Loving this weekend

Its been a beautiful weekend here in Brisbane, gorgeous weather and just a tad of heat to let us know that summer is around the corner. Here in our studio it has been a most productive weekend competing quite a few wedding invitations - But I must admit I did manage to squeeze in a few lazy hours is catching up on all the news in blog land and beyond. A few of my favourite weekend finds have been:
Gaëtan Bourque's gorgeous photography as seen above.


Alarna from Little Jane Street new product ranges - She is also having a fabulous giveaway this week so make sure you stop by and say hello.


Amandas Swish and Swanky blog - how have I not found this blog before. Such beautiful goodness to fill in my days with.


Danielle from the paper & thread blog, A Western Australia designer producing such gorgeous textiles and I especially love her Protea print in Raspberry. Delicious!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too xox

preparing for christmas

We are feeling the christmas cheer here at Bespoke already.

Despite the fact that my husband and I have lived together for 6 years and been married for 4, we have never actually had our very own christmas tree. Shocking I know.

A fter so many years of treelessness I tried in earnest last year and headed down to Myer in early October - only to be told that the most gorgeous tree they stocked had sold out. Now I just couldn't then buy any old tree, my heart and soul was sold on the great big Myer special tree. It seems I wasn't the only one who was missing out as not only had ALL the stores sold out, but their supplier was out of stock too. Bummer. It was yet another sad treeless year again.

So this year I was determined, the day that the christmas stock came in store in September I would be the first one in (Quite clearly I have obsessed over this since last year). So off I go, into Myer, it was even 25% off an all, so it was bound to be a beautiful day.

And what do you know, sold out! Sold out in the first day they are stocked. Oh my, I think I swore, it wasnt even lunchtime yet! Thankfully they did track one down for me, Phew. So now after a little holiday at Layby the tree is now at home, upright, and taking up far more room then it should. But my heart is mended, we will this year have christmas. Finally.


And in the spirit of the festive season to come, here is a sneak peak of a christmas card we have been working on here at Bespoke. Quite clearly with 4 weeks to christmas and our online store not yet open, we are being all organised and getting ready for next year!

Bespoke Press News

Well my friends it has been a busy busy week here at our studio and home. We had 29 lovely friends and family fly up to Queensland to help celebrate my husbands 30th birthday. We had a wonderful shared Spanish table at Boroughs Restaurant and then a recovery bbq the next day. Such a beautiful weekend, we are so very blessed to have such amazing family and friends!

Its all very busy here at Bespoke at the moment. We have many wedding couples making the most of our 20% off letterpressed wedding invitation packages. These couples will be featuring on our soon to be launched website. This offer is available for all orders placed before December 31, so if you are getting married soon and are interested in having us design your wedding invitation suite for you don't miss out as we are almost all booked out until February.

On other exciting news, our studio is in the process of a massive renovation after a wee incident with a car loosing control and crashing through the front of our studio! We have had many people interested in coming out and viewing our studio and many keen designers wanting to do internships. Unfortunately we cannot accept visitors while work is going on but early next year we should be in a much better position ( and a far prettier studio) to do so!

In other exciting news, as many of you know I have also been a Graphic Design lecturer whilst also running Bespoke Press. The end of the college year has come and I have made the move not to continue teaching fulltime. It has been an incredible experience to inspire and teach others and watch them grow into the amazing designers that they are, but it is just far too much work to manage lecturing and running Bespoke all at the same time. So as of this week I am now purely self employed and looking forward to offering a much faster turn around time as well as a more dedicated service to my clients. I also cannot wait to get my new range launched in the new year and out to stockists. And as for our new website hopefully now I may have time to get it up and running!

Hope you have all been having a most lovely week!

Enough already!

This last week Brisbane has been bashed senseless by a week of intense destructive storms, and please, we beg, who ever controls the storms please just send them away!

Our first introduction of the storms that were to come last Sunday were on a flight from Sydney back to Brisbane. When the captain tells you early in the flight to buckle in as the flight is only going to get much worse it is a slight cause for concern! It was the most turbulent, bouncing up and down, people throwing up flight of my life. I turned to my dear husband who himself is a pilot on the airline that we were flying and asked if its normally ever this rough. When he said, no this is about as bad as it gets, its not exactly reassuring! We eventually did land in Brisbane watching lightening out the windows striking trees and setting them on fire, it was an exceptional feeling to walk off that plane I tell you!

