beth & sean save the date cards

This week amongst the trials and tribulations of Charlies grumpiness we have printed Beth & Seans save the date cards. They are having their ceremony & reception at the gorgeous Bridgewater Mill in South Australia. With a classically understated 1930s vintage elegance theme, coupled with the gorgeous gardens at Bridgewater, we designed their cards with a vintage art deco pattern and printed it in a gorgeous deep botanical green ink. Just lovely!

in the studio today

After yesterdays little episode Charlie and I are back being friends again. I do suppose that when your 116 years old your allowed to have an off day now and then, and I really should hold such a grudge against him - frustrations really are all part of the game when your working with such old delicate equipment!

But today he was back in his fine old spirit, which was perfectly timed as today we printed business cards for the gorgeous Sarah & Brooke from The Finders Keepers. They are an independent design & art markets founded in Sydney, who support new and emerging independent design.

The next Sydney event is the Autumn/Winter market on the 15th and 16th of May. And most exciting news for us here in sunny Brisbane is that Finders Keepers is headed our way later this year! I am so very exciting to be working with Sarah and Brooke as the Brisbane market coordinator. Oh my, such a privilege, and such gorgeous business cards as well.

Thankyou Charlie, perfectly timed!

oh charlie

Charlie and I are fighting today. He just wont behave. I think he is holding a grudge that we bought Herbie into the studio and that he has been feeling unloved for a few weeks.

We have had a few words and a few standoffish moments. I have tried to make peace with some new oiling and some shifting with the spanner, but he just wont shake hands and behave again. Such a stubborn old man sometimes.

So we are having a moment apart. I have left him to compose himself again, i've come into the office to release my frustrations, and now we will try again...

Fingers crossed.

loving girls made this

Yesterday I received this gorgeous Japanese Bird pendant from the most sweetest Jane from Girls Made This. It is so beautifully me, so sweet and so tranquil, I had to fight the tears - I was so undeserving of such a beautiful gift.

This gorgeous pendant is part of Janes OneofOne collection which is inspired by vintage imagery and objects of desire. This range incorporates a Nanna’s trove of treasures with pretty ornaments, old buttons, delicate jewels and kitschy paintings. Oh my, such beautiful handcrafted jewels made of paper tole layered in resin and set in sterling silver.

Just gorgeous, I am totally smitten. Thankyou Jane xox

its a nana kind of day

Today I had the absolute joy of attending my first ever Brisbane brown owls group. Oh my, what a gorgeous bunch of ladies.

The gorgeous Emily, was the most patient tutor and taught us all how to crochet granny squares - you know the sort your grandmas great aunts distant cousin crocheted for you when you were a wee muffin? Well my goodness, what respect I now have for the granny blanket. As my first ever crochet adventure, I must admit, I was terribly bad at it - terribly terribly bad in fact...

But nevermind, the ladies were gorgeous, their baking was fabulous, and really, at the end of the day, we all know its about the chatting... the crafting is just an added bonus!

letterpress equipment for sale

To make way for Herbie, our new guillotine ( we are yet to introduce you to it, maybe next week - we will be looking for naming suggestions) and all our new studio shelving and furniture we have had to have a big clean up of all our gorgeous old letterpress goods we have collected over the years.

As a result of them collecting dust and feeling very unloved we have decided to have an ebay sell off and find lots of our old vintage type, type trays and letterpress composing equipment new homes. It will be sad to see them go, but we do hope they can find new owners where they will get much more love and attention.

If your interested you can find our listings on our ebay shop here. The items are available for local pick up from our studio here in Scarborough, Brisbane, or we can post domestically or internationally as well.

i am being teased today

Frankie has arrived, and as always she looks gorgeous. She is sitting here next to me at my desk teasing me like something crazy... Do you think its a bad when your supposed to be running the studio but you put your feet up and start reading instead?? I am struggling to find the self control today... so dear Frankie, stop teasing me, I will find time to love you soon okay?

beautiful beautiful mondo

Photography by Calli B Photography

Photography via Artography

Photography by Calli B Photography

Photography by Calli B Photography

Photography via Artography

Photography via Artography

One of the greatest joys in running Bespoke is building lovely relationships with not only our clients, but our suppliers and other gorgeously associated wedding providers we meet along the way.

Most recently we have discovered Mondo Floral Designs based in Maleny, and oh my, perfection is the word. They specialise solely in Wedding and Event Flowers, and goodness, they do an amazing job of it! They work mainly in the Sunshine Coast area but also do venture downtown to Brisbane when ever possible. Goodness, they are simply spectacular don't you think?

my oh my

Over the last week our chair prints have been featured on so very many blogs. It is so humbling to think that our wee little prints are being admired from so far. So today I would like to say a very big thankyou to the blogs below, and the hyacinths in our studio today are just for you.

Please do check out these blogs, they are an inspiring resource and it is such an amazing honour to be featured amongst such gorgeous finds!

