Ten and Sixpence

It's a long time since the last post, but a lot has been happening! More on that later....first, I'd like to introduce a new design that's been added to our best-selling concertina card line for babies. This design started life as a custom request to create a thank you card in the same vein as the beeline range....

Happy New Year! What a busy year 2012 was for us, with the launch of our shiny online shop and several new designs, it was definitely time for a break! But welcoming the arrival of 2013 - with a New Year, comes New Designs!

This time, focusing on painting a little something special to celebrate Mothers. As most children know (and grown ups perhaps like to forget), Mothers usually do know best. With this sentiment, we set out to create a little hand-painted floral delight for the wall. So armed with a tiny paintbrush, I set out to illustrate the words with lots of favourite floral blooms, including muscari, hydrangea, daisies, roses and pansies....

We're very excited to unveil our Christmas collection for 2012! With the world focusing their attention on our little island for much of 2012, it got me thinking about our British Christmas traditions. For example, did you know that our much loved Christmas crackers were invented by a man called Tom Smith, back in the 1840's after a family trip to Paris where his daughter loved the sweets 'bon-bons'? A few snap-crackle-pops-from-his-log-fire-later, Christmas Crackers were born! But back to the drawing board (and several paintbrushes later) three brand new card designs were ready!...

We've been quietly beavering away on an exciting new product launch, which we've kept to ourselves although secretly bursting to tell everyone! Well, you've been kept in the dark for long enough...we are delighted to announce our foray into the world of baby clothing with Mr.Velvet's sleepsuit for babies!

It has taken a while, but they are finally here and are looking very cute (even if Mr.Velvets does say so himself). He proudly features on the sleepsuits, beautifully embroidered on the chest of our very soft cotton sleepsuit. To provide a stark contrast with the black and white dalmatian bunny, we've kept the sleepsuits in white for now. Perhaps you'd rather see...

I've been really busy working on new products to stock in lovely local shop The Crafty Cupcake, which is owned by the vintage-loving Fay.

The Crafty Cupcake in Gamlingay is a really busy little hub that has so many things going on, a very social place! It combines (dangerously delicious) cupcakes with a gorgeous boutique decked out in various vintage....

I've received lots of feedback after launching my beeline range earlier this year, and it's been fun to see which designs become each person's favourite...it seems it's the tiny little painted floral illustrations people are drawn to, rather than the humble bees! I decided to focus on just the florals and was thinking about illustrating some letters covered from tip to toe in flowers. This coincided....

Last week, we received a lovely letterpress commission to print stationery for the divine chocolatier, Godiva. Our letterpress was glistening with metallic gold ink ready to print their logo onto soft 100% cotton card, matched up with some yummy looking chocolate brown coloured envelopes. I couldn't resist doing a little experiment on a black envelope after the print run was...

It's that time of year again where we have lots of weddings!

As a stationery designer, I always feel very privileged when someone chooses me to create stationery for their special occasion, whether it's a Wedding, a party, or the arrival of a new baby, it's always so lovely to hear about the excitement and all the planning! On occasion, I am very lucky to attend the event where I've created the stationery for, and although it feels a little strange at first, it's so lovely to see where everything ends up and that it all fits with the style of the event. One such occasion I was lucky enough to attend, was when very good friends, Laura & James tied the knot!

It was such a fabulous wedding and everything looked absolutely...

Following my previous post on designing the Springtime in Paris invitation for my own Wedding, I bring you Part Two as promised! Read on to see the invitation in action...

As today is my Wedding anniversary, it got me thinking back to the big day itself and I thought I would share a few memories with you, and of course, the all important stationery! It's a question I'm often asked when working with brides to create their custom stationery, 'What was your invitation like?'. Designing my own wedding invitation was very difficult and something I put off for as long as possible, but in the end as often happens when you're designing something, the end result happens after a backwards process! In my case, it was ignored until it couldn't be ignored any more (and also because I was very busy making stationery for other people's weddings!)....