Bespoke Press

cheree & mitchell :: letterpress wedding stationery

2012-02-02T15:39:00.002+10:00

Late last year we had the pleasure of designing and letterpress printing stunning letterpress wedding invitations for Cheree and Mitchell who are based in Sydney, NSW. They have an amazing day planned for next weekend, with a ceremony at the incredible Centennial Parklands and a reception at the Sydney Opera House.

With a theme planned of unrefined glamour and a touch of bohemian - with a relaxed elegance created with masses of linens, french lace, cut crystal, weathered timber tables, chandeliers and candles - their day sounds like an unbelievable visual feast!

They commissioned us to design and letterpress wedding stationery as a beautiful introduction for their day. We in turn commissioned a hand lettering calligrapher to design a hand written script to best reflect their day, coupled with a classic serif in upper and lower case combinations, combined with a subtle ivory peony illustration and masses of white space for an element of sophisticated glamour.

Their letterpress wedding suite included 2 colour invitations (black and light ivory ink), as well as letterpress reply postcards, gift cards and a detailed map to help guests navigate the tricky Centennial Parklands, all packaged inside of lined envelopes - just gorgeous!

We wish Cheree and Mitchell the most magical of magic days next Saturday!

happy birthday

2012-02-01T14:21:00.002+10:00

Today is our little misses 6th birthday. We went for a special beach walk this morning, followed up with a check up trip to the vet. Probably not the funnest way to spend a birthday, but she is currently outside devouring a great summer snack - a great big frozen block of ice which we froze with a dash of beef stock for some yummy doggy flavour - so I am sure the vet trip (and needle) is long forgotten.

If your a sucker for puppies, I have gone back and found some early photos of Ruby Tuesday. We still call her our little miss, but she sure was a super little miss back then. Her coat was a lot lighter, her ear hair (and lions mane) not yet crazy and her blue puppy eyes were adorable. She was such a cute little thing. She still sometimes thinks that she is a puppy and likes to act like one a lot of the time - I haven't yet had the heart to tell her that she is now middle aged!

oh my.

2012-01-30T19:06:00.001+10:00

My goodness, how has it been a week since we last blogged. I know I must say it all the time, but life here in the studio can just get so hectic! We've got so many big and wonderful plans for 2012, but making them happen is sure taking up a lot of time. Beautiful things don't happen easily, I've got to keep on reminding myself that.

If you follow us on intsagram or twitter you might have seen our crazy flooding photos of the last week. The rain is wonderful and it sure makes it feel like summer, But I am putting out the request into the universe that I think we have had enough for one summer already. We came about 5mm short of a flooded studio, thank fully we were saved at the very last minute and we've now got some sumbergable pumps action in place so that hopefully it cannot happen again. Fingers crossed.

You might have also seen that we got a new purchase for the studio - a Lelit Espresso machine. Thankfully it came with a 2 hour lesson - as goodness, the craft of coffee is almost as tricky as the craft of letterpress. Well, maybe, that is a slight exaggeration, but their is so much to learn! Thankfully even though our coffee is yet not fabulous, our vintage teacups sure are loving the work out.

Do you espresso? Have any tips and tricks? ?

xA

maree homer :: letterpress business cards

2012-01-23T15:12:00.001+10:00

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting the very talented photographer Maree Homer when she visited our home and studio last August (exciting news which I can share soon!). It is always a pleasure to show talented creatives our working studio and Maree loved our beautiful old beasts of Herbie, Helga and Charlie so much so that she commissioned us to design and letterpress print some gorgeous business cards to suit her new website. We instagramed some shots of our work in progress - and even managed to dribble ink all over our pantone book in the process - printing is always a messy job!

Can you believe that that spilt orange coloured ink actually prints the final yellow colour as shown in the middle swatch of the pantone book? I always think that colour mixing has got to be one of the trickiest letterpress tasks - you can never believe what you see until it prints on the press!

It was so lovely to work with Maree and we hope that the lucky receivers of her letterpress business cards will love them just as much as we loved making them!

this week...

2012-01-20T11:08:00.002+10:00

This week started off all a bit wet and miserable. The little Miss above was all too unimpressed. She pulls me these sad dog eyes all the time when she is bored. Maybe her hanging lead in the background is all too much of a reminder for her that it is all too wet outside for adventures.

And then later this week - The sun started shinning, all the big fat wet puddles started to disappear and someone is most edgar to get out and about - NOW!!! This is standing near the pathway to the back gate and out into the world. She bounces between running to the gate and then running back in view just to make sure that we are following. Talk about persistent.

So we went down here to our local beach for a few walks. We enjoyed some fresh sea air, watched the kite surfers and even had someone else's dog develop a love obsession with Ruby and followed us almost all the way home.

And we even did this for a bit... Only for a bit though, it is a bit of a love/hate relationship for the precious lady.

Happy weekend my friends, I hope the sun is also shining where ever you may be!
xox

featured stockist :: inkwell boutique - canada

2012-01-17T12:30:00.000+10:00

Image by Daniel MacDonald

Today we have a very special treat for you - a visit to the gorgeous Inkwell Boutique in Hallifax, Nova Scotia Canada. When Andrea got in touch with us last year to ask if we would be interested in stocking some of our letterpress goodies in here gorgeous store, we were terribly excited and could not wait to send a bundle of letterpress love across the seas to Canada to this gorgeous shop!

Inkwell Boutique are purveyors of specialty paper and handmade goods - all handmade with love by talented artists found locally and right across the world. And if this doesn't sound like the perfect sort of shop already - it is even better as they also offer custom letterpress printed stationery as well. My total idea of perfect!

A big thank you to Andrea for sharing with us some photos and information about her lovely store below... Now if only we could arrange a visit to fly to Canada to say hello in person!

Image by Daniel MacDonald

Tell us a little about your store and its philosophy?

Inkwell is a recent addition to downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The shop specialises in handmade paper goods and other goodies from around the corner and across the world. Items most commonly found are art prints, greeting cards, pottery, jewellery, calendars and tea towels. We also offer custom design and letterpress services to the public. Custom work is small scale, small batch - business / calling cards, stationery, cards, announcements and invitations.

Image by Daniel MacDonald

What are some of your favourite brands in stock? What makes you choose these designers to showcase?

It's tough to choose a favourite, as everything in the shop is curated by myself and are things I personally covet. Some of my favourite brands currently carried are: Bespoke, Sycamore Street Press, Pearl & Marmalade, Old School Stationer's and Wrap magazine. New artists are added often, I basically order what I like and would want for myself.

One thing you love the most about your shop?

The reactions received from first time visitors. Visitors are so grateful for a shop like Inkwell to exist in the city - 9 times out of 10 they proclaim it to be their favourite shop ever!

Image by Daniel MacDonald

Left Image by Mark Neil Balson, Right image by Daniel MacDonald

Tell us about design in Nova Scotia? Favourite things to do?

Design in Nova Scotia is quite prominent. Halifax, the capital, has the oldest art school in North America called the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University (NSCAD).

I am a graduate of NSCAD in graphic design and there are many creative businesses that employ other graduates of the university. There is a lot of great talent and a whole section of the shop is dedicated to local artists.

I am also a member of the Letterpress Gang at the Dawson Printshop, which is part of NSCAD. We meet on a weekly basis to help maintain the collection and to organize events for letterpress awareness within the local community.

My favourite thing to do in Nova Scotia would probably be escape on my day off, to antique shops and restaurants outside of the city.

Contact details:
1658 Market Street, Halifax, NS B3J 0B4
phone: (902) 405-8309
email: hello@inkwellboutique.ca

Website // Twitter // Facebook // Blog

P.S Now those of you who are big fans of our adorable Ruby Tuesday might know that the gorgeous part of the world that is Nova Scotia is actually our sweet hounds homeland - Serendipity indeed!

why hello

2012-01-16T16:50:00.003+10:00

Hello friends! How have you all been? It has been a little quite from us for a few days. Last week we left the farm (very sad, even the cows came running after our car as we drove away) and travelled back to Brisbane. We had hoped for a little longer holiday, however with an almighty busy end of January and crazy February booked in the studio we came back to give the presses some loving again.

I must admit it has been a little hard to get back into the work swing of things again. The weather has been quite miserable here of late, and the studio has been almighty quiet with my lovely helpers having a little break.

We have still had some excitement here though - we've had brand new spanking computers arrive this week, so we are a little excited to get our Mac Nerd caps on and celebrate our new arrivals. Although, It is always a little sad to say goodbye to old computers - my trusty lovely friend above has been so good to me and I am sure I will be sad to see it go. Is it silly to feel this way about computers? I feel like this Mac is the pathway that leads me out into the world, it shares my thoughts, it spreads my wings and helps me fly. I am sure I am not quite normal?

We also had a break through last week - after all these years of sweating it out in the print studio, we now have air conditioning to keep us cool and crisp when we are printing. Miss Ruby Tuesday did not fail to miss its arrival and she has now found a new spot to undertake her studio management - Smack bang in front of its path of cool aircon comfort stream.

Well my dears, I should really go get the new computers out of the box and make friends with the new model. I am sure no doubt, in a day or two and we will be the bestest of friends already.

xox

old friends

2012-01-12T11:44:00.001+10:00

Ruby: Hey Nigel, How you been?
Nigel : Good thanks little red dog.
Ruby: You've grown a lot since last summer.
Nigel: Do I scare you now?
Ruby: No. well, maybe, just a little. You've got big horns now.
Nigel: Don't be afraid, it's me, your old friend.
Ruby: I've missed you.
Nigel: You too sweet friend.

snippets from the farm

2012-01-09T11:00:00.000+10:00

hello 2012

2012-01-08T17:53:00.002+10:00

We welcomed in the New Year with a cliff top barbecue upon the farms cliff top. With views out across the Mid West New South Wales wine region, a perfect sunset, laughter, much merriment - It was a beautiful country night to remember.

Did you celebrate? I hope that your welcome to the new year was just as special as ours. xox

from the farm

2012-01-05T14:09:00.002+10:00

Nigel sends his regards. xox

a most lovely Christmas

2012-01-03T13:56:00.000+10:00

We are a little behind with our Christmas post - please excuse us. Our old trick of standing on the cow fence down on the farm in our annual summer January farm holiday has failed us this year, as Telstra no longer wants to play that game! It talks a 30 minute drive into town to get some much needed reception to connect us back up with the world again. The sweet life of the country.

Currently I am sitting at a sweet little art deco cafe, drinking coffee and doing my best to pretend that I am not doing work whilst on holidays. Next trip back in town I will make sure that I am more prepared with more photos of our fabulous cliff top New Years country party and sweet photos of Ruby and the cows.

Until then I hope that you enjoy the above photos of my Mothers fabulous Christmas decorating. We had a lovely lunch with a beautifully styled table. I love the last photo - it shows the table mid party full of champagne, our annual Christmas scratches (so australian), silly bon bon games, and loads of bubbles from our christmas lunch bubbleathon. Wonderful times. I love Christmas and hope that yours too was full of merriment and much laughter.

xox

merry merry

2011-12-23T14:14:00.001+10:00

The most beautiful of gifts from the sweetest of sweet friends.