Sundays storm turned out to be horrific with so much damaged caused. Wednesday nights storm turned out to be a flooder with so many streets and houses flooded and tonights storm intense and full of hail. What a week of very little sleep. My heart goes out to those who houses were damaged on Sunday, only to be flooded on Wednesday, and then battered again tonight. You poor souls. $500 million is the expected damage and I do hope that the next storm due on Saturday never makes it.

We have thankfully fared okay, with just small flooding to the studio but powerlines down up the street. The images above from Ninemsn are taken at the entrance bridge to our peninsula - normally sunny and full of boats and fishermen, these images make me scared just looking at them!

So now please, I beg, Mr Storm Controller please go away and leave us in peace!

Neue Kids On The Block Exhibition

Neue Talent. Neue Design.

My graduating students over at Shillington College here in Brisbane are holding an exhibition of their work and portfolios before they venture off into the big wide world.

If your interested in Graphic Design, looking for a designer for your studio or even just want to have a sticky beak at the high quality of work our design students produce see you there!

Thursday 20 November
5–9pm, 6pm welcome speech

Nine Lives Gallery
Upstairs, Mellino’s Italian Restaurant
330 Brunswick Street Mall, Fortitude Valley Brisbane

the end is near

With only 12 more days until summer it means the end of 2008 is almost here. My favourite part of welcoming a new year and welcoming new calenders to inspire me for the year ahead!

Right now im loving are Port2Ports Press letterpress-printed calendar which also includes black and white photography as well! This is Port2Ports final calender before they move on to bigger greener pastures, so make sure you grab yours here!


And secondly last week I mentioned a new blog on the block Nora Why Not Press. This week they have launched their etsy store and have listed their fresh off the press super funky 2009 calender. Rich in legend and folklore, each month depicts an unusual use of the herb thyme, from Egyptian embalming to ancient Greek honey collecting!

Limited to only 100 calendars, each comes with a signed, numbered and dated Stamp of Authenticity on the back. What more could you possibly ask for! You can find there etsy store here.

Post #101

My oh my how quickly time flys by.

This post is post number 101 since Bespoke Presses humble blog beginnings on the 26th June this year - I would like to say a very huge thankyou for all those that have shared our journey - Your comments, emails and blog mentions make my day every day.

Over the weekend VT Interiors Library & Pia Jane Bijkerk featured Bespoke Press on their blogs and aw shucks, it makes me blush, there is so much blog love out there.

Alot of people have asked me what its like to blog and share your world with others - All I can say is that its a beautiful experience hopefully inspiring others through my blog as much as other blogs inspire me. I adore finding new blogs and sometimes even making new friends, its such a beautiful life.

So thankyou friends, here are frangapanis from our garden just for you.

xox

Ink & Spindle

I thought I would share with you today one of my new favourite Australian design teams and blog! Ink & Spindle is a small independent business based in Melbourne, founded by three creative girls Bianca, Lara & Tegan who together share a passion for art and design.

I have loved reading their blog and their journey of creating a yardage screen printing business, with an environmentally friendly focus. Their studio is located in Kensington's famous Younghusband Wool Store building and I must admit I have serious studio envy! Check out their blog here, shop full of amazing screenprinted textiles here. Such talented girls, what an inspiration!

happy early weekend!

My friends I wish you a happy early weekend. We are headed off down south this weekend to visit family and attend our first christmas function of the year. This week has been a fabulously busy week so it will be most wonderful to kick off our shoes and relax a little!

I thought I would share with you all a photo from our recent trip to Croatia which is shortly about to find a new home on our walls. Last weekend saw me trekking off to ikea to stock up on Ribba photo frames to decorate our living room with. My trolley load of frames must have looked somewhat strange as a lovely lady pointed out that my trolley load of frames was going to be expensive. Thankyou. Yes im sure most normal people don't buy $450 worth of frames at one time, But thankyou for pointing out my strangeness.

Onto news from us here at Bespoke Press we must say a very big thankyou for all the emails and newsletter sign ups this week. We promise our website will be up soon and thankyou all for your patience while we build a beautiful website worthy to inspire us all. Exciting times are ahead and we will fill you in on all the new news shortly!