The ever inspirational Home Beautiful Style Hunter Blog
The gorgeous Kim & Jo from Desire To Inspire
All the way from Portugal Kika Reichert
The stunning Jennifer from Made By Girl
The ever fabulous and full of amazing finds at Poppy Talk
The gorgeously local style guru at VT Interiors
One of my new favourite finds for greeting cards at Cafe Cartolina
My ever favourite Apartment Therapy
The super gorgeous Brooke from Magnolia Square
A new wonderful find for me at The Love List
The sweetest Susie Q (with the cutest dogs!) at Eye Spy
The ever amazing paper resource at Paper Crave
The fabulous crew at Ofifteen Magazine
The wonderfully gorgeous local Designers Emporium
My destined soul mate in the designer world Steph at Bondville
And also a very big thankyou to Meet Me At Mikes for featuring our blog in their Prettiest Blog list.

Oh my. Shucks. You guys are the sweetest.
xox

free shipping ends tonight

Gorgeous friends thankyou to all of you who have bought our new chair prints - they have been flying out of the studio! It has been so humbling to have received such wonderful comments from our dear regular purchasers and new friends from across the globe we have made this week. The lovely couple who run the post office laugh at us every time we walk in with a hand full of gorgeously wrapped prints... Its a sure sign we are regulars when they know us by name!

And if you haven't yet had the chance to visit our shop our free domestic shipping across Australia, and reduced international shipping for just $6 ends at midnight tonight!

Have a gorgeous weekend my friends, so many great things have happened in the studio this week which im itching to share with you, oh my, hopefully next time we will find a little more time!

xox

look what arrived today...

Hello Hello Mr Herbie!

Our gorgeous new press has finally made it here into our studio today. And thats right, the first photo does show 1050kilos of metal suspended from a very little chain on a crane. Argh... such a scary moment...

But we are ever so thankfull for the amazing guys who relocated our press for us. Moving one of these beasts isn't any easy task (trust me, we moved Charlie, by ourselves, 14 hours from Canberra to Brisbane... it was mammoth adventure!). So we were ever so very thankful to Des and his assistant for moving Herbie for us today. Thankfully Herbie only had to travel 1.5 hours to his new home, but these beautiful old machines are not only heavy, but are also very fragile and are very precious to our hearts, so we were ever so glad to have professional press movers move Herbie for us today. Money so well spent!

He is such a gorgeous old machine... We have a tad of work to do on it, but shortly once he is up and running we will do a proper introduction here on our blog and show you all his gorgeous little nooks and crannys. We simply love its industrial sexiness... We really are not normal are we?

Oh and Charlie? He has now been moved to a prime spot under a window. We were worried that he might have taken the arrival of a new press personally, but thankfully, now that he has been relocated to the prime studio position he is a happy old man again. Phew, it could have got nasty...

online store is back online!

lovely friends, for some bazaar reason our online shop went offline for a little while... Good news is its back and running and you can find it here!

new prints in shop, and free shipping!

Today we have listed new letterpressed limited edition prints in our shop. Available in two kinds, each print is a letterpressed study of antique chairs. We adore chairs... old chairs, comfy chairs, timber chairs, rocking chairs... you name them, if they are old we love them!

Each print features 16 antique chair illustrations and has been letterpress printed in three colours - Our first print is available in charcoal, dark olive green and canary yellow. The second print is available in charcoal, dark olive green and magenta.

Printed on 100% tree free and chlorine free cotton heavyweight paper (300gsm) they have been lovingly hand fed and foot treadled through Charlie our vintage 1893 Chandler & Price printing press.

Printed as a limited edition set of 100 each print comes numbered and signed. They each measure 8.5x11" and come packaged in a protective sleeve with backing and are beautifully wrapped Bespoke style.

Each print is only Au$30 and to celebrate for the next 4 days we offering free domestic shipping and Au$6 international shipping. The sale will end at midnight on Friday the 17th of April and is available on all our prints in our shop.

in the rainy studio today

Its another wet and miserable day here in Brisbane. Is it selfish of me to wish that after the last month of non stop rain that it would just stop for a while? I know its wonderful, I know we need it, but oh, to have some sunshine again! I must not complain, after all the tomatoes are loving it...

So while its all wet and horrid outside, I have made the most of the moody day by taking photos of our new limited edition prints which we will be releasing later today. Above is a wee little sneak peak, styled with our new antique glass jars (looking somewhat cleaner then the last post) and the most gorgeous bunch of dark blue green hydrangeas... see who needs chocolate when you can have hydrangeas instead.

Although maybe, just maybe, I will rummage through the fridge and see if there is any chocolate goodness to be found, after all I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity of the one weekend a year when you get to eat chocolate and not feel too guilty about it...

an easter gift or two.

Happy easter my sweet friends! In the absence of any family up here in Brisbane, no children to buy chocolate for and my husband away for the weekend, its going to be a very unchocolaty easter here in the studio. Although not that I totally mind... after all I did manage to compensate with buying myself some little easter presents today!