My goodness friends, it is hard to believe that the time has come for us to sign off for the year.

What a wonderful, crazy, beautiful and wonderful year it has been. A very big thank you to all our gorgeous wedding clients with whom we have been able to share a part of our journey with this year - thank you for letting us into your lives and sharing your most magical of magical days.

A very big thank you to our growing list of stockists, we love seeing our letterpress goodies heading out into the world to be shared with your customers. We have adored venturing more into this area and we have got some big plans for 2012, so a most lovely thank you. It is such a joy to share our letterpress love with you.

To all our lovely online shoppers and market visitors, oh how we adore you. Your beautiful emails, sweet whispers of love and support is beyond amazing. We love being able to grow and build letterpress love and appreciation here in Australia and your amazing support makes it all possible.

To my beautiful studio girls, studio boy and sweet canine studio manager, how hard you work and how much you are loved. It has been such a busy year and yet with coffee and cake, we have made magic happen! Next year we will be growing, and are looking forward to welcoming another another member to come join in our crazy little studio team.

And you too dear blog readers, my goodness, how chuffed I am to know that you are out their reading our journeys, sharing in the studio love and continuing to read our wee blog after 655 blog posts, and 364,266 visits over the last three and half years. This is such a magical community, we are blessed to live in this age of blog love. I could not imagine running Bespoke without this little blog ticking in the background. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So as we sign off for the year, we wish you and your families a most magical of magic holiday season. We will be closing the Brisbane studio whilst we travel interstate, but will be back up and running from the company of Nigel and the cows at our family farm property for a few weeks on January. We are bound to have some photos and more adventures of Ruby and Nigel's blossoming friendship for you again - although do excuse us if we are slow, as we do have to stand on a cow fence to get reception!

Much christmas love, Alischa
xox

dark chocolate, pear and pistachio cake

2011-12-21T10:09:00.003+10:00

One of my favourite things to do at Christmas time is to head into the kitchen and do some festive baking. This season has been quite busy so my collection of cooking chocolates and nuts are gathering dust in the pantry. However a few weeks ago one of my all time favourite food and photography blogs by Jillian Leiboff put out a call for her readers favourite christmas recipes, and I submitted my favourite recipe - Dark chocolate, pear and pistachio cake.

Their is a little story behind these cakes - Quite a few years ago while staying at gorgeous little resort at Lord Howe Island (we won the holiday, a most fabulous surprise, and even more fabulous that they spoilt us with amazing food!) we were served this gorgeous little cake which I devoured, and do believe went back for seconds. Upon our return home I searched high and low and found the recipe which I have since baked more times then I can count since. It is a bit of a messy recipe, the sort where you have chocolate and nuts flying across the kitchen, but to me it has a distinct Christmassy feel with the pistachios and rich chocolate all balanced out with the subtle pear inclusion.

Jillian has done an amazing job and I am beyond words with her gorgeous photography and styling of my favourite little sweet cakes. I will tell you this, mine look 100% less dignified and 100% more messy, plus my kitchen does look like a disaster zone, but we still devour them never the less.

This week Jillian is featuring a week long celebration of her readers Christmas recipes (and a few of her own secret recipes), such a beautiful idea and do make sure you pop over for a visit.

Thank you Jillian for choosing our recipe, you have made me distinctively itching to crack open a block of chocolate and get into the kitchen!!

in the studio

2011-12-20T11:37:00.004+10:00

It has been quite busy the past few days in the studio as we finish printing our last orders of the year. Today we are printing one last print run, and then at the end of today we will be giving our presses a good oil, many pats of affection, and then letting them have a small rest whilst we bring in the new year. How hard they have worked this year, our beautiful, beautiful one tonne beasts.

friday rambles

2011-12-16T12:15:00.000+10:00

Hello friends! How have you all been? I feel like I have not been around here much on the blog of late - this time of year becomes so hectic here in the studio! Our Free Shipping in our online store has been keeping us most busy with beautiful Christmas wraps, tags, cards and gifts heading out into all little pockets of the world. Our Free Shipping promotion ends on Sunday evening with all orders received before this time posted in time for Christmas (Australian orders only).

We are also in the middle of peak wedding season designing and printing beautiful stationery for lovely couples who are having Autumn weddings. We are working on some real beauties at the moment with many designs now ready for printing, and quite a few others in the design stages. We love weddings so much, it really is just a joy to design for the happiest day in peoples lives. Talking of happy days, this video blew me away yesterday. It is eternally beautiful.

Tonight sees the Graduation of my students from Shillington College who I have had the joy of teaching in the world of graphic design on Wednesday and Thursday nights this year. What a fabulously crazy, fun and talented bunch they are. It has been such a joy to see them blossom into amazing designers, and I am so excited for each one of them to embark on their new journeys into the land of design. Another great joy in my life is sharing my love of design, to teach it, to lecture upon it, to inspire, it is such a honour.

Into news of the silly season, It has hard to believe that Christmas has snuck up upon us so quickly. Not being one for watching much television, the other day I sat down for a rare hour to watch the news. I was shocked that all the tv commercials were for Christmas, How did this happen? We have been printing and selling Christmas stationery for months, so you think I would be at peace with the fact that it is almost the end of the year. But it was still such a shock that goodness, it is just around the corner.

Do you have some lovely plans for over Christmas and the start of the New Year? We are headed interstate to visit family and the Little Miss gets to come with us too.

Have I ever told you that Ruby's all time favourite thing in the world to do is go for car trips? So much so that she has been known to jump in the car and not budge all day just in the hope of an adventure. This year she may be a little disappointed to find out that her car trip will only be a short one to the airport. But I am sure she will maintain all her excitement again when after Christmas (and that dreaded plane trip) when we load her back into the car and out to the family farm out Mudgee way. Do you remember Ruby and Nigels friendship from last year? I am sure they will be tickled pink to see each other once again.

Well my friends, have a lovely weekend! As the last one before christmas we will be doing lots of printing and also my all time favourite - Christmas wrapping. One of my other great loves.

See you again next week!
xox

life in the land of now

2011-12-15T18:30:00.001+10:00

anett & russell :: save the dates

2011-12-13T10:49:00.001+10:00

We recently had the pleasure of designing and printing this gorgeous save the date letterpress stationery for Anett and Russell. Anett is an Australian girl who fell in love with an English chap and together they have shared their lives both here in Australia and in the United Kingdom. With a wedding planned for October 2012, we had the joy of designing save the dates for their English cocktail reception to be held in London.

With guests travelling from afar, Anett and Russell's requirements for their save the dates where that they were classically sophisticated, with a hint of regal styling in their design. We designed a custom monogram which was letterpress printed with stunning typography on our white 100% cotton stocks. Teamed up with printed envelopes we adore this stationery suite and cannot wait to continue this theme into Anett and Russell's wedding stationery!

we are hiring!

2011-12-12T12:22:00.001+10:00

We are on the hunt for a new team member to join our little but passionate team. The position is a Part Time Administration Coordinator role based out of our Brisbane North Side studio approx 20 hours per week. If you offer amazing Admin and Customer service skills, are letterpress lover and would love to make beautiful stationery happen we would love to hear from you.

Full details of the job position are available here.

snapshots from sydney finders keepers

2011-12-08T12:10:00.001+10:00

Our letterpress christmas tree

Typecases of letterpress swing tags

The most beautiful scarfs by Good & Co. It took me a good half an hour to choose my favourite and I have worn it every day since. Love!

Gorgeous colours and textures Kanimbla Clay

Beautiful ceramics by Kanimbla Clay

Free shipping & our latest newslettter!

2011-12-06T14:20:00.001+10:00

Hello friends! Have you heard our news? Our Christmas newsletter was sent out today and to celebrate we are offering FREE SHIPPING in our online store for all orders over $30.00 placed before midnight the 19th of December in our online store!

All orders placed before this time will have immediate shipping to arrive before Christmas. Simply spend $30 or more, and enter the code FREESHIPPING upon checkout. Valid for Australian customers only.

International customers can receive $10 flat rate shipping (excludes twines and gift wrap) - no code upon check out required.

You can read our full newsletter here and if you would like to subscribe for future newsletters you can sign up here on our website.

Happy Shopping!

sydney finders keepers this weekend!

2011-12-01T08:51:00.001+10:00

Tomorrow morning we are off to Sydney for the ever fabulous Summer Sydney Finders Keepers markets, We are most excited as it is one of our all time favourite events of the year!

Carriageworks throbs with excitement on Friday night where the mood is always electric and the atmpsophere magical, especially at this Christmas time of year. Saturday morning we stop at the Eveleigh Farmers Markets and stock up for sweet treats and yummy goodies for the day and then from 10am we kick it all back off again with another day of Finders Keepers wonder. This market we are also super excited to check out the Zine Society and Leeloo's On The Wall exhibition.

If you are at the markets, don't be shy - we love saying hello!

Details:

Carriageworks

245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh

Friday 2nd December 6pm to 10pm

Saturday 3rd December 10am to 5pm

p.s how gorgeous is the artwork by Beth-Emily? Love love love her work!

catherine & joel :: order of service booklets

2011-11-30T10:27:00.001+10:00

Earlier this month we completed these super sweet order of service booklets for Catherine and Joel who were married at All Saints Chapel, Hamilton Island. We illustrated the sweet motif of the weatherboard chapel and competed this with typography to suit the invitations in which we had previously designed. Letterpressed on white 100% cotton paper in a mid tone grey ink, we then digitally printed the internal service pages and machine stitched the spine binding. Just lovely!

airmail and candy stripes twine

2011-11-29T11:58:00.001+10:00

We've got exciting news - We've got two gorgeous new twines available in our online store!

Each of our Airmail and Candy Stripe rolls is full of old fashioned twine goodness and features 220m of 100% cotton 4ply twine. Available for $18 per roll here and here.

LOVE!

GoMA christmas market this saturday!

2011-11-25T10:10:00.001+10:00

Brisbane folks - this Saturday is the gorgeous GoMA Gallery Store Markets. These are our last event in Brisbane for the year, and we are most excited to be showing our letterpress goodies amongst some of Brisbane's finest including Paper Boat Press, Loose.Leaf Paper, Penelope and Pip and more.

We might just see you there!

Saturday 26th November
9.00am to 4pm
Gallery of Modern Art
Stanley Street, South Brisbane.

showstopper

2011-11-24T11:53:00.001+10:00

This little lady steals my heart every day. xox

letterpress kraft christmas tags/ornaments

2011-11-22T08:46:00.000+10:00

Back by popular demand this year are our letterpress Christmas large kraft tags/ornaments. Letterpress printed on super heavy weight 600gsm kraft board our tags have been letterpress printed in two colours white and red and then die cut into the sweetest festive shapes. Measuring 86mm x 86mm they come with red and white bakers twine and are available in our online store as 6 packs for $15. Limited numbers available.

featured stockist :: shelf / life

2011-11-21T08:22:00.000+10:00

Back in the summer of 2009 we started to work on building letterpress products which we could make available for retail stores. At the same time we were contacted by the most delightful Jess who was starting up her homewares and lifestyle store Shelf / Life in Sydneys Surry Hill's - it was a simply delightful case of perfect timing. One of our very first batches of retail goodies went off to her lovely store and over the past two years we have been tickled pink to send lovely parcels of letterpress goodness off to the Shelf / Life's shelves.

