Monday, October 31, 2011

Sarah & Ben :: letterpress order of service booklets

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!

Friday, October 28, 2011

weekend rambles.

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 It seems crazy to think that my 3 year old phone has been totally superseded already.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




Thursday, October 27, 2011

brisbane finders keepers
















































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!!

Monday, October 24, 2011

kym & zac :: letterpress place settings

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, October 21, 2011

friday finds and weekend plans

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.
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

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

yoong & lilia :: save the dates


 



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!

Friday, October 14, 2011

lovely cotton ribbon now in store!

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

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

new gift wrap in store


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




Tuesday, October 11, 2011

lachlan & elizabeth :: wedding stationery





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!

Monday, October 10, 2011

house & garden magazine :: top 50 rooms

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, October 7, 2011

friday love


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




Wednesday, October 5, 2011

featured stockist :: e for ethel



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.


Monday, October 3, 2011

studio shots







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.

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