee It's been a busy week. But I wanted to post about these beauties before I sign off for the weekend. I first read about these beautiful prints at Design Sponge & noticed that they are also fellow sellers on notonthehighstreet.com. I have wanted to post about their stuff for ages.

I LOVE every single one of these handmade limited edition prints from the Love Collection by Coulson Macleod. Each one is handmade and makes for a beautiful heartfelt & unique gift.

If I absolutely had to choose - this would be my fave & is most definitely on my wish list:

Fabulous news is that they are offering free UK P&P on all orders.

Have a happy weekend!

My Little Toy Town

This is my little village 'Mossley' which was taken by whilst walking home from a lovely Thai meal and drinkies with my boyfriend a few Sunday's ago.

I've only just looked at it (so busy with work) but it's so warm and cute i just had to post it. It reminds me of a little toy town. I thought that when I first moved to Mossley but this picture encapsulates it beautifully. Quaint.

Sweet Invitations & Table Numbers

We've been gorging on sweeties in the Made With Love office this week. We've had 2 orders on the go using real sweets so there was an excuse for pots of sweeties everywhere. Having just finished on a sweetie wedding table names for our lovely client Charlotte (who got in touch with us 6 weeks ago to see whether we could help with her wedding in 6 weeks time... she's managed to organise her whole wedding in just 6 weeks - it's been madness but she's done it & is getting wed this Sunday 22nd November 2009)
This is the finished result. Charlotte had originally ordered her stationery from the 'Moderno' Collection in a fuchsia pink colour scheme. When she told us that her table names were based on sweets we just couldn't resist having a play around with the design. Such fun to be had... our creative juices were literally flowing. Upon design of her proofs we had a little bit of fun with the sweeteis version above just to see what she thought. Charlotte loved them and these little pretties will be sitting on her tables this Sunday.

And our gorgeous new lollipop birthday party invitations £3.50 have just been photographed and are very sweet indeed. I wanted to photograph these with grass and daisies but since we've been having such appalling weather will have to put this on hold until the summer. Our Lollipop invites are exclusive to notonthehighstreet.com Click to buy here

Made With Love In notonthehighstreet.com Christmas Gift Catalogue 2009

Christmas is well & truly on it's way. If your stuck for gift ideas do check out the new notonthehighstreet.com's Christmas Gift Guide catalogue for inspiration. You can get a free copy here. This is their best ever catalogue & is filled to the brim with inspiration, gift ideas and gorgeous styling (all from small businesses that offer some of the most beautiful hard-to-find things that are most definitely not on the high street). I mentioned in a previous post that Made With Love (me) is featured in there with our Christmas Card collection ‘Christmas Holly’ (at the bottom).

Well here we are... & aren't they pretty?

As a stationery designer, I very much keep my eye on trends that are big in the US. From fashion to interiors, they eventually filter down to event planning & design to which I like to be on trend with. These have been around for a while in the US and are making an appearance on the UK wedding scene. Candy bars or sweetie bars are a 'sweet' idea to have at your wedding reception for guests to help themselves. I couldn't resist these candy bar images below. All images from Amy Atlas

I am working on some sweetie themed stationery for a client at the moment which I'll get around to posting about soon.

Dazzle Guest Book - Bepoke Design for Adrian & Sean 7/11/2009

This is Adrian & Sean’s Guest Book. A custom colour scheme to suit their wedding colours personalised from the ‘Dazzle’ Collection. I had designed their wedding stationery earlier in the year in this fabulous colour scheme & they had later returned to order a guest book. I love designing guest books and they always look so spectacular once they are finished. I received an email the other week from Adrian (which scared me for the first 5 lines but then brought a huge smile to my face) saying: Ahhh isn’t that lovely!

Adrian & Sean are getting wed on the 7th November 2009 (sorry there's a typo in the above) & will be using their guest book during the reception to treasure their memories forever. Just lovely.

We will be thinking of you this weekend. Have the most amazing day!

Dazzle Guest Book & Box £30

Breakfast At Tiffany's Wedding Stationery Theme

We have been asked by a client to develop a simple invitation for their 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' wedding theme. What a fabulous wedding theme to have. I was so excited about the possibilities that I couldn't sleep the night before the design!

We have taken the Tiffany blue Colour scheme (which is actually more of an aqua shade) with a stylish black pop art effect image of the leading lady Audrey Hepburn. The design looks timeless in the flesh.

I can't tell you how good this design looks. It's simply stunning & would work perfectly for a movie star wedding theme (with different movie stars); A Breakfast At Tiffany's wedding theme; Hollywood Wedding theme.

If you like this collection please get in touch as it is completely bespoke and so not available on our website.

You could have any colour ribbon which would work well against the monochrome backdrop.

Other items in the collection include:

Breakfast At Tiffany's Wedding Invitations from £2.50

Breakfast at Tiffany's Table Plan

Breakfast at Tiffany's Wedding Place Cards

Breakfast at Tiffany's Thank You Cards

Breakfast at Tiffany's Menus
Breakfast at Tiffany's Table Names / Table Numbers

Blue Tiffany box wedding favour with white ribbon

(which I will get around to posting about soon)

Eye Candy For The Weekend

This week we've been working on our new party range of invitations & party stationery. Bright colours, themed invites, children's invites - & it's looking spectacularly good. Tim Walker's photography is breathtakingly magical & matches our party moods beautifully. (Images from from Love. Obsess. Inspire an amazing blog filled with beautiful imagery)

Christmas Cards Boutique NOW OPEN - 20% off

Our eagerly anticipated Christmas Card Boutique is now open selling the most gorgeous hand made Christmas Cards available to personalise with a special message.

It was this time last year that we designed our first range of Christmas cards and added them to the site. A little bit of an after thought really, as at that point, we didn't do personalised cards.
We only had 3 ranges last year and despite no marketing / no advertising, they where a huge success. So much so that we started work immediately on an all new section of the website 'the greetings card range', which has been growing ever since.

Take a peek at the New Christmas Card Boutique & we would love to know what you think?

Even better, quote 'XmasTreat' to get 20% off Christmas Cards until November 1st 09. (Discount may be used on any greetings card orders - not just Xmas cards)