It's all about the little things...

Bedazzled Anniversary is by far our best selling personalised card design. Using the gemstone for key milestone anniversaries by the world’s finest crystal makers in the world Swarovski.
We thread the crystal heart pendant onto craft wire. This involves nimble fingers and of course finger prints. So, when each card is finished we use little muslin cloths to polish the crystal to really make it gleam. It’s the little things that really make the difference & when you see our crystals sparkle it really makes the tiny extra effort worth the while.P.S Bedazzled is also available for posh / special birthday cards too

Buy of the Week!

As a Cancerian I’m a real home girl. I love my shell! It's felt cold this week & when autumn sets in I start nesting getting ready for the cosy nights.

This week I bought this from the dot com gift shop. I can’t wait for it to arrive. I’ve had my eye on a similar one for a while but when I saw the price of this one... just £15.95 it had to be bought there & then. With the rainy days settings in (did they ever leave...?) make wiping feet irresistible. They have this lovely English Rose one -

and this cool multi colour stripey door mat -

and what about this black & white flock door mat -

All from the dotcomgiftshop

Happy Weekend

I love bed.

The best place in the world for me to be is my bed. It does good things to me & I am at my best in bed.

I haven't seen it a lot this week & I have been seriously sleep deprived. In the war, malnutritioned soldiers would fantasise about food & it would take up most of their daily thoughts. When the war was over and food was no longer scarce, they would gorge on food & showed traits found in people with eating disorders. I have missed you bed. I would like to gorge on sleep this weekend.

I get up at 4am most mornings to organise previous days orders & work before my little girl wakes at 9 - which is when my day really starts. This week She's been poorly so have been up in the night too.

I would love to be here. Have you ever taken your duvet outside to the garden in Winter & wrapped up with a hot coffee...? You should it's a good feeling.

(image from here)

I love bed linen shopping. Mine's a crisp white cotton Julien Macdonald spread with crystals. In fantasy land this is my dream bed. I imagine the person that sleeps in this bed wakes up looking beautiful.

(image from here)

I recently bought some goose/duck feather duvet & pillow cases which has done my desire to sleep no favours. In reality this is my dream bed. This weekend sleep is most definitely on the agenda. Happy Weekend xx

(all other images from here)

Cool Wallpaper - Idea

WIP: Future Craft Room : 4/27
Originally uploaded by eklektick

I came across this clever use of paint work by eklektick. to display art pieces or drawings in your very own home gallery.

You can buy wallpaper like this but eklektick has saved their pennies and painted these fab frames on their wall. What a clever idea!

This got me thinking... I love this effect but as I can't paint my walls I started thinking about a temporary alternative to achieve a similar look. Then it dawned.... VINYL!

After a search I came across these which are my favourites. From i love retro these black, silver & mirrored vinyl picture frame wall stickers for £14.95 for the set.

And for a little colour and a bargain price at £6.95 for the set these coloured vinyl photo frame wall stickers from the dot com gift shop. For those who aren't arty, can't paint their walls... go vinyl.

Your very own home art gallery for a bargain price.

Wall Art

I am currently renting and cannot decorate the walls of my home. The palette is neutral at the moment and as I love COLOUR I have been on the look out for some statement art pieces to personalise my bare walls. I bought this map from notonthehighstreet.com a few weeks back from The Future Mapping Company & am just waiting for a free weekend where I can enjoy hanging it. I’m thinking of a white gloss frame.

Not only does this map look ultra cool, with silver metallic seas & colourful continents—but it also uses a very clever formula in it’s layout. It uses a Cylindrical Equal Area Projection—which basically means that the Countries are represented in their correct proportional size and not how most maps portray our world. Most maps lose the true proportions of countries due to the process of transferring a round globe onto a flat surface. On normal maps the Soviet Union became 223% bigger than it actually is amongst other countries. This map gives a really interesting & accurate vision of the world.

Litho printed on a coated silk finish available framed, magnetised or tubed prices from £27.50 now with FREE Shipping!

Website of the Year Awards 09 - ENTRANT

I don't normally post at the weekend, but I received an email late last night with some great news...

... we are an entrant of The Website of the Year Awards 2009 by The Good Web Guide.

The Good Web Guide is the online guide to the best sites on the internet.They have taken the slog and guesswork out of finding what is best about life online.

As a small business, the recognition of our website for this prestigious award is great news. We don’t have an advertising budget like a big fish, we’re a small fish. In fact we don’t have any advertising budget so I guess we’re officially a really tiny fish in a massive ocean in the online world! But from small things great things grow. You’ve heard of the acorn analogy haven’t you...?

Made With Love was set up by myself (Clare) as a student in some dingy student halls in Liverpool, armed with just £50 & ‘Dreamweaver For Dummies’ (The bible!), so much hard work—I can’t bring myself to type it, gritty determination & self belief with a dream of the impossible.

