Colourful Stairs - Wuppertal, Germany

I adore colour. I once lived without colour in my life for a long long time without realising. When I got better, I realised just how much colour was out there just waiting to be absorbed by the soul. I appreciate colour & I never take you for granted. What do you think of these colourful stairs in the town of Wuppertal, Germany? I would love to visit them. Has anyone ever been there?

(via Elle Decoration South Africa) found on Style-files.com

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)

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!