As our retail range has expanded, we have cherished the support from Jess and her team, and for us, it has been such a joy to watch the developments and growth of Shelf / Life (as well as Jess's house renovations and amazing wedding) over on their blog. It is also wonderfully exciting news (especially for us interstaters) that Shelf / Life have also just launched their own online store!

The gorgeous Jess had a recent chat to us about Shelf / Life, and you can read the full details below.

Tell us a little about your store and its philosophy?
shelf / life has been open for almost 2 years now and we have recently launched our new online store as well. We offer a range of homewares, stationery and lifestyle products with a focus on ethical design and production. We believe that great design should encompass quality, integrity and longevity, and our intent is to provide products for everyday life which reflect this.

We support independent designers and artisans from around the world who can ensure traditional craft skills will be kept alive for years to come. We love to hear and share stories about how things are made - the techniques, the materials, the ideas behind a design - so that others can be inspired to make
considered choices.

What are some of your favourite brands in stock? What makes you choose these designers to showcase?
Too many to mention! I do love stocking products by The Dharma Door as their fair trade bags and baskets are not only beautifully designed but help to empower women in Bangladesh by providing employment. I adore Bespoke Press (of course!) for the tactility of the letterpressed cardstock and yummy colourways and Rifle Paper Co for their beautiful loose painterly designs. I also have a soft spot for Perch! Designʼs Mason Jar - probably my all-time favourite object in the shop.

Usually when choosing designers for the shop I consider a number of factors but obviously I have to love something to put it on my shelves. After that initial little burst of excitement that I feel I then ask
questions about functionality, quality and the designerʼs process to work out whether it will be a good fit for our store.

One thing you love the most about your shop?
Itʼs a tie between receiving and unpacking new boxes of goodies for the shelves and chatting to regular customers who always say the nicest things!

Tell us about Surry Hills, what are some of your favourite finds?
Our little pocket of Surry Hills is a friendly neighbourhood with all its little shops and cafes tucked in amongst beautiful old terraces. There are a lot of creative businesses in the area as well so you always get to meet interesting people. My favourite find, which is probably very well known to Sydneysiders,
is Single Origin Cafe - delicious coffee and great food... and dangerously close to my shop!

Contact details
shelf / life
Shop 1, 50 Reservoir St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
02 9211 2858
www.shelflife.com.au
www.facebook.com/shelflifestore

Opening hours
Tues - Thurs 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm
(extended trading hours leading up to Christmas)

penny & glyn :: letterpress save the dates

2011-11-16T08:30:00.000+10:00

We recently designed and letterpress printed these super lovely save the dates for Penny and Glyn from Victoria. They are planning a late Autumn 2012 wedding at the divine Stones of the Yarra Valley. With a chapel ceremony, converted barn reception, masses of white flowers with greenery and gorgeous rustic timber elements we love the plans they have for their day.

Penny & Glyn's brief to us was to represent their day through the use of rustic elements combined with classic styling and gorgeous typography.

We love their final chosen design - it's use of space and combinations of typefaces, as well as the vintage motif perfectly presents the letterpress impression and has resulted in a beautifully tactile save the date card. Just lovely!

love

2011-11-15T09:00:00.000+10:00

Gosh I love our paper twines a hundred times over, Love, Love, Love.

Now instore for you to love too.

aleisha & karl :: letterpress wedding stationery

2011-11-14T09:30:00.000+10:00

Last Friday was the magical date of the 11th of the 11th 2011 - A pretty special day as far as numbers go. We had a few gorgeous couples getting married on this day and one of the was Karl and Aleisha from Western Australia.

We designed and letterpressed their wedding set several months ago to be classically beautiful yet tactile and beautiful to the touch. A blind impressed pattern was printed on our 100% cotton paper and teamed up with our sweet love heart and strong and simple typography. The suite included invitations, printed and lined envelopes (with address scalloped labels) reply postcard, gift cards and placesettings.

We simply adored the blind impressed pattern - its simplicity yet small intricacies made it perfect for letterpress - blind impressed patterns are best suited with strong areas of negative and positive space inside of the pattern itself - so this one was perfect. We loved a hundred times over!

letterpress christmas swing/gift tags

2011-11-11T09:10:00.001+10:00

Today we have some Christmas letterpress swing tag eye candy for you - we couldn't work out which images to show - so heck, we will show them all! Our swing tags come in three different designs, in four different colours and can be bought as 12 packs for $20 here.

You might also spot our double sided gift wrap in a few of the shots - we have teamed these up to be intermixed with our Christmas swing tags and colours - you can view the range here.

japanese washi paper tape now instore

2011-11-10T11:06:00.001+10:00

For quite some time we have been stocking our favourite Japanese Washi Paper tape - so we thought it was about time we jolly well listed it in our online store! We currently have 14 different patterns and designs in stock of this wonder tape.

Washi paper tape can be used for gift wrapping, book-marking, sealing envelopes, art and craft or attaching bills to the fridge. Once you start, you'll find it hard to stop. Utilising the characteristics of Japanese rice paper, each Masking Tape roll is textured and can be written on, is easy to remove and does not leave stains, offering an abundance of creative and decorative uses. We use this tape for so many uses in the studio - not only does it look super pretty, but it sure is super handy to have on hand!

Each roll is 10mm wide by 10 meters long and are available for $4.95 per roll right here in our little online shop.

christmas card 6 packs now instore

2011-11-10T10:30:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we introduced you to the four cards in our Christmas card range, and today we have our 6 packs to show you! Our individual cards are $6 each, however if you have a few cards to send this silly season, our 6 packs can be a great way to go for $26.95 - that is less then $4.50 per lovely letterpress card!

Our Red/Silver 6 pack features
- 3 cards of our Red ""May the sparkle of the stars, and all the peace on earth by yours this Christmas"
- 3 cards of our Silver "In this loveliest of seasons, may you find laughter and merriment and dashings of good fortune, for a fabulous new year to come"

Our Orange/Turquoise 6 pack features
- 3 cards of our Orange "Wishing you laughter and love, and all things merry and bright, for this most wonderful time of the year "
- 3 cards of our turquoise "May you have blessings of love, the sweetest of joys, stuffing's of treats, and stockings full of sweet cheer this Christmas"

Each pack includes 6 kraft envelopes and are boxed inside of a protective plastic casing. Available in very limited numbers here and here.

letterpress christmas cards now available!

2011-11-09T09:41:00.001+10:00

Do you send Christmas cards out each year? It seems like one of those dying past times that in our technological age that is slowly becoming forgotten.

I love the joy of receiving Christmas cards - the envelope in the mail box with a hand written address - a festive stamp and that tell tale "Card Only" sticker which brings a little flutter to your heart - it is always such an exciting moment, especially when it is hidden between bills and all that other boring mail which normally fills the box. A hidden joy that Christmas is just around the corner.

I must admit several years ago, life got too busy and sending Christmas cards was one of the first things on my Christmas list of things to do which was forgotten. But with a love of sending and receiving cards, this year we are determined to be organised and to sit down and to write to our loved ones. We hope it brings a little Christmas joy to their day.

In the spirit of reinventing the Christmas card tradition for the last few months my brain has been ticking over thinking of the perfect wording to reflect the joy, the love and the happiness of Christmas. With a little touch of humour, lots of heart warming and a touch of quirk we are pretty happy with the end result!

We designed and letterpress printed 4 different cards for this Christmas season. Utilising a mixture of typefaces we gave them a little vintage vibe through the combination of three sweet typefaces and we letterpress printed them on Herbie our 1972 Heidelberg Platen in 4 colour ways - Red, Orange, Turquoise and Silver on our 100% cotton ivory stock.

Each card measures 95mm x 130mm and comes complete with a brown kraft envelope. Our cards are available as single cards $6.00 (visit: red, orange, turquoise, silver) or as 6 packs $26.95 (here and here) in our online store - Available in limited numbers only.

Do you have a favourite? I particularly love the orange ink, but adore the simplicity of our red wording, but then again the silver ink is quite a delight and turquoise just never goes out of fashion. Which one do you like the best?

christmas stationery now available!

2011-11-08T09:15:00.001+10:00

Over the past few months we have been busy little bees (elves?) here in the studio designing and printing our 2011 letterpress Christmas range! Over the next few days we will introduce you to our range of letterpress cards, swing tags, gift wrap, twines, ribbons and paper tapes. But if you can't wait out that long, you can get a little sneaky peak you of the range here!

thank you brisbane!

2011-11-07T15:40:00.002+10:00

The gorgeous Old Museum Building and the sweetest Bunting by the Sneaky CafeGorgeous homewares by Elkhorn (love their stuff so much!!) and yummy Macaroons.

Our new bookmarks (to be launched in our online store soon) and those AMAZING peonies.

Oh my Brisbane, what a marvellous weekend! A very big thank you for all of those who stopped by and said hello at our Finders Keepers Stall. We met so many lovely people, saw lots of familiar faces and had a delightful time!

A very big thank you to my gorgeous friend Louise for all her help setting up and for arranging the most amazing Peony flowers for us (I can't even count how many times I declared my love for them over the weekend). A huge thanks to the gorgeous Mr H who makes the most wonderful shop boy, and with whom it is so fun to share in this journey with. To Sarah and Brooke with whom it is both a pleasure to work with - The Finders Keepers is such a magical community and it is such a joy to be able to help do my part to bring the Finders Keepers love to town. And finally a very big thank you to all those who support our letterpress goods, it is such a joy to be able to share our love of letterpress with you.

Sydney - it is your turn next! We will be seeing you at Carriageworks on the 2nd and 3rd of December! You can find out more details here.

My goodness, Thank you Brisbane, you sure are one fabulous city!
xox

Brisbane Finders Keepers - this weekend!

2011-11-04T21:45:00.000+10:00

It is Brisbane Finders Keepers time! 10am to 4pm this Saturday and Sunday at the stunning Old Museum. If you attend, do pop on by and day hello - just look out for our letterpress typographic bunting in the first Studio. With 60 odd amazing designers we will be stocking up our present box full of designery goodness, eating our way through sweet treats and soaking up all the wonder that is Finders Keepers. We hope to see you there!

You can find out all the details here, view the designers here and plan your visit here

new paper twine now instore

2011-11-02T08:30:00.000+10:00

We've got some fabulous new paper twine colours now available instore. 50 meters of papery twine goodness on vintage European bobbins - swoon. Available in limited numbers you can find the range here.