As an niche online boutique we are naturally hidden away in the vast world of cyber space. It’s not easy to find us, but when you do, you love us. We have a loyal following of customers whom we value very much. This is how we have built our customer base & how we base our business model—we’ve had to. The recognition of winning such an award would blow our minds & would be an amazing platform to get our brand out there.

So, if you like what we do, please tell The Good Web Guide why you think we deserve to win.
The winning website is announced on Friday 6th November 2009. We will post about the results soon after. If we win it may be a few days later... as we will most probably have raging hangovers! It’s not everyday you win one of the most prestigious awards in the online retail world!!

Happy 'Special' Weekend - My Baby's First Birthday

Saturday 19th September is my little girls first ever birthday & we have a lovely weekend planned. On the Saturday morning we'll eat scrambled eggs on toast then open pressies. Lot's of empty boxes wrapped in tissue paper & bright ribbons for her to explore, followed by a friends party at an activity play centre.

Sunday we're having family over for cupcakes & tea for a little gathering.

I was never really a baby person & during my pregnancy & wondered whether I'd be any good at being a mum and whether we would instantly bond. The first time I saw her I cried. She didn't. She just looked into my eyes with her big black eyes full of wonder... and I fell in love. I fell head over heels and have been ever since.

To my baby girl Lilly, I love you very much & I will always be here for you through good and bad. I'll be here to kiss you goodnight, laugh at silly things & remind you that every spill is cleanup-able.

Have a happy weekend xx

National Cupcake Week 14-19th September

Who needs an excuse to bake cupcakes...? Be a Nigella this weekend & get baking.

To celebrate National Cupcake Week I have some cupcake sprinkles on their way and will be baking some cupcake treats for the office on Friday & for guests that will be visiting the house over Lilly’s first birthday weekend.

My little girl is 1 on Saturday & she has her first party to go to - not her own, but a little friends who's having a party at an adventure playground with ball pools and slides - it seemed silly to organise a party for Lilly when there was so much fun to be had already. Lilly & me will spend Friday together where we will be enjoying licking spoons whilst baking some yummy vanilla cupcakes with butter cream piping. The theme is pretty & girly with the hand made sugar rose buds (above) from

here, heart / star sprinkles & edible glitter (above) from Love To bake
To go alongside them I will custom print some of our 'Bella' Collection Table Numbers as cute little name cards with the cupcake names so that guests can choose their favourite. Yum yum I am an organised little mummy!

Real Brides - Genine & Kevin 13/06/09

We work closely with Brides-to-be to create a very special part of their day. Over months of emails, phone calls & conversations, you really get to know your client & Genine was no exception. That's why I wanted to post about her. It was an absolute pleasure to work with her from start to finish.

Genine had the fairytale dream wedding to now husband Kevin McMurray on 13th June 2009 & they had the wedding & reception in the fabulous Drumtochty Castle, Auchenblae. The castle is set in idyllic Scottish country side with views to die for.

Her colour scheme was turquoise and she choose our True Love Collection in the turquoise print & satin ribbon. The end result was fabulous & Genine was over the moon with the results.
The Bride wore My Lady by Haim Bar with Vivienne Westwood 'Boudoir' Perfume. It was really lovely to work with Genine to create her dream stationery. And was an extra special treat for us when she emailed us with the piccies. Thank you! The pictures have been taken by Martin A Leckie (The Award Winning Photographer) and the results are amazing I think you'll agree. So if your in the area, Genine would definitely recommend Martin. Gorgeous people, gorgeous photography, gorgeous venue. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous!
May we wish you lots of happiness Mr. & Mrs. McMurray. May you have lots of babies & happy times ahead xx

Happy Weekend

Today me & Si got up early to have breakfast together. We had warm toasted Croissants with butter & a hot Lavazza coffee. The sun was shining & it was the perfect stolen morning.

We’ve hardly spent any time together this week due to busy busy work schedules & so many things going on and getting up early was hard. Life gets in the way all the time—it’s impossible for it to not do—but take a step back and grab any spare time you can.

This morning we worked for it & it was well worth fighting for.

Happy weekend! xxx
(I'm not sure where I read these words but if these are yours then let me know so I can credit you)

Lovely Gifts, Interiors & Treats

Have you ever stopped by the notonthehisghstreet.com website? If yes, you are in good company... & we will get along very well indeed. If no then why not, hurry on over, I promise you will not be disappointed by their wares.

You know those people who always look good? Those who have gorgeous houses filled with the most amazing, unusual things and whose children wear the cutest clothes? & those who arrive at parties bearing the most thoughtful & original gifts? Well notonthhighstreet.com has housed them all in their online boutique and is the home of 1000’s of beautifully stylish interiors, gorgeous hand made gifts, cute organic baby clothes & scrumdiddleyumptious treats.

I have been a fan of theirs for ages, well before I started Made With Love. When I set up Made With Love I tried to get on board and was rejected (boo hoo!) but looking back now that’s not a bad thing. It shows just how difficult it is to get on board with them.

