Love is in the air...

We’re just putting the finishing touches to the last few Valentine’s card ranges on the site and it’s got me feeling all loved up. I’m totally in love with hearts, bows, and things, so thought I’d post a few of my favourite things for valentine’s gift ideas.

These beautiful heart pictures by Brigitte Herrod at Rocket St George £175Alice In Wonderland necklace by LunarraStar at Etsy $32.50 which is about £19!

Heart shaped frying pan to cook heart shaped eggs Cancer Research UK £5

Red lips Telephone by i love retro £23.95

Vivienne Westwood Melissa Shoes from Hervia £78 (I'm dreaming of the blue & red ones...)

More heart shaped lovelies coming soon!

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.

Cool Packaging

I really appreciate a finely packaged item. Whether it's a gift or commercial packaging. This is quite frankly the best packaging concept I think I've ever seen. Fruit juice packaging by Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa to imitate the fruits skin. I would love to feel these.

Children's Woodland Bedroom Ideas

I love painting & interior design and am currently brainstorming for the re-design of my one and a bit year old Daughters bedroom. Lilly’s never really had a ‘nice’ bedroom & now that she spends more time in her room, I wanted to re-design her room with lovely bright colours that will be visually stimulating for her. She loves the outdoors and nature so my inspiration is taken from her love of that. Here is my mood board with a tiny glimpse of things to come...
‘Secret Woodland Children’s Bedroom’
Do you like the theme?

I have some fantastic creative DIY ideas to achieve the look which I will post in the coming weeks.

I've Been A Very Good Girl!

Well I must apologise for my lack of posts but the holidays have been so charming. I’ve literally rested, DIY'd, eat (lots) & spent my time with the 2 most favourite people in my world: Lilly & Si. I forgot to mention that I have been spoilt rotten this year by Si.

I must have been a very very good girl in 2009 as my Christmas pressie’s were the best ever. From my darling Si, I got a Superdry leather jacket (it's amazing. I don't have a picture yet); my favourite author Mitch Albom’s book ‘Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson’;

this pretty polka dot umbrella from Fred Fabulous; some Cath Kidson fabric fridge magnets; this very cool Evian bottle of water design by Paul Smith at Selfridges which I have blogged about a few months ago here (my Si must have read my blog... aww bless him); & these Agent Provocateur ‘Minnie’ Bra & knicker pretties... Take a peek (I was a very very lucky girl). I hope your Christmas wishes came true & you got all that you desired.

Isn't this set sooo pretty...?

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