Sarah & Ben :: letterpress order of service booklets

2011-10-31T14:28:00.000+10:00

We recently had the pleasure of designing and printing wedding Stationery for the Brisbane based Sarah and Ben. With their wedding just gone this last weekend, we wanted to show you a little snapshot of their order of service covers - beautiful typography, masses of white space and ivory stitched spines to the booklets - just lovely!!!

It was a pleasure to design and print for this lovely couple and we wish them all the very best as they start their new lives together!

weekend rambles.

2011-10-28T10:47:00.001+10:00

My goodness, I know I say it every friday, but how can it be friday already? It scares me how fast time races by. This week has been another very very busy week. After some lovely birthday celebrations last weekend, Monday we jumped straight back into work and it has been crazy ever since.

At the moment we are in peak time booking and and preparing designs for Autumn and beyond 2012 weddings. Currently we are fully booked until late February, so it is breaking my heart at the moment to let prospective couples know that we are unable to squeeze them in if they require stationery before this time. I am learning slowly - that I cannot do it all. But that which I can do, I will do with all my heart and soul and every little bit of love.

This week has also seen us busy with preparations for next weekends Brisbane Finders Keepers - we always like to have new goodies for each event so we have been busy working on these as well as working on some old favourites. I love planning my stall design - mentally planning my stall and running a check list through my head of all the props which I can gather. The planning really is such fun.

This week also saw my trusty old original iphone replaced with the newer flash model. It seems crazy to think that my 3 year old phone has been totally superseded already. Goodness the speed of technology scares me. I am obviously suck back in the land of when technology lasted decades and centuries. Thank goodness that it did, I don't know where letterpress would be today if the speed of the world had always been this way.

Now that I have my new phone I have finally succumbed to peer pressure and all the requests that I join instagram - you can find me under "bespokepress". I am still learning, fancy technology, it takes a while to grow on me. The above shots were my first attempts of morning sunlight coming through the house.

Have a wonderful weekend my sweets. I will be starting off the weekend with the baking of some sweet treats for a very special little girls first birthday tomorrow. The rest of the weekend will be back in the studio printing away on Herbie and Helga. You never know, I might even instagram about it.

xox

brisbane finders keepers

2011-10-27T11:54:00.002+10:00

Brisbane folks are you getting excited??? It is almost Finders Keepers time!!

The wonderful Old Museum will play host again to the very best that design and art has to offer. We will be there with all our bells and whistles, lots of new letterpress goodies and maybe even a sale or two.

The markets are on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of November 10am to 4pm.
The Old Museum
Corner Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace.
You can find out all the details here, view the designers here and plan your visit here

We sure are getting excited!!

kym & zac :: letterpress place settings

2011-10-24T17:51:00.002+10:00

Fresh of the press this week are super sweet wedding place setting tags we completed for Kym & Zac whose wedding stationery we featured a month or so ago. With a letterpress outer casing designed to match their envelope liner and digital printed name inserts our place settings are bound with a silver eyelet and these gorgeous swing tags came complete with black satin ribbon. We love making these little beauties. We get a production line happening with cutting, folding, adhering and eyeletting. They are quite fiddly little tags to make, but so worth the effort!

We wish Kym and Zac all the very best for their November wedding - such a beautiful couple to work with - beautiful style, beautiful personalities and a dream to design and print for. It has been such a pleasure!

friday finds and weekend plans

2011-10-21T10:08:00.003+10:00

Hello friday, gosh it sure is nice to see you! It has been an almighty busy week this week and I sure am glad that the weekend is about to dawn upon us.

Do you have any fabulous weekend plans? We are heading away to spend some time with family in Sydney as it is my birthday this weekend. I will be turning that big number that starts with a 3 and ends with a 0. Part of me doesn't want to type those two numbers next to each other, although everyone does that that the thirties are now the new twenties... But I am sure people have been saying that for decades.

For this weeks Friday finds I have visited my favourite friend Pinterest. It really is one of my number one online loves, it is one of those websites that I think if you could kiss it, I probably would.

This week I have grabbed some of my favourite images off my typography boards

1. I love you more then cupcakes - love love love. Orginal source unknown.

2. Beautiful lettering by Kelly Thorn

3. Amazing Papercut by MadebyJulene

4. Super sweet soap packaging

5. Powerful quote found here

6. Love love love these vintage graphics found via This isn't Happiness

Hope my little dash of typography brings some type love to your friday.

Have a great weekend my sweets, see you all again next week.

xox

yoong & lilia :: save the dates

2011-10-18T13:57:00.003+10:00

Fresh of the press is a gorgeous set of save the date cards designed and printed for Sydney based Yoong and Lilia. With their Spring 2012 wedding set for the gorgeous Sergents Mess, we designed their save the dates to be super sweet and clean in design to make the most of a gorgeously deep letterpress impression.

We commissioned gorgeous thread hand lettering as the main feature, coupled with vintage inspired typography and two little song birds to reflect Yoong and Lilia's theme. Printed on our 100% cotton ivory in a lovely deep vintage brown ink, we love the sweet simplicity, the striking use of space and super lovely lettering. The perfect combination for letterpress!

lovely cotton ribbon now in store!

2011-10-14T13:21:00.002+10:00

Also new to our online store this week is our super lovely cotton ribbon! Measuring 15mm wide each bundle has 2.5 metres of the sweetest cotton ribbon. Available in three colourways - Linen & White, Linen & Red and Linen & Chocolate our 2.5m lengths of ribbons are $6 each and are available in our online store here.

We have also recently received new shipment of our kraft paper twines, so if you have been waiting for them to come back in stock grab them here while they last!

Have a wonderful weekend, with some wild Queensland storms predicted for this weekend, we are planning a weekend indoors. We've got some great new products planned for the press this weekend so not doubt, despite the wild weather it will still be a busy weekend here. Here is hoping that all you Brisbanites keep safe and that the storms are not too bad.

See you next week my lovelies.
xox

new gift wrap in store

2011-10-12T10:24:00.002+10:00

Today I am very excited to let you know that we have added another design to our double sided gift wrap collection! Our latest design features a nice deep orange chevron on one side, and a beautiful turquoise star pattern on the other.

Offset printed here in Brisbane Australia, our designs have been printed on heavyweight environmentally responsible 100% recycled paper measuring 700 x 490mm. Each sheet has been printed both sides with Pantone inks and satin sealed for a beautiful print finish to protect the paper.

Growing up, my mother always taught me the value in good quality, beautiful heavy weight gift wrap... so a lot of her influence has been injected into the design our gift wrap line! Our paper looks and feels beautiful, but is also a pleasure to fold and tape into beautifully presented gifts. It has just the right level of paper weight to fold and score perfectly, however not too heavy that the paper will start to crack, and not too flimsy that it feels cheap and "made in china". The printed finish and satin seal is also great for adhesive as their is nothing worse then those pesky papers in which sticky tape will just not adhere!

Designed to be teamed up with our line of swing tags, greeting cards and twines our gift wrap is available in 3 packs for $15, or 6 packs for $25.

You can view our entire gift wrap collection here.

lachlan & elizabeth :: wedding stationery

2011-10-11T09:03:00.000+10:00

Fresh out of the studio is a gorgeous wedding suite designed and printed for Melbourne based Lachlan and Elizabeth. Their summer wedding is to be held at Daylesford, Victoria where they are planning a country weekend shared with their closest friends and family.

Their brief letterpress wedding stationery was was for nothing too formal, however to inject hints of country styling complete with strong typography and relaxed elegance.

We designed several invitation styles to suit Lachlan and Elizabeth's theme and we worked with them to finesse their final choice of a strong typographic justified design with masses of white space featuring a delicate thin weight slab serif typeface. The simplicity of gorgeous type completed with white space is ideal for letterpress as it allows a strong printed impression for the areas of ink.

Lachlan & Elizabeth's wedding suite included invitations, gift cards, picnic cards and reply cards all housed inside of our matching envelopes. Printed on 100% cotton ivory paper, we hand mixed a lovely summer pink to match their styling.

It was so lovely to work with this super sweet couple and we wish them a happy, sunny and magical summers day in the country!

house & garden magazine :: top 50 rooms

2011-10-10T17:21:00.002+10:00

Late last week we got some pretty exciting news - our Library room has been featured in the latest issue of House & Gardens yearly Top 50 rooms! Our room is a thoroughfare between our living areas and the staircase to our printing studio below. As probably the busiest walkway in our entire house, it is a room which needed to be practical, store our ever expanding collection of vintage knick knacks, and also somewhere lovely to sit and enjoy the morning sun.

It was also the room which for so many years I hated the most. I could never work out what to do with such a dead area of space - at 2.5m x 2.5m it is one tiny little room and sure can get busy through there. But these days I am pretty happy with it, and even more happy that House and Garden found it worthy enough to feature in their yearly best of the best.

You can vote online for your favourite room here and go into the draw to win an amazing Kitchen Package. We are room number 13, and sure would love the vote if you like our room.

Thanks H&G, you are the best!

friday love

2011-10-07T18:45:00.002+10:00

Happy Friday my sweets! Hard to believe it is the end of yet another week. I am a little giddy with excitement that this weekend is very unplanned. With a few jobs on the press, the rest of the time we have no plans. Such a wonderful feeling, I am quite excited about it!!

A few friday loves for you on this lovely afternoon:
1// I stumbled across these fabulous teacake cushions from the UK this week and couldn't resist buying one. I think it will be a winner on our linen couch.
2// Another buy this week was the Frankie 2012 Calender. I have bought one every single year, and today I heard that they were nearly sold out... I would have been devastated to have missed out!
3// My other favourite Calender for 2012 is Paper Boat Press's beautifully designed Calender, which apparently are selling like hot cakes as well. Grab one here while they last. They are just divine.
4// The latest PaperRunway is out, full of entertaining ideas, yet another fabulous issue by the talented Paper Runway Team, we are tickled pink to see some of our letterpress goodies featured.
5// Have you heard that the latest round of Brisbane Finders Keepers designers have been announced? You can view the amazing line up here and here.We cant wait to attend!
6// A gorgeous typographic video for you type lovers. Gosh we love it.

Have a most lovely weekend!
xox

featured stockist :: e for ethel

2011-10-05T10:39:00.001+10:00

You may have noticed that on the right hand side of our blog we are now listing all the beautiful retail stores who are now stocking our letterpress goodies. Our wholesale range has really taken off in the last few months and it tickles us pink to see our goods out in beautiful stores across the country.

Our biggest aim with our wholesale range is to have our goods in stores in which we would feel right at home in, stores in which we could walk in side, breath a sigh and feel that we are are destined souls. I do suppose that it is quite corny, but we love what we do, and love to be able to work with others who feel the same way.

Several months back we were contacted by Amanda Matulick who was opening a new retail and cafe store in North Adelaide called E for Ethel. Other then the fact that we loved the super cute name, we loved Amandas approach and ideas for turning her dream store into a reality. We are now super proud to let you know that the store is open, serving delicious treats, and stocking some gorgeous hand made finds (including our good old Bespoke goodies!).