And finally a very big thankyou to bellemumma & design challenge for featuring Bespoke Press this week - you guys are the sweetest!!

Hope you have a most lovely weekend too xox

David Austen Roses

We are currently developing some inspiration for a gorgeous wedding couple who are having a divine vintage elegance theme. While we have been researching I have been reminded about how much I adore David Austen Roses. I love their intensity, tighly packed buds and gorgeous soft colours. But most of all I love how much they remind me of my dear mum.

Several years ago soon after my husband and I married we moved into a cottage on my parents acerage back in NSW. My mum a keen and beautiful gardener grows divine David Austen Roses and over the summertime I would walk between our two properties collecting these gorgeous flowers along the way. I would arrange them in pretty vases and give them to my gorgeous mother and lovely sisters... Such beautiful memories, how I miss those roses!

Image via David Austen

Florence Broadhurst Brisbane Concept Store

This has surely got to be the most exciting news to hit the Brisbane interior scene this year.

Signature Prints is opening a Brisbane concept store selling Florence Broadhurst wallpaper and fabric collections, limited edition art, lifestyle products, luggage and fashion accessories.

With savings of 30-50% on furnishings, cushions, ottomans, fabric art, handbags, wallpaper and fabric remnants and much more - This is truly a month long event not to miss!

In previous years I have flown down to Sydney to especially visit their Sydney Showroom and their annual sales. So I was tickled pink when I rang up to find out when their next Sydney sale was on only to find out that they are saving us a trip and heading to Brisbane! Im so very excited. I adore Florence Broadhurst prints and Signature Prints have done an extraordinary job with their range of expectational quality pieces.

You can find their new concept store for 4 weeks only from Saturday November 22nd – Sunday December 21st
67 James Street, Fortitude Valley QLD
Opening Hours:
Monday – Thursday: 10am – 6pm
Friday: 10am – 8pm
Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday: 12pm – 4pm

New blogs on the block

Two new brisbane based blogs have popped up over the weekend and I thought I would share their lovely design goodness with you!

The first Nora Why Not Press is run by the fabulous team over at Thyme Design. Im loving the look of their first screen printed piece and can't wait to get my hands on it once it hits their shop later this week!


The second is the lovely Tim & Tan at Rumpus Design. Passionate about good design and creative ideas im looking forward to seeing what this dynamic duo get up too!

Happy Weekend!

Earlier this year my dearest friend and I got together to photograph her gorgeous creations she bakes. We had a marvelous day, she baked and I styled and photographed her gorgeous cupcakes - and then we ate them... Such a fun day!

She is such a clever beautiful girl... I really think she should go into business, what do you all think??

Wishing you all a most glorious weekend. Im off to visit the local op shops and then installing big casement windows in our print studio to let the much needed light shine in!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

xox

Paper Boat Press Christmas Show

The lovely Kylie from Paper Boat Press is having a Christmas Show here in Brisbane on the 23rd of November. I absolutely adore her ceramic Christmas ornaments and this is a fabulous brisbane event not to miss!! More info available here.

typography you can eat

There is something so very relaxing and pleasurable about hand setting type the old fashioned way. But somehow I think I would find this chocolate type by Typolade just too pleasurable to resist!

via typography.com

a summer garden

It has only just dawned on me that November has arrived, summer is almost here and I hadn't even noticed. I feel giddy with excitement, so much so that late on Friday night I decided that we must have a summer garden, and we must do it on the weekend.

Now our previous front garden had been untouched since last August. One and a quarter years worth of weeds and grass had taken over and it really wasnt a pretty sight. Now I had been able to overlook this wee problem for the last six months whilst our house had that boarded up abandoned look after the small incident with the car that crashed through our house situation.

Now thankfully months and months later renovation work is complete, we have a new garage and the house has started to be painted a lovely stone white colour. Things are starting to come together and the weeds just arent a part of the new plan.

So saturday afternoon saw us outside ripping out weeds and grass and dead old plants with avengence. It was blowing a gale, a storm was rolling in and it wasnt really ideal gardening weather - but I was determined - it had to go!

One and a half full wheelie bins later, a wee incident with a small snake which had made its home in the weeds, and bunnings entire collection of white Dahlia bulbs later, im feeling optimistic - This summer I will have a garden. Please God, just make it grow!

Image via Flickr