We’re proud to now be able to say "YEY we’re on board". From June 2009, Made With Love became an official partner of notonthehighstreet.com selling our cards and frames alongside some amazing companies and it’s been a great journey so far. As you can see above our union jack cards have been chosen as a featured card on their cards home page.

For a fascinating read check out founder Holly Tucker & Sophie Cornish’s (ladies above) stories... & be inspired! Two very driven & inspiring ladies and stop by their website to treat yourself to something lovely.

Have a great wkend! xxx

In the news

Did you see us in june's issue of the Close Up Magazine?

The lovely people at Close Up featured our cards in their What's New section with a reader giveaway.

We'd like to say a big thank you to Andrea & the guys at CloseUp. If you did see us & if you've found us through their mag, we'd like to say thank you for visiting us.

Don't you just love the posters featured on the page too from The Keep Calm Gallery. You can have one of the duo's screen prints in your own home for just £16.00.

I absolutely LOVE their use of colour for the photography of their prints below as found via their website.

I have my eye on a certain print by them... I can see a post about a certain purchase coming soon!

Ready For Christmas...?

In our industry Christmas starts as soon as the last one finishes. We started brainstorming for our Christmas 2009 card collections way back in March with the final designs being ready in August. Before we got to that point, we had to design mock ups, source materials, cost up, do photography, edit & cut, brainstorm names, design the images for web & promo material & send samples off to the shops/stores & catalogue people. PHEW!

Here's a sneaky peaky of the names of our 4 new collections for xmas to give you a glimpse of things to follow...

It sounds ridiculously early, but shops like to have their stock ready to launch around September so for the designers everything has to be ready well before then.

Our Christmas card collection will be launched on our website in October 09. For our first real Christmas... Plus we have some exciting news for one of our collections 'Christmas Kisses' which I will post about soon.

Happy Weekend

Today I said to my baby girl 'Lilly, You are completely remarkable.'

And she is. Today she learnt about buttons and fish whilst perfecting clapping her hands.

I have plans one day to frame or print a book of our little notes from her first year so that when she's a happy and well rounded young woman, she can inspire her little ones to be the best they can be.

Remember the above because You are completely remarkable.

Happy weekend! xx

Obsessed

I've always loved the Union Jack. Not only is it the fabulous flag of our lovely nation (with the cross of St. George - red over the cross of St. Andrew - blue), it has huge style value with it's boldness & vibrancy.

It's so popular at the minute in interiors & fashion & I try to use it where possible in my home (pictures to follow). I am obsessing over these gorgeous red Union Jack cushions by Lulu & Nat which go perfectly with our 'God Save The Queen' personalised birthdays cards. The perfect birthday pressie (hint hint...) Cute!

I will be blogging about these girls regularly as I just love their stuff. They will be exhibiting at Top Drawer this September & I really hope I can get out to meet these two lovelies.

Union Jack Cushion Covers £65.00 Machine hand embroidered from Lulu & Nat

Brand New Website Look

The greetings card side of the website has had a face lift during August. I hope you like it...? The main feature being it's all new shopping cart hosted by Roman Cart
It has sooo many benefits to the customer:

1. It has a more cleaner feel to it and so is more user friendly.

2. It has an integrated shopping cart as opposed to having to be directed away from the cart to PayPal's cart making it seamless & speedier.

3. It also shows whats in the customers basket on the top of every page (I love this) along with their sub-total.

4. It saves the customers checkout info (if they choose it to) name, address etc & billing info so they do not have to fill it in each time they shop with us.

5. It allows the customer to add promotional codes, discounts and offers at the checkout (which is a little treat for the customer). We will be giving out our first ever promo code for 20% off in our next newsletter (for subscribers only) to celebrate the launch of the new website. Subscribe here

So all in all we're in love. Hope you like it too. We've looked at this website too much & no longer see any errors, typo's etc so if you happen to see any, please do let me know. I will be eternally grateful (Thanks Marsha!!! ;-) xx

Bank Holiday Weekend

I love Bank Holidays. Mine was spent doing housey things: hoovering, polishing, mowing the lawn etc etc. Spending time with Lilly & Si. Then on Sunday we went to Ba55ment where my Si was DJing. I love photography & although i'm not good yet, I'm learning. I took some pictures on a basic Olympus digital camara on auto night settings and the results were surprisingly ok.

I'm not a camera snob but am spoiled by my Nikon D60 which takes the best pictures. It's quite bulky and not suitable for taking out so we use the Olympus. I played with some basic photoshop lighting effects for a edgier look. Next time, I will be taking some pictures on the Nikon at his next outing at Sankeys, Manchester, UK to compare.

He's just starting out, but our Friends have all been brilliant in supporting him & coming to the last few nights he's had (at their expense) which is amazing & more than you could ask from a set of Friends. Thank you Matt, Chadders, Natalie et al. My Mum as always has been brilliant looking after Lilly on the last 3 nights too. Big love xx