The lovely Amanda has had a little chat to us about her new store:

Tell us a little about E for Ethel?
E for Ethel is a small and lively store filled with great quality + delicious treats, cosy chairs, pretty things and one-of-a-kind finds. Our philosophy is to keep things affordable and ensure that our customers feel welcomed, relaxed and the recipients of excellent and personal service.

Our goal has been to reuse as much as possible along the way, and have built the business with rescued hard rubbish classics, hand-me-downs, op shop finds and seconds timber as much as possible. We have always been drawn to classic furniture pieces and have found that many customers immediately have a nostalgic and sentimental connection with our space (it's not uncommon to see a table top being lovingly patted)..!

What are some of your favourite brands in stock?
We look for beautiful products that are handmade, sustainable and Australian – and lordy do we have clever local artists and craftspeople! Our challenge has never been to find individual pieces, the difficulty has been to choose between them (limited only by our budget and space)!

I do a lot of research before choosing stock and tend to blog-hop and discover so very much adorable things along my way! Some of our fav pieces currently in stock are:

Gretel Girl Draws (SA) stunningly detailed hand illustrations layered onto vintage fabrics then finished in embroidery hoops with hand-stictched detail.
Me and Amber's (NSW) silhouette style hand screen-printed products.
The Delilah Devine (SA) range including brooches, prints and her classic Vintage flying ducks.
That Vintage (TAS) Tasmanian Myrtle Timber Jewellery.
And the Vintage Tea Cup Bangles by Lindsay Pemberton (NZ) (we simply cant resist the odd offshore artist!)

One thing you love the most about your shop?
It's totally cliché, but we are rocking the day to day reality of living a dream. It's totally smile worthy, especially walking through the door to start the day and being greeted by the morning sun shining in through our lace doily window display – perfectness! The fact that it comes hand-in-hand with working alongside super talented artists and craftspeople (and their beautiful works!) and goodhearted local businesses makes it all the more sweet.

Left :: Phoebe Lamps and That Vintage Pendants. Right :: Gretel Girl Draws Hoops

What is life like North Adelaide? Favourite finds?
North Adelaide has such a great culture and an amazing and supportive community – we already feel completely at home here! We cant say we have a single fav find, but instead stacks of new friends and local businesses we love to support!

Contact details and opening hours?
We are currently open 7 days a week:
Mon to Friday – 8am to 5pm
Thurs – 8am to 8pm
Sat + Sun 9.30am – 4.30pm(ish)

Website // Facebook // Twitter

Images by Gianna Grbich Photography.

studio shots

2011-10-03T13:08:00.001+10:00

This morning I have been sorting through our ridiculous large (but in a ridiculously good way) image library of shots of the studio. I love everything about letterpress, the ink on your hands, old worn palette knives and cleaning rags that turn into colourful rainbows of colour the more they get used. Jars of ink lined up haphazardly, splodges of ink and hand written scribbled words on type draws written many years ago. Stacks of paper queued up in the feed table awaiting their moment from when they become paper to art and jars of old ink which could tell a life time of stories. There is just so much to love.

Attached are a few of my favourite shots. I think it is so magical that even without the rainbow of colour in the photos, the love and labour, and all that history presents its self so beautifully when reduced in it's simplest form in black and white. I do love it just a bit.

weekend plans

2011-09-30T11:12:00.000+10:00

Hello Friends, how quickly does Friday come around again? It is quite scary how quickly it feels like the weeks are racing by at the moment! This weekend sees the start of October - my favourite month!

The month were things start to get warmer and dresses and skirts start making a daily appearance. It is also the start of daylight savings - the one part of summer I have missed dreadfully since moving to Brisbane. I pine for it every year. It is also mine and many others around me birthday month, so October really is quite a lovely month indeed.

How will you be welcoming the new month? This weekend sees the very end of our 20% off spring sale so we are busy packaging up lots of letterpress goodies to send out in the post. We are also continuing to work on our Christmas 2011 range and starting to work on product for upcoming Finders Keepers markets!

This weekend my dear Mr H is home (a very strong rarity in his line of work) we might take some time out to go see the movie "The Help" and have a spot of dinner. Have you seen it? I recently read the book and really devoured it, so I am looking forward to seeing its adaption to the big screen. We are also working on teaching Miss Ruby Tuesday some new catching tricks. The poor lady as cute as she is, does not have very good eye to mouth coordination at all, so games of ball, are more like games of fumble and fluster, But we are working on it!

Happy weekend my lovelies, and if you are lucky enough to have a long weekend - enjoy!
xox

in the studio today

2011-09-29T13:42:00.005+10:00

It is a bit of an old rainy day here in Brisbane today. I don't mind too much, it feels like we have not had one for ages. However the Little Miss is all too unimpressed. This is "her" spot by the studio door. Prime position to watch all the comings and goings, and full view of us whilst we work away. However today she is laying there looking all sulky out the window, oblivious to us working around her. Not being one for wanting to get her paws wet, I don't think she has ever missed the outdoors quite so much before.

super silver

2011-09-27T09:58:00.001+10:00

Over the years as we have collected printing presses alot of the time they have come with boxes of "stuff". Big collections of random printing things that have most often come from old men's sheds. They either have no use for their stuff any more, or like our last lot of goodies, the mans wife has has demanded that it goes. And we all know, when a wife demands, it is final.

So I do suppose that other peoples junk has become our gold, our silver as in the case of the Super Silver ink I pulled out of a box over the weekend. Dusted it off, ran it through Herbie the Heidelberg and she printed like a charm.

It was pretty super indeed.

happy weekend!

2011-09-23T10:28:00.001+10:00

It is almost the weekend time my friends - do you have any plans? I am thinking of taking my winter legs out doors for a few minutes of sunshine. It sure has warmed up here in Brisbane and I must admit I am very much enjoying breaking free of jeans and bringing out the spring wardrobe!

This weekend I will be doing lots of the above photo. Can you believe this weekend marks the start of our Christmas production for our 2011 range. My goodness, how can it be that time already!! We had a great time designing this years range so cannot wait to get it on the press and see them in all their letterpress printed glory!

This week we also stumbled across a few fabulous things on the net. Have you heard of InkerLinker? It is a website for specialty printers. If you love our work you can visit our page here and click the little heart "like" button to say that you fancy our work. Also this week I found these gorgeous Pantry Labels which if only my Pantry was more then 30cm wide I would buy to get organised like crazy. And finally I stumbled across this very cool letterpress lego project it sure is quite amazing the incredible ideas that people come up with!

Have a wonderful weekend, may it be filled with sunshine, skirts and spring joy!

xox

p.s Only one week left in our 20% Spring sale in our online store! Read here for more info.

briony & jonathan :: letterpress wedding stationery

2011-09-22T13:11:00.001+10:00

Briony and Jonathan are planning a beautiful wedding in Victoria, Australia and with vintage vineyard theme, and a weekend of frivolities planned for their guests. The brief was for a letterpress invitation suite which was elegant, featured black and white and made use of vintage lace, all whilst be stunning and simply beautiful at the same time.

We designed numerous different options, and we love the final design which Briony and Jonathan chose. With subtle lace highlights, classic typography and strong use of negative space, this suite received a wonderful printed impression on the press.

Their wedding suite included 2 colour invitations, as well as reply post cards, brunch cards, gift cards, thank you cards and lined envelopes all hand printed on 100% cotton paper. Just lovely!

We wish them a magical and beautiful day amongst the vines!

stephanie & nicholas :: letterpress wedding stationery

2011-09-21T10:59:00.001+10:00

We recently had the pleasure of designing and letterpress printing some fabulous wedding stationery for Stephanie and Nicholas from Sydney, Australia.

As typographic lovers, their brief to us was for a typographic stationery suite, however also injecting a little sense of fun, some sweet elements of quirk, and some dramatic wow factor. Through the striking use of bright pink and black letterpress printed on white 100% cotton stock, we mixed a combination of beautifully crafted typefaces with some gorgeous typographic ligatures for a stunning result.

Stephanie and Nick's stationery suite included invitations, information cards, reply post cards, printed envelopes, thank you cards and order of service booklets. Such a fabulous, fun and wonderful couple to work with. It was such a pleasure and joy to design and print for their upcoming amazing day.

"All I can say is WOW WOW WOW!!! The invites are absolutely, totally beautiful!! I posted them out yesterday, and have met up with a few of my friends to give them to them in person - just to see their squealing reactions. Thank you, Thank you so much for all of your work, they are just gorgeous!"

Thank you Steph and Nick, we wish you the most amazing and fun wedding day!

20% off spring sale!

2011-09-19T14:34:00.002+10:00

It seems that spring has finally arrived here in the studio and we wanted to celebrate the arrival of our all time favourite part of the year with a spring sale in our online store!

For 2 weeks only spend $35 or more and enter the code "SPRINGSALE" to receive 20% off store wide! Valid on all our prints, stationery, twines gift wrap and more!

As our last online sale before the end of the year now is a great time to start collecting letterpress goodies for the upcoming festive season! You can also make use of our flat rate $5 domestic shipping on most items in our online store.

Sale ends Midnight Monday the 3rd of October, 2011. Valid for all sales over $35 excluding shipping.

Many thanks to our friends at Feather and Stone Photography for the great shot of Helga and Charlie in the studio, you guys rock! Make sure you pop by and visit their blog and swoon over their amazing work!

and the winner is...

2011-09-19T11:36:00.003+10:00

Hello friends, Happy Monday!

We are starting the week of with the winner of our Twine giveaway - Thank you for your entries, it seems our most popular colour is our new grey twine, and I can understand why, it is such a gorgeous colour!!

To determine the winner of our giveaway - I asked the lovely Megan sitting next to me who is answering emails and doing some fabulous design work, for a number between 1 and 22. She came back with the number 8 - Congratulations Nat from Dear Little House who was our eighth comment, we will have a roll of your twine on its way shortly!

xox

p.s we will be announcing some exciting news this afternoon, if you haven't yet signed up to our newsletter make sure that you do over here.

kym & zac :: letterpress wedding stationery

2011-09-15T13:38:00.001+10:00

We recently had the pleasure to design and print a stunning letterpress wedding stationery suite for Kym and Zac who are based in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia.

The brief was for something vintage, elegant and classic to suit their stunning venues including the stunning Lilianfels Resort in Katoomba. With a theme of Black ink on ivory, we designed a vintage monogram to feature their initials and their wedding date of the Eleventh, of the Eleventh of Two Thousand and Eleven. This monogram achieved such a stunning printed impression into our 100% cotton stock, it all had us swooning with its perfect impression.

With the request to feature a dragonfly motif as this held special significance to Kym and Zac, we designed a vintage etching style dragonfly motif to feature simply on their envelope return address flap. A very sweet inclusion with special significance into their journey as a married couple.

Completed with a reply postcard and printed and lined envelopes the pure simplicity of gorgeous typography with masses of white space created a very classic, elegant and beautifully impressed design. A very beautiful example of how perfectly crafted typography, coupled with perfectly crafted letterpress can produce amazing results!

new bakers twine in store + giveaway!

