gabrielle & andrew - stones of the yarra valley wedding

 

 

 

 

All images by Louisa Bailey

Today we have a gorgeous treat for you - beautiful images of the ever gorgeous Gabrielle when she married Andrew at Stones of the Yarra Valley late December last year. We had the pleasure of designing and printing beautiful tactile letterpress invitations for their day last year, and we did a little squeal of delight when Gabrielle emailed through these beautiful images of her day!

Our journey with our Brides and Grooms is a long process over several months, learning about them as a couple, imagining their day and working together to design stationery to introduce such a magical event. It is then such a joy when we then get to see images of this very special day - all the planning, all the magic, all the beauty coming to life, oh my, it makes our hearts flutter with joy.

A very big thank you to Louisa Bailey who allowed us to share her stunning photography - you can see more of Gabrielle & Andrews day over on  Louisa's blog here. The amazing styling was by Georgeous and the amazing florals by Cecilia Fox. Gabrielles gorgeous gown was by Gwendolynne and the fabulous bridesmaids gowns by Zimmerman.

Love love love!!!

hello autumn.

So it seems that Summer is now over and Autumn weather has arrived on our door step. Here in Brisbane, the days still feel quite warm, but that ever so slight cool breeze in the air and that promise of less humidity to our days. The sun is shining more then our summer rainy days, but their isn't that bite in the sunshine to burn my skin in one second flat (curse that irish heritage as a recent dermatologist recently told me). We have been getting some lovely breezes and I am relishing in opening up all the windows and giving the air conditioner a break after a very hard work out over the summer months.

I have been embracing all that is Autumn in the studio of late. Recently I mixed three gorgeous new inks of Dusty Red, Orange and Gold - They were beautiful inks to mix and even more beautiful to print. We are working on lots of new products at the moment, so it is such a joy to see them unfold on the press before our eyes.

On the home front, recently I enjoyed a gorgeously decedent Pear and Polenta cake which felt like a goodbye to summer and hello to wintry comfort foods. And even though it is not quite cold enough, I am still convincing myself that as Autumn is here the need for blankets is increasing. So one night I snuggled under my favourite mustard blanket and illustrated sweet french chateaux's and dreamed of far off romantic travels to such beautiful distant lands. Just lovely.

Hello Autumn, it sure is most lovely to see you.

found

Over the years we have built up quite a big library of photographs of all things letterpress - the presses in action, ink being mixed, the finished beautiful products etc etc. Today I have been hunting through this library to find a very small handful of images which reflect us as a studio for an upcoming book which is to be published on letterpress.

I stumbled across this picture above which was taken back in 2010 and it reflects so much of what my life is like here in the studio. The photo was taken late at night still up working, I am analysing, scrutinising and being ridiculously pedantic analysing every little character of type in the envelope print. Ensuring it is perfect, beyond expectations and intricately beautiful. I am holding it gently, carefully, ever so delicately.

I've got ink splodges on my hands, wearing my trusty black and white striped print apron and standing right under Herbies Original Heidelberg arm. To the right of me would be my stone - A sturdy fabulous old vintage high table on wheels which was once used by the Courier Mail to move their locked up printing formes around the press room, back in the days of when the newspaper was composed with lead type. To the left of me would be our second stone which is painted a very fitting army green, which would be covered with inks being mixed, letterpress cabinets of more lead furniture, and our press wash which cleans down the press after a long printing day. Under this stone on a storage shelf is my collection of Heidelberg Rollers, and propped up next to this stone would be a few letterpress chases for other jobs in production.

On the floor would be a scattering of print off cuts, bits of packing papers,  quoin keys and lots of letterpress lead bits and bobs. Under neath the Heidelberg, their would be a pool of oil which seeps out of the press onto the oil plate. Scattered amongst this oil is the small little circular offcuts of paper which get popped out when we are die cutting the holes in our swing tags. They are making a strangely beautiful confetti mix to decorate the inky oil in which they finally rest. To the back of me would be Miss Ruby Tuesday watching, waiting and keeping me company, and over the whooshing of the press in action is music blasting from my iPhone propped up on a dock - something calm and gentle during our press ready stages and then something more up beat and rhythmic to beat in time with the press as it beats and chomps its way through the paper.

Yup, that's definitely my life here in the studio - Messy, inky and intricately beautiful.

new japanese masking tape instore!

Today we have listed a whole heap of new Japanese Washi Tapes in our online store! We have 13 new single designs plus one twin pack now available. We love so many of the new designs - the super sweet orange blossom design, the Pink and Gold Patchwork,  the classic blue table cloth pattern and the fun big dots! We've got each design in limited numbers only - each roll has 10 meters of lovely Japanese tape goodness and they are $4.95 per roll available here.

in the studio today

 

weekend snippets

How was your weekend my lovelies. With all the crazy rain that is happening around the country I hope that you are all high and dry.

Our weekend was quite a busy one - I spent a lot of time in the studio mixing inks and printing away. I've been working on my coffee art - it seems that the only thing I can so far manage are great big white frothy love hearts. Anyone got any coffee art tips? I am afraid we are not excelling too well.

We had a lovely bbq for two outdoors on Saturday night. Ruby Tuesday joined us, so I do suppose it was for 2.5 plus we had a visit from a cane toad. I am not the biggest fan and usually we don't see them much, but they are icky and not quite the visitor we expected for dinner!

The final image above is a request I received on Instagram to show the whale print which lives on our bedside table. I adore this print which was purchased via United Thread on Etsy. They are having a 10% off sale ( I think it ends today) so do make sure you pop by and check out their gorgeous prints. We have a few scattered around the house and I love them all!

Happy Monday!

angela & justin :: letterpress wedding stationery

Angela and Justin approached us last July to start the process designing and letterpress printing gorgeous wedding invitation stationery for their April 2012 wedding. Currently based in the Carribean (so jealous!!) they were planning their wedding from afar for the gorgeous Gunners Barracks in Mossman, Sydney.

After receiving a beautiful email from Angela and Justin confessing their love for our design nature of classic simplicity combined with exceptional print quality, we were very excited to start working with this couple who shared our love and appreciation of classic design and typography.

Their brief to us was to design and letterpress print save the dates, invitations, information cards, thank you cards and envelopes to suit. With simple styling as not to distract from the historical elegance and stunning views from Gunners Barracks, they were attracted to designs with lovely combinations of typefaces and a strong use of white space which allows for an optimum printed impression upon the press.

We commissioned gorgeous hand lettering for their names and thank you text and combined this with a very sweet, yet classically styled monogram. Coupled with combinations of upper case serif body copy and lower case italics script, we completed the whole package off with a simple three dot motif to balance the central alignment of the design. All printed on our ivory 100% cotton paper in a classic black ink.

Despite being many thousands of kilometres away we adored working with Angie & Justin - A gorgeous couple, who sent us lovely emails and who were an absolute pleasure to work with! We love that in today's age of technology working from afar is just as possible as working from around the corner. What a joy it is to combine centuries old craftsmanship with modern fancy technology!

We wish Angela & Justin the most magical day in April!!