New ETSY Banner

When I first stumbled across Etsy, I thought it would be the perfect outlet to sell our greetings cards. With little knowledge of it's workings, I opened a little Made With Love Etsy shop on there & prepared myself for orders flooding in... it didn't quite work like that... I lost interest in updating the pages ... and the shop became empty, bare & clearly unloved. Why? I hear you ask...

Partly due to the success of our own website (I've had little time to spare for Etsy) an secondly: Lack of research! I hadn't thought out the site, got a feel for what Etsy was & just expected things to sell. Pretty much in the way that they do on our own website.

So with a extra helper at Made With Love (oo-er!) I am dedicating a little more time in building the shop up from scratch & starting out.

If you haven't heard of Etsy before head over - you won't be disappointed. It's a treasure trove filled with amazing finds for gifts and treats. All either handmade or vintage in style.

The shop is still bare but I re-did the shop banner at 5am this morning. Here it is - do you like it? More Etsy to follow...

New Website Background

The whole website is undergoing a huge makeover at the minute to allow the new shopping cart and payment gateway expected to launch from July 2010. This will streamline the ordering process for wedding stationery, Christening stationery & the new Event stationery pages and make it easier to place an order (a little like the ordering process on the greetings card website). Whilst all this technical stuff is going on, we couldn't resist a bit of cosmetic decorating with a beautiful new Brock wallpaper in the background. Do you like it?

Luxury Collections 2010

We are extremely excited to introduce our most luxurious wedding stationery collections ever! Featuring specially imported lace, vintage brooches, luxury crystals, diamante clusters, sumptuous satins and pearls... our new collections really are something else. First to be unveiled this week is The Opulence Collection. A timeless vintage lace collection suitable for vintage inspired weddings, luxury themed weddings and available to personalise to suit your wedding colours. Opulence is truly beautiful and is going to be a huge hit for Brides looking for something a little bit special for their big day. Opulence Vintage Lace Wedding Invitations £5.40
Vintage Lace Evening Invitations £5.40
Boxed Vintage Wedding Invitations £5.90

Exciting New Ribbons for 2010!

We're so excited to bring in (some) of our new colours for 2010. And this isn't even the half of it... we have so many more just waiting to arrive in. The new colours will be fully integrated into our wedding stationery collections, greetings cards as well as the new events stationery collection (arriving in August 2010).

Each week we're going to put one of our new colours 'in the spotlight'. In the spotlight next week is our 'Lemon Grass' ribbon - just in last week and we've already received a wedding order in using this stunning colour combi. Hope your loving the new colours as much as we are!
Images to follow...

March Just Keeps Getting Better

We've been featured again this month. In the current issue of Wedding Venues & Services Magazine. This time it's favours from the very glitzy Mayfair Collection in a retro Polka dot red (top left). A big thank you to Amanda for the feature & also for letting us know. A while back, Amanda (Deputy Editor) had given me feedback on the quality of my images (they were too dark for print with inadequate lighting). Me, not being from an editorial/photographic background, had absolutely no idea that this was the case. So thank you Amanda for your insight and for taking the time to reply. Constructive criticism is so helpful for a small business. Those extra pair of eye's see things that are blindingly obvious, but yet invisible to me.

My mum always instilled that it was not shameful to ask for help, which as a stubborn little girl was something I struggled to do and still do to some extent. I'm a perfectionist & hate doing things wrong. I always strive to better myself but it's not always possible to improve your technique when you only see the one way of doing things. Don't be afraid to ask. Ask and ye shall receive. And it's what you do with that knowledge that is key.

Easter Cards have arrived

I know it's only just Mother's Day, but Easter is on the 4th April this year, and so only a few weeks away. This is the first year where we have branched out into Easter cards. We're not entirely sure if there is a huge demand for cards at Easter but it seemed like a natural progression for us. Would you send a special card at Easter...?

Plus, how could we resist using these cute fluffy chickens in the 'Tweet Tweet' Collection & teeny weeny hand made nest eggs in our 'Chicken Licken' design.... I mean come on.... how cute!

In the news

It's been a busy week. None stop in fact! But imagine our joy, whoops & hoorays when we found out that our Breakfast At Tiffany wedding invites had been featured in this month's issue of Your Wedding Day Magazine (Kent) in their beautifully styled 'Timelessly Vintage' piece. Thank you very much.