After a meeting with a pair of new gorgeous wedding clients in their most delightfully renovated Queenslander in Paddington I stopped into the amazing treasure trove of Paddington Antique Centre. $5 later I own two of the most stunning antique glass bottles, which after a big wash and a trip to the florist, now house a collection of hydrangeas and lilies in the studio. Ahh bliss, who needs chocolate when you can have flowers!!!

Have a most lovely long weekend my sweets.

where has the week gone?

Dear friends, where has this week gone? Its thursday already. Goodness, our poor blog has been a bit unloved this week. We hope it hasn't taken it personally.

Its been a busy busy week here this week, lots of appointments with gorgeous couples getting married, lots of renovation work happening in our studio - we now have half a floor and some doors. It is also wonderful to have handles on our windows after all these months of trying to shut them without any mechanism to do so!

Our new press is arriving next wednesday, and we are so exited about this. Although of course, this does mean that all the half finished renovation jobs will need to be finished before the new press arrives. Argh, nothing like some pressure to get things rolling. We have affectionately named our new press Herbie, We cant wait to share photos of his beautiful industrialness with you soon.

In other news, after all the rains that have fallen here in Queensland over the last few weeks, the veggie patch has thrived. Our tomato bushes are now covered in fruit. I think we may be eating bruschetta for quite a few weeks yet. Now if only the passion fruits would kick into action as my Dad and I are having a competition about who can grow the most fruit first. I am terribly disappointed that he is winning thus far. All I can say is that in his new found retirement he must just have far too much time to go sing to his plants and give them the love they deserve!

I think I need some finches

Sweet possums how was your weekend? I had a glorious time shopping with my most sweetest friend for bridesmaid dresses. I simply adore the midnight navy she has chosen, so striking and elegant. Maybe it will become my new favourite colour... after white of course...

Onto totally random news, I have been thinking about our garden of late. This is the year of our yet to be started massive outdoor renovation. Recently while we were in Tasmania out the front of one of our many antique shops we found, I fell in love with an avery full of the sweetest little finches. Inside the avery, three of the little muffins were all cuddled up together on a perk having a little sleep. It was simply so gorgeous, I wish I had been able to take a photo to show you. It has reminded me how much I adore little birds, such the sweet little things.

Watching these finches remind me of my mum. Growing up we had a family holiday farm down at the Snowy Mountains in NSW. I remember my mum spotting the cutest little finches down at the farm, in the midst of the winter snow. It would have been such a striking view, but of course, at the time as a child I am sure I was far more excited about the snow then the birds. But it is funny how much we grow up to be just like our mothers. Lucky she is a gorgeously fabulous woman - so there is still hope for me yet.

So now, I am wondering, that maybe as part of our massive outdoor renovation I could convince my husband that we need a finch avery in the backyard. What do you think? It would have to be white with black trimming, full of queenslander style, surrounded by palms and bamboo. Oh and match the house of course. That's not asking for too much is it?

Image via Flickr

after the rains

Finally the rains have stopped pouring down here in Brisbane and I finally had a chance to head outside and get some sunshine. Well almost sunshine, there is a touch of blue sky up there somewhere. Ruby finally got a chance to head outside and do her business. How a dog can hold on for a day and a half astounds me, but she was adamant, she would not get her paws wet... I told you she was precious.

After all the rain, it was so lovely to see that our watermelon seeds have sprouted. Have I ever told you how much I love watermelon? Every breakfast I have a fresh watermelon and pineapple juice, and oh how I cannot wait to have our own watermelons taking over the garden. Isn't it such a miracle that a bunch of seeds can sit dormant in a paper packet for so long, and then once they are planted and receive literally bucket loads of water they sprout into life. The wonder of nature I suppose. Such little things intrigue me...

On to other news, last night I had such a wonderful time catching up with old friends and making new ones at the ABCD Brisbane get together. Organised by the gorgeous Steph and Kim, it was such a lovely evening. How lucky we are to live in such a creative community - wonderful things are happening here in Brisbane, it is oh so very exciting to be part of it all.

Have a gorgeous weekend my friends. Tonight I have my nearest and dearest friend travelling up to stay with us for a weekend of bridesmaid dress shopping for her wedding in August. So exciting, oh how I love gorgeous dresses!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend as well my friends.

xox

Back in the studio

My sweet lovelies thankyou for all your warm wishes, hugs for you all, your the sweetest.

After a couple of days in bed and a seriously bad case of bed hair today I am back in the studio and designing for my lovely clients again. I was hoping after a few days of bed rest to enjoy some sunshine and fresh air, but the weather gods had other ideas and it has been raining torrentially non stop all day. Wonderful for our veggie garden and new plants, but not so lovely for a cooped up studio dog. Poor little Ruby muffin, she goes to her dog door, looks out the window, drops her head and does a doggie sigh. She really isn't one for getting her paws wet... Such a precious darling really.