2011-09-13T13:25:00.000+10:00

One of the things I love most about coming back from holidays is the pile of boxes and mail which have arrived whilst we were away, and I was tickled pink to see amongst all the deliveries that we had a great big box of twine goodness awaiting our return!

On top of our existing colours we have now added an extra 5 colours to our collection - the new colours include Blossom Pink, Lemon, Denim Blue, Honeydew Green and Grey bringing our total range to 12 different colours. Our 100% cotton bakers twine is available in our online store for Au$18 per 220m roll. Grab them here while they last as we often sell out quite quickly!

Do you have a favourite? Lets take a vote, visit our store here and choose your favourite colour and then leave a comment below and let me know which colour you like best. One random comment will be chosen to win a roll of their favourite twine colour. Entries close Midnight Sunday 18th September and the winner will be announced on Monday 19th of September. Good luck!

hello hello!

2011-09-12T13:07:00.002+10:00

Hello hello! How are you all? I have missed our daily banter whilst we had been away!

We are now back from our holiday getaway. The surprise destination that dear Mr H organised was to Sabah, Maylaysia. It was truly spectacular, very relaxing and most certainly the break that we needed. With amazing sunsets, hot tropical days and whole heap of doing not much, it was a much needed escape to rest and unwind.

Whilst we were away the gorgeous Megan and Louise did an amazing job looking after the studio, where would I be without such wonderful women by my side? They truly are magic!

And how have you all been? Have you had any news? Please don't be shy to say hello!

xA

a break

2011-08-25T08:47:00.001+10:00

Hello friends, this is the last blog post from me a a few weeks. We are currently on route to Perth for a family function and in two more weeks time we have another function to attend in Sydney. With all the who-ha which has been happening around here of late, adorable Mr. H has booked a surprise Asian getaway (the above photo is a little hint) between our two commitments on other sides of the country to go relax, rest and take a much needed break. We will be back in the studio from the 12th of September.

Whilst we are away business as usual will continue at the studio. The wonderful Louise is in full production mode at the moment and the amazing Megan will be looking after all the admin and design side of the studio. You can pop her and email at our usual email address, I am sure she would love to say hello!

See you again soon sweet friends!
xox

samantha & benjamin :: letterpress wedding stationery

2011-08-24T10:49:00.000+10:00

Yesterdays sneak peak into the studio were photos taken during the production of Samantha and Benjamin's stunning letterpress wedding stationery. Earlier this year we showed their save the date stationery here. Like their save the date Stationery Melissa from Bullet Creative excelled her self in the design of this stationery suite.

With a continuation of the save the date design this stationery suite featured a hand drawn passionfruit vine illustration, hand lettering and classic yet still modern typography. Printed in a combination of three colour ways - purple, green and blind impression (printing with no ink).

The complete suite included a letterpress invitation (plus a second invitation for Italian guests), reply postcards, lunch card, gift details card, directions and map card, thank you cards, gift tags for the reception and lined and printed envelopes to suit. We are also currently working on Order of Service booklets and menus to complete the stationery suite.

We absolutely adored working with Melissa on the production of Samantha and Benjamin's stationery - it was a joy to print for such a lovely designer, on behalf of such a lovely couple. We wish them all the very best, a magical wedding day and a lifetime of love, laughter and happiness together!

behind the scenes

2011-08-23T13:03:00.000+10:00

love :: envelope liners

2011-08-22T10:20:00.002+10:00

Envelope liners would have to be one of my greatest loves. After letterpress of course, the introduction of an envelope liner to a stationery suite can really take a lovely letterpress package and turn it into a stunning suite.

Our linings are all designed to suit each wedding - like our invitations we don't have a catalogue of standard designs, we design these to suit the letterpress wedding stationery. Designing our liners is usually one of our last steps in the design process - I quite like working this way as I think it allows the lining design to really evolve to suit the stationery perfectly.

Once we have designed our liners we print them on our 100% cotton stocks and each liner like our invitations each liner is cut by hand. We then hand insert into the envelopes and adhere using special adhesive tapes. Stuffing envelopes with linings is probably one of our most fun jobs here in the studio. I know that both Megan and Louise who assist in production love lining time, we sit, we stuff, we tape and we chat away. It really is quite lovely in so many ways.

new stockist :: follow

2011-08-19T14:05:00.003+10:00

It is no secret that I have long had a love affair with The Finders Keepers. In my role as Brisbane Market Coordinator of the Finders Keepers here in our home town, it has been such a joy to work with the beautiful girls that make all the magic happen - Brooke and Sarah. I was quite giddy with excitement when they let me know sometime ago that they would be opening their very own Bricks and Mortar store in Sydney's Surry Hills called "Follow" - a design concept store to promote Australian and international design and a big sister to the beautiful markets. A place where beautiful things made by beautiful people could be found in the most beautiful of stores.

Last Saturday saw them open their doors for the very first time and oh how I would have loved to been in Sydney to attend. With over 40 independent designers from Australia and abroad currently stocked we are very excited to know that a section of our letterpress cards, tags, gift wrap and prints are gracing the amazing walls and cabinets in their store - The building is heritage listed with original pharmacy fitout from 1898.

You can visit their new website and blog here and the store is located at 380 Cleveland Street, Surry Hills. The opening hours are Wednesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm and Sunday 11am – 4pm.

Congratulations ladies, another wonderful, exciting and inspiring adventure!

tamlyn & sidney :: wedding stationery

2011-08-19T09:33:00.003+10:00

Today we have another lovely Spring time wedding invitation to share with you. Tamlyn and Sidney are a Brisbane, Australia based couple who are celebrating their wedding this coming October. We received the most gorgeous inspiration images from them to help explain their day (if you know the source of these images, please do let us know so we can give full credit). They are planning a day full of old world charm, a hint of fresh yet elegant country styling.

With such a beautiful theme we designed quite a number of initial invitations for Tamlyn and Sidney to choose from. As per our last wedding featured here on our blog we also commissioned custom hand lettering to reflect the elegant country styling of their wedding day.

Their chosen design was centrally aligned and this beautiful hand lettering was the key focal point of the design. To inject a little of the beautiful country florals with Tamlyn loves we illustrated by hand a bunch of lavender tied with string. This was coupled with a vintage serif, and elegant script and letterpress printed in our vintage brown ink on ivory 100% cotton paper.

The suite also included an information card and envelopes printed with their address details.

We absolutely love this wedding suite - the strength of one colour printing is so perfectly suited to letterpress and really highlights the strong and beautifully crafted typography. One colour invitations are also the most cost effective option as they only require one set of printing plates and one hand feed through the press. But the end result is lovely is so many ways.

We wish Tamlyn and Sidney a very beautiful day, we have no doubt that with their gorgeous styling their wedding day is bound to be simply spectacular!

katie & mark :: wedding stationery

2011-08-18T11:32:00.004+10:00

Recently we had the absolute joy of working with Brisbane based Katie and Mark to plan, design and letterpress print their wedding stationery. We have worked with Katie's sister Victoria from The Little White Wedding Co. on quite a few occasions and we love Victoria's fabulous sense of style and unique concepts in which she plans for her wedding couples, so it was quite no surprise that Katie also has some of this fabulous style! We had a great lovely time planning with both Katie and Victoria (and Mark too!) to build a gorgeous design style for their day.

We designed their letterpress invitation suite to feature custom hand lettering which we commissioned for their stationery. This was coupled with vintage inspired letterpress typography printed in a botanical green ink on our white 100% cotton stock. With a underlying wheat theme for their very personal and unique wedding location we subtly included this in the design as a blind impressed pattern.

To inject a little of their rustic outdoor styling we packaged their set in brown kraft envelopes and lined these with a beautifully fun and colourful envelope liner printed in shades of oranges, watermelon and botanical green. Just lovely!!

You can also view this stationery over on the Little White Wedding Co blog here.

in the studio

2011-08-16T16:38:00.004+10:00

Have I ever told you how the Little Miss follows the sunshine around the studio? For a Canadian dog she sure does love the sun. She works her way around the office and letterpress studio to ensure that she is always in the prime position for a good dose of sunshine. I really don't know how she could cope frolicking in snow and sleet and swimming in icy rivers as her northern hemisphere brothers and sisters do.

In fact every day, 11am on the dot she takes herself out to the very same spot on the grass next to the path for a good half an hour of sunning. Every single day, without fail, she gets a good 30 minutes dose of UV rays. I almost feel I should offer her a towel, prop up a deck chair and really let her get her sun on.

susie & matt :: wedding stationery

2011-08-16T11:42:00.004+10:00

Do you remember the gorgeous save the date cards we did for Susie and Matt? We completed these late last year and featured them here on our blog. They are planning for an amazing wedding here in Brisbane Australia this Spring. If only we could make that amazing sing and dance and have more impact then simply an italic line of text, as their day sounds so beautifully perfect, slightly extravagant, and very much a reflection of this beautiful couple.

Earlier this year we continued to work with Susie and Matt to further expand upon their save the date design into stunning printed letterpress wedding stationery. With a black and white theme, we letterpress printed two hits of black into onto their invitation. The background pinstripe pattern was printed in our first hand feed, followed by the typography. This ensured that we were able to get solid areas of black ink without jeopardising the beautiful letterpress impression achieved. Finished off with scalloped corners, a sweet reply card and lined envelopes this really was a stunning invitation set.

Sharing this journey with Susie and Matt really was such a special and lovely time. It was one of those moments when their stationery was all printed and delivered that we get a little sad that the journey is over and our time with this beautiful couple has come to an end. Susie sent us a gorgeous email, so we know that they felt the same way too.

We wish them all the best and we have our fingers crossed that they will let us share with you some photos of their amazing day!

thank you xox

2011-08-15T11:40:00.002+10:00

Lovely friends thank you. Last week I was feeling very down, and without a doubt I was really over being heart broken in so many ways. Your beautiful emails, lovely comments, tweets and facebook messages really warmed my heart. How beautiful you all are.

Even little Ruby Tuesday had been feeling down. But over the weekend we took some time for some cuddles, and even a very small walk to the beach (our first in months). It did wonders for the soul.

Running Bespoke, printing letterpress and being the very best designers and printers we can possibly be, sure is an all consuming task. The last five printing years (and all those design years before that) really has been such a hard, expensive and tiring journey, but all your lovely messages reminded me, that you really can touch and feel the love and passion with which we print with. And at the end of the day, love is all that really matters.

Lately we have not shown much of our work as often we show it and then months later find the copies online elsewhere, but from now on, the new attitude is screw it, we have the law (and some great legal advice) on our side. So for those who want to copy us, try and steal our business, sneak behind our backs, or feign friendship, we really have had enough. Our consolidation is that if you have to copy creativity, then you quite clearly should not be in a creative business, and at the end of the day, there is only so far that faking it can take you.

It has been so hard not to get down by all the rubbish which was going on in the back ground of late, but your love, comforting words and support of our little letterpress studio by the sea really brightens my days again. So thank you so much, where would I be without all of you by my side.

So onwards and upwards, and back to getting inky again!

xox

excuse me while I rant...