Spring is just around the corner...

OK, well looking out of the window you could be mistaken that we are still in the depths of winter as the snow falls here in Manchester today.... However, Spring isn't far away & the mornings are getting lighter, the birds are starting to sing & we're soo feeling the spring colours in our new Mother's Day Card Collection in the Made With Love Greetings Card Boutique.

All cards in for this Mother's Day are available in many colours available to personalise with your own wording to tell our mummy dearests just how much we love them.

P.S Mother's Day is early this year: Sunday 14th March 2010

In The News - Your South Wales Wedding Magazine Jan/Feb 2010

Hooray! We're in this months issue of Your Wedding - South Wales by County Wedding Magazines (the lovely people who bring you magazines with all things wedding related for each County across the UK). If you've never read this magazine before, it's definitely one I would recommend as a higher end read filled to the brim with wedding ideas in your county or via mail order. Our bespoke Breakfast At Tiffany's Collection was featured in their 'Readers Letters' section fab fab fab:And the spectacular Mayfair Luxury Wedding Stationery Collection has been featured in their chic modern monochrome wedding style:This issue is still available in the shops or you can buy yours today here.

MWL's Online Ranking

Image via Design Crush

A few weeks ago, whilst catching up with one of my favourite blogs, Coulson Macleod's Not For Squares, I was made aware of something I had never heard of before - Alexa Page Rankings

You can put any web address into their search function and it runs stats on that particular websites online presence to assess their traffic ranking. This is very cool if you run your own business & want to monitor your progress in terms of your online presence.

Today www.madewithlovedesigns.co.uk ranks 96,012 in the UK. That's pretty amazing - I'm shocked / over joyed / made up. In the world we rank 1,621,550. A pretty good rank (i'm told by my computer nerd friend) for a small business with the billions of websites out there.

Thank you world for all of your amazing support.

In The News - Perfect Wedding Magazine Feb 2010

Did you see us in Decembers issue of ‘Perfect Wedding’ magazine?
Our 'Purity’ collection wedding invitations have been featured. It's so exciting to see our designs in print & is something I don't think we will ever tire of. It's sooo exciting. We'd like to say a big thank you to Katie & everyone at the magazine for featuring us. If you've found us through their mag, we'd like to say a massively huge thank you with a cherry on the top for visiting us.

Valentines Cards 2010

The all new personalised Valentine's Collection has officially arrived. Order your Valentine's card today and we will print your special message on the front.

Colour Themes - Turquoise Wedding Invitations - Hot trend for 2010

Turquoise is always a popular choice with couples as the accent colour for their wedding day. It is visually so striking & it works perfectly for weddings abroad and at home. It is perfectly versatile & compliments all seasons. Turquoise is tipped to be the hottest trend around for 2010 weddings.

We're very fussy when it comes to the colours of our ribbons & it was especially difficult finding the right shade for the turquoise ribbon we use in our design work. It had to be just right. Why is turquoise so hard to get right...? It took many re-dyes of ribbon and much searching of suppliers both here in the UK and overseas until we found 'the one'! And like so many of our wedding stationery clients say you just know when you find the wedding invitation that's 'the one'.

We have recently finished working on Punita & Spencer's Wedding Invitations in turquoise from the 'Purity' Collection using our stunning new turquoise ribbon (below)& this stunning colour combination of turquoise & chocolate brown for Jenny & Paul's wedding in June 2010 from the 'Mayfair' Collection
And have added more turquoise wedding invitation photographs to our website. The popular colour themes page is perfect for Brides who have chosen the colour theme for their big day but cannot decide on which wedding invitations to choose. The colour themes pages have been created to inspire you with wedding stationery photos of our most recent designs in your chosen colour scheme. Below is a selection of inspiring turquoise colour ideas (of course if we don't show exactly what your looking for in the turquoise colour, do get in touch as we have 100's of images just waiting to be added)

In the news

Did you see us in Octobers issue of ‘I’m Pregnant’ magazine?

Our 'Baby Face... you’ve got the cutest little’ birth announcements have been featured. We have just found out that our ‘Baby Face’ announcements will also be featured in the February issue too so if you didn't see us in Octobers issue, look out for us today.

We'd like to say a big thank you to Eilidh & everyone at the magazine for featuring our products. If you've found us through their mag, we'd like to say thank you for visiting us.

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.

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?

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