2011-08-12T17:19:00.004+10:00

Hello friends, usually our blog is reserved for beautiful things, lovely letterpress images and sweet stationery. But today I really feel the need to rant.. please don't hold it against me.

I have such a deep love and respect for letterpress. It was this huge love which lead me on a path of many years of hard work, sweat, plenty of bloody knuckles to become the very best possible letterpress designer and printer as possible. This journey was never for money, it was never for fame or successes, it was to fulfill a deep burning yearn that this is what I should do. There was never any question, I believed in my heart that this was my calling.

This journey has been a bloody hard one, there is no doubt that this life is not an easy one. Day in, day out, I work from 10am to 1am, every single day. My arms are usually bruised, my knuckles caked in ink and grime and my body aches, every single day.

Every waking moment I am striving to become better and better, I am aiming for perfectionism. I do not take weekends, I do not take days off, I must admit, I don't even take Ruby out for a walk. Every moment is consumed in this land of letterpress. However I don't feel that I am missing out on things, as I am filling my days with what I absolutely love and adore. I could not imagine any other path for my life, but lately things have really been getting me down.

It pains my heart over and over again to see my designs being copied by other letterpresss studios. Myself and my lovely little team work so hard to ensure that we are not influenced by other letterpress trends, and that we are always paving our own path. We design and print with so much love and heart felt emotion, to have this then stolen and replicated is like breaking off a little piece of my heart one at a time.

But even more so lately it has pained me when people pretend to be friends to suck up as much information as they can, to run away and wham without any experience suddenly they have set themselves up as a fully operating letterpress studio. It makes me feel so exploited.

I feel that the only way in which I could have become the best possible letterpress printer was to embrace this choice, start from the very beginning and over the course of many years build in my knowledge and experience. I believed in the journey and followed it with all my heart and soul, it took many years before I could call myself a letterpress printer and offer my services. To master this craft I had to follow the right learning process.

But these people pop in and out of my life and before you know it they have bought a beast of a press and are advertising themselves as a letterpress printer. This hurts me more then anything, it is a total disrespect for this craft, and in my opinion has only been done to fulfill a current trend or financial gain. I don't know what hurts more, the fact that I have been used, or the fact that they will sending substandard letterpress work out into the world.

I think my problem is that I love this too much. My heart and my soul is injected into every little bit of cotton paper that I print, all my emotions, all my love, all my happiness is surrounded into this land of letterpress. I work so hard to be perfect at this, I try to stand with broad shoulders and wear all the burdens, I try to juggle it all and not let things get me down. I strive to be the very best that I can be. I want to be able to look back and see that I have done good things for the preservation of letterpress, I want this all to be worthwhile.

If only Charlie, Herbie and Helga could talk, I wish they could tell me that it is all okay, that I am doing a good job and that everything will be alright.

xox

featured wedding :: fiona and troy

2011-08-08T18:48:00.002+10:00

Do you remember the gorgeous Telegram stationery which we printed for Fiona and Troy earlier this year? Well this super sweet and loved up couple and now officially married and we were super excited to see some photos of their gorgeous whimsical day on the ever inspiring Polka Dot Bride website. Make sure you pop by (view here) and have a little looksie... such a gorgeous couple and a beautifully styled day. I just love a gorgeous wedding don't you?

in the press :: adore magazine

2011-08-08T17:58:00.005+10:00

Whilst we are talking about gorgeous swoon worthy online magazines, do you read Adore? As Australia's first online home and lifestyle magazine, it is right up their on my list of favourite online reads!

We were chuffed to see that our letterpress swing tags had been featured in one of their spreads in the latest issue (you can read it here).

There is so much that we love about this Vintage and Industrial spread - we have recently bought the the Leather Butterfly Chair from Urban Outfitters, I couldn't help but stock up the vintage black industrial type characters from etsy, and for sooooo long I have been eyeing off Chez Mois amazing type based cushions. Not to mention the stunning sofa, oh my, must convince Mr H this is a vital purchase one day. My goodness, I do think they may have designed this one very spread just for me.

Make sure you do pop over for a read here, although be careful, you might just end up doing some online shopping at the same time!!

xox

love :: paper runway

2011-08-05T12:57:00.007+10:00

Have you heard that the latest issue of Paper Runway Magazine is now available? This fabulous online mag is dedicated to the beautiful world of all things paper, and we are terribly excited to hear that issue number 2 is now available to read here.

We are super chuffed to have been interviewed in the latest issue (page 45 to 49), our Alliance letterpress print (illustrated by the amazing Bec Winnel) has been featured on the cover, our "You're a whole lot of lovely" print and typewriter swing tags have been featured on the gorgeous yellow spread, and to top it all off you can win three of our limited edition prints by entering the giveaway on page 67. Oh my, so much letterpress love... we are blushing!

xox

new instore :: 5 pack vintage map envelopes

2011-08-01T17:47:00.003+10:00

Do you remember our Hello notecards with vintage map envelopes? Ever since we have listed them in our online store they have been running out the door quicker then we can print them off the press! Due to many requests to be able to buy our vintage map envelopes by themselves, we are now pleased as punch to let you know, that yes, indeed you can.

Our envelopes are made from the original pages of vintage atlases which have been die cut on Herbie our 1973 Heidelberg Platen into beautiful envelopes complete with scalloped flap and an adhesive dot to seal. Our envelopes have been folded and finished by hand and each and every envelope is one of a kind.

Each 5 pack of envelopes features a sticker on the front packaging which outlines the original atlas which has been used to form each pack of envelopes. The examples shown are from a 1968 Readers Digest Atlas of Australia. Each pack will vary dependent upon the original atlas the pages have been sourced from, and this will be outlined on the front sticker.

The envelopes measures 11cm wide by 14.5cm high which is a perfect size to fit standard cards. They are $12.95 and are available for purchase while stocks last via our online store here.

new instore :: lovely greeting cards

2011-07-29T12:58:00.003+10:00

Just a quick blog post to let you know about three new lovely greeting cards we have in store - you can find them here, here and here. They have been letterpress printed on white 100% cotton rag paper and include a brown kraft envelope and available in our online shop for $6 each.

Have a most lovely weekend friends, It is going to be busy busy busy here with our looming photo shoots next week - our renovation works are still in a state of half completeness and the studio is a complete mess. Oh dear, it is going to be a busy weekend indeed!

See you next week lovely friends,
xox

new instore :: double sided gift wrap

2011-07-27T16:46:00.003+10:00

Hello friends! Super exciting news to share with you today - our freshly printed double sided gift wrap is now available in our online store! For quite a few years now we have been working hard on building a sweet range of gift tags and greeting cards, sweet twines and ribbons, but the one thing we really felt that we were missing was beautiful gift wrap to use as a base for all of our pretty bits and bops we have for sale in our shop.

Unfortunately we cannot letterpress gift wrap due to the size of our presses (although it would be quite lovely if we could) so we designed our gift wrap and had them printed at a fabulous offset printery here in Brisbane. Printed on environmentally responsible 100% recycled heavy weight paper, each sheet is printed double sided and satin sealed for a beautiful protective coat to the paper. Each sheet measures 700x490mm in size.

The one thing we were really passionate about was making sure that the wrapping paper not only looked gorgeous once a gift was presented to a lucky recipient, but also making sure that as the gift was opened that a few extra surprises were instore. For this reason we have printed our gift wrap with a different design on each side using gorgeous pantone ink colours.

We have three different sheets in our range:
• The first is a mustard yellow vintage hot air balloon print, coupled with a deep grey zig zag print - view here.
• The second features super sweet vintage dusty pink strawberries coupled with a gorgeous deep brown Kaleidoscope pattern - view here.
• Our third features white polka dots on a watermelon coloured background coupled with a flock of white cranes on a duck egg blue background - view here.

The sheets are available in our online store for $5 each, or you can buy a six pack for $25 here. Our gift wrap will be posted in especially made brown kraft tubes and for a limited time only our gift wrap will be part of our $5 flat rate shipping currently available instore.

We would love to see what you do with our wrapping paper - if you do buy some please do take some photos of how you use it and if we feature it here on our blog we will send you some letterpress goodies to say thank you!

something pretty

2011-07-26T10:06:00.004+10:00

Hello friends, How was your weekend? We had a jolly of a time at the beautiful wedding of my fabulous studio girl Megan and her dashing groom Geoff. With a graphic designer bride, you do just know that the styling is going to be simply gorgeous, and Megan certainly did not disappoint! I adored these ribbon wands from the ceremony. So much adored them that they carried on through with us right into the night. Such a sweet idea, lots of fun and fabulous in photography!

Despite a lovely weekend of celebrating, unfortunately these germs of mine are still here and I am running on half capacity - half a days work, followed by half a day sleep. It has become such a predictable routine, I really do not know how I have any sleep left in me.

We have also got studio renovation works in progress (all that builders dust is not good) and with some photo shoots scheduled here for next week it is quite a mad rush to have things looking shiny and clean.

So it really is quite a mad house here at the moment. We thankfully are taking a small break in mid August, lets hope the germs are gone, the builders dust settled and the photo shoots done and dusted (excuse the pun) by then. I am counting down the days!!

what a week.

2011-07-22T10:03:00.004+10:00

image found here.
Oh my, what a week. Thank you all for your comments, emails and tweets, this horrible flu sure is not a nice one. I have heard it has been going around a lot lately. The design school which I lecture at two nights a week seems to have been running rife with if of late. Unfortunately when the flu strikes it seems to hit my poor lungs the worst and result in the evil return of my not nice friend Asthma. I have been working hard to keep on top of it, as trips to emergency are not fun at all. I am contemplating a flu shot next year, have you had one? do they work?

Have you any weekend plans? Other then trying to rid of this flu for once and for all, Mr H and I are most excited as my dear friend and amazing graphic designer assistant here in the studio is to be married to a beautiful man on Saturday. How we love a good wedding!

I will also be dreaming of beautiful big old floor boards and empty white spaces. I have loved this image above for so very long. I imagine laying on those timber floors and admiring the white space above, turning my head to the left admiring those great big skirting boards and then my head to the right where no doubt Ruby Tuesday would have made herself at home on that shaggy rug. Oh it is pretty much a perfect room in my eyes (other then the light fitting, a dramatic vintage chandelier would do the trick nicely).

Have a lovely weekend friends, hopefully you are healthy and well and steering clear of these naughty germs

xox

p.s beautiful posts on beautiful blogs here and here this week - thank you guys!

wishing

2011-07-18T11:09:00.003+10:00

Hello friends, I hope that you are all well. Unfortunately the flu I have been fighting off for weeks, has now settled in with a vengeance. Little Ruby and I have been the only ones in the studio of late and I do wish we could just run away together. We would head off to the family farm, lay under those great big trees and get bathed in country sunlight and fresh air. We would admire the gardens, talk to the cows and have some hearty country food made by my beautiful mum. Wouldn't that be so lovely? You can come too if you like. I promise I won't spread my germs, the country air will have made them all magically disappear.

xox

eye candy

2011-07-15T09:46:00.005+10:00

Are you an interior blog stalker? I sure do suffer from this addictive past time and today wanted to share some of my latest blogs reads with you.

The stunning above image (could I ever be so brave as to wallpaper a ceiling? It looks amazing!) was found via Gramercy blog which in turn was found via The House of Turquoise blog. From Tasmania I have been drooling over Marley and Lockyer blog and from New Hampshire, United States I have been gobsmacked by this amazing kitchen demolition and rebuild from For The Love of House Blog - aw-inspiring stuff!

Have a most lovely weekend friends. Here in the studio we have some client meetings and then with our super busy print schedule at the moment we will be printing for most of the weekend. Hopefully your weekend is a little less busy - we hope that you can relax and enjoy it!

xox

p.s we are having an ebay sell off over here. If your a magazine collector or need some furniture you might just score a bargain!

dear blog

2011-07-14T10:49:00.003+10:00

Dear lovely blog, we apologise, you do seem to suffer a lot of late. We have be so busy that some days it is just so hard to find the time to come love you like you deserve. You are a lovely sweet friend, and we really should find more time in our day for you. May we offer you some pretty envelope liners to make up for it? xox

the design files

2011-07-11T12:23:00.003+10:00

Oh my, today we have been featured on one of my all time favourite Australian design blogs The Design Files. It tickles me pink to see our goodies gracing their pages not once but twice in one day here and here. Goodness, I think I am blushing.

have a lovely weekend!

2011-07-08T16:35:00.002+10:00

Happy weekend my sweets, I sure do hope that it is lovely!

xox

"you're a whole lot of lovely" limited edition prints

2011-07-06T10:56:00.007+10:00

Today we are excited to finally let you know about our new limited edition letterpress prints! For some time we have been wanting to design a print which would make a lovely gift for beautiful friends, gorgeous family and those who surround our lives with their loveliness. We wanted the design to be simple, but stunning at the same time. We ended up designing a diagonal pinstripe background which we combined with gorgeously crafted typography.

We have printed this print in two lovely colourways - Mustard Yellow & Grey, and Frost Blue & Grey. Each colourway has been printed in a limited edition run of 150 prints.

These prints have been printed on our antique letterpress printing presses on 100% cotton rag paper in a white colour. The prints measure 8.5" x 11'' in size. They have been designed to suit a 8" x 10" large photo size mount, so they are super easy to find frames to suit (nothing worse then pesky framing costs!).

The prints are $45 each and are available through our online store here.

And into news of our giveaway, we were overwhelmed by all your gorgeous comments and messages of letterpress love! We used a random number generator to draw two random numbers to win our giveaway...

Congratulations to Helen who said "Looking forward to seeing the new print - I'm sure it will be beautiful!" you have won the very first print off the press (number 1 of 150) of our Frost Blue Print. And the winner of number 1 of 150 print of our Mustard Yellow print is Jane Yoo who said "Sounds awesome! :)".

Congratulations ladies, we sure do hope that you can find somewhere lovely for your new prints!

p.s Helen if you can drop us a line we will arrange shipping of your print, we unfortunately cannot gain any contact details off your comment!

giveaway ends tonight!

2011-07-05T12:24:00.003+10:00

Just a quick reminder that our giveaway ends tonight. Head over here and leave a comment to win the very first print off the press from our latest limited edition print launching tomorrow. And the good news? we now have two prints available to be won! We ended up printing our new print in two colour ways (a sneaky peak at one above), so we have two first prints from the edition available to be won. Quickly quickly, the giveaway ends at midnight tonight!

thank you brisbane!

2011-07-04T17:09:00.005+10:00

What an amazing weekend we had at the Brisbane Finders Keepers - Brisbane you sure are lovely, we love living here!

I took a whole heap of photos to share with you - I wanted to show you my favourite stalls Hideyo, Loose Leaf Paper and Old Yarns, as well as the fabulous Photo Booth set up by Feather and Stone Photography. However my beloved camera had other ideas as every, single, bloody photo was blurry. So unfortunately, until I can send you in the direction to view others photos, you will just have to imagine how amazing the weekend was. edit: thank you to our lovely friends you can view images here from Loose Leaf Papers and the official Finders Keepers photos by Mark Lobo here.

If you popped by, said hello, or bought a few goodies, thank you so much - your love and support is overwhelming, I honestly cannot thank you enough!!

xox

Photo by Mark Lobo.

busy busy

2011-06-30T10:25:00.002+10:00

With only two more sleeps until Brisbane Finders Keepers we sure have been busy busy bees here in the studio. We have lots of new stationery and letterpress goodies and we are super excited to show for the very first time this weekend!

The markets are on from 10am to 5pm both Saturday and Sunday at the beautiful Old Museum. You can find out all the details here. If you attend please do make sure you pop by and say hello!

morgan & iain :: wedding stationery

2011-06-27T16:21:00.007+10:00

It has been a very pretty wedding season here in the studio of late. Lots of gorgeous wedding suites featuring florals in soft and pretty tones, we love getting all pretty!

And of one these weddings was the super lovely Morgan and Iain who we worked through via Victoria at The Little White Wedding Co. With a beautiful wedding planned here in Brisbane of simple elegance, the brief for their invitation was for something classical with the introduction of a botanical floral illustration.

Using our gorgeous peony flower, their invitation featured a blind impressed background coupled with classic and elegant typography printed in a grey ink (oh so popular this year!). This pattern was repeated into the reply card and also made a stunning envelope liner - just gorgeous!

weekend plans

2011-06-24T16:42:00.004+10:00

My goodness, it is Friday afternoon already, how can that be?

We have had a very busy week here in the studio, we are in full swing wedding production mode with lots of weddings being delivered for late winter and spring weddings. There have been some really beautiful ones, we must make sure we show you soon.

This weekend we will be busy printing, but of the non wedding kind. We have our new print we will be printing - have you entered our giveaway for the very first print off the press? We will also be extending our greeting card range and preparing lots of our lovely swing tags, hello notecards and other stationery bits and pieces for next weekends Finders Keepers.

Today we also took delivery of some new stationery which will hit our online store soon - it isn't letterpressed, but it sure is lovely and is going to make a lovely little edition to our store of stationery goodies.

The above card is one which we have had in the online shop for a little while but haven't had a chance to show you - it is a tiny tad cheeky, but perfect for the musical kind, and that tuba sure has got a beautiful impression into the cotton paper.

See you again next week friends!

xox

giveaway!

2011-06-22T12:19:00.004+10:00

Its been quite a while since we have done a giveaway around here - so I think it is about time to do one! We have a new limited edition letterpress print planned to make its way onto the press sometime in the next week - and sweet blog readers we would love to give you the chance to win the very first print which is pulled off the press! We can't let you know just yet what it looks like... but we do promise that it will be very lovely indeed!

Nothing fancy required to enter, just leave a comment below and we will randomly choose a winner. Entries will close two weeks from today - Midnight Tuesday the 6th of July.

Good luck!!

sheryn & michael :: wedding stationery

2011-06-21T17:28:00.003+10:00

Today we have images to share with you from a recent wedding stationery suite we completed for Sheryn and Michael. Sheryn works in the wedding industry at a gorgeous couture bridal studio in Melbourne, however when you live and breath weddings we know all too well how overwhelming it all can become to design and plan your own day!

Sheryn and Michael have chosen to have their reception at the stunning wine bar Comme in Melbourne, and with a classic, elegant and a touch of opulence theme we think they have made an amazing choice.

When it came to the stationery they were a little unsure as to which direction to head so we designed a series of invitations to suit their classic yet opulent theme. With a love of peonie flowers, Sheryn and Michel's favourite design was the above featuring a beautiful hand drawn floral illustration with classic, yet opulent typography.

Their stationery suite include a 2 colour invitation, reply card, gift card and envelopes to suit. The illustration received an amazing printed impression which really highlighted the valleys and mountains produced by our old letterpress beasts.

It was such a joy to work with Sheryn and Michael, we adored their design and when we received a gushing email to say that they had arrived, we were super pleased to hear that they were in love with them too!

words of advice

2011-06-20T16:54:00.004+10:00

Hi Friends, it is crazy manic here at the moment with way too many things on the go at once, and far too many things going wrong - Letterpress sure can be one big frustrating adventure. But taking words of advice from the press are keeping calm and keeping our blower holes clean. It is after all, very important.

Also I have been meaning to tell you, we officially named our new press Helga. Such a beast of a lady, it seems such a fitting name. Strong, bulky and quite the brute of a girl. In her heyday I reckon she would have worn breeches and been the strong lady at the circus. What do you think?

Many thanks to The House of Dust and Fur for the naming suggestion!

brisbane finders keepers 2/3 july

2011-06-17T08:32:00.001+10:00

Brisbane folks, Did you know that it is almost Finders Keepers time again? Are you super excited? We sure are! We will be there with all our letterpress goodies as well as some brand new stationery we are super excited to share with you guys first before it hits our online shop and retail stores, yay!!

You can check out the amazing line up of designers who will be attending here and find more info here. Oh we have shivers of excitement already!

Have a great weekend friends!
xox

p.s how cute is the above flyer - designed by the super fabulous Brisbane illustrator Mel Stringer, too cute!

karina & iman :: wedding stationery

2011-06-16T08:09:00.000+10:00

Are you a doily lover? I will not deny it, we certainly are, so much so in fact that we have a whole cupboard just full of doily wonder. So were were a little giddy with excitement when Karina & Iman briefed us on their wedding stationery and they too mentioned that they also love doilys. Oh my, it was doily heaven!

We designed a number of invitation concepts for Karina & Iman to choose from, and we were super pleased when they chose the above design as their favourite as we predicted that this design would achieve an optimum printed impression on the press. It certainly didn't disappoint with the beautiful valleys and mountains formed by the impression of the printing plate against our 100% cotton stock. Such a beautifully tactile design!

Letterpress printed on our ivory stock in dark ivory ink and grey ink, Karina & Imans stationery suite also included reply postcards, thank you cards, swing tags and lined envelopes.

Golly gosh, I did not think it was possible, but I think we might just love doilys even more now!

britt & damian :: save the dates

2011-06-14T11:12:00.002+10:00

Today we have a lovely fresh save the date suite to show you. We designed these save the date cards for Britt and Damian who are planning a beautiful Byron Bay wedding in Spring 2012. With a fresh, modern theme, we also injected a little touch of romantic bryon feel and printed these on our white 100% cotton stock in a gorgeous vintage coral ink. We love their simple simplicity and the amazing impression that is achieved through beautifully crafted typography. Just lovely!

a most beautiful sunday

2011-06-13T12:04:00.003+10:00

Two Golden Hours was so much more then just two golden hours, it really was whole golden day. A road trip with the most beautiful Louise, a drive through stunning scenery and bumpy laughs along dirt roads. Hellos with friends and a hearty lunch. Vintage browsing and many dreams of a future country life. Followed by an afternoon of gentle chats with cake and fruit picked fresh from the tree. It really was the most lovely sunday!