Pinterest

I have just discovered Pinterest! I feel it could get quite addictive. So far I have added a few of my own product images (so sorry to my current 4 Pinterest followers for bombarding you) and created a board with different wedding images relating to the colour sky blue. I have been producing a travel ticket wedding invitation sample in sky blue and lilac this morning so I thought I'd see what else is out there in sky blue - which as it turns out is quite a lot!

travel ticket invitation sample in sky blue and lilac

My Pinterest profile is at http://pinterest.com/suzyleafpress/

Personalised new baby pictures

I have just added a new product to the website which I have been meaning to introduce for ages - a personalised name picture for a baby boy or girl. I have been making these for friends, friends of friends and in some cases friends of friends of friends for some time, in fact I've done so many it partially explains the delay in putting them up for sale properly!

Each pictures is A4 in size and spells out the baby's name and date of birth in raised letters and circles. For little boys there are baby elephants each side of the date of birth and for little girls two butterflies to the left of the date of birth. The patterns are made up of dots, stripes and elephants/butterflies for boys/girls respectively. The boys colour scheme is red, light blue and dark blue and for the girls it's pink, purple and peach.

Each picture is supplied mounted and in a cellophane bag and can be viewed in the Stationery Gifts section of the shop.

Coming soon - Christening pictures!

baby boy personalised picture

baby boy picture details

 

baby girl new birth picture

baby girl personalised picture details

Glemham Hall Wedding Fair

I had a great time at the Glemham Hall Wedding Fair last Sunday, chatting to lots of lovely brides and grooms to be. There was a huge variation in how far along visitors were with their wedding planning, from those getting married quite soon to others who'd only just got engaged and even one lady who wasn't actually engaged but was hoping some wedding themed literature would 'inspire' her boyfriend!

As usual the marquee at Glemham Hall was looking fab, with decorations by Table Angels, The Decorated Cake Co, Events Couture and, of course, The Leaf Press! Others exhibiting included Patrick Stockley Weddings (showcasing amazing albums of previous weddings) and The Tea Service which hires out beautiful vintage china (and had very tempting marshmallows on the stall!).

Here are my photos of the day.

The Leaf Press seating plan next to cake by the Decorated Cake Co

'Bunting' menu and place cards on the tables

The Leaf Press's stall

New travel notebook designs

The personalised travel notebooks I sell have been very popular through the summer, especially as little wedding gifts, so I wanted to add to the range of designs available. Here are pictures of two new travel notebooks. The first is a revision of a design that was already available 'Travels'. With this notebook I've used a colour scheme that I hope appeals equally to men and women.

The second 'Travel Patterns' is a new design featuring travel related images in horizontal bands across the notebook. This has a pastel colour scheme with a lemon colour base.

Both designs can have a title on the front cover and are gift-wrapped in tissue paper.

Birds wedding invites

Today I thought I would share an image made up of different colour schemes that recent customers have chosen for their Birds in Trees wedding stationery. I love the fact my customers come up with so many different colour combinations that I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own!

My favourites are the red and grey on white chosen by Vicky and Stephen (4th image down) and the sage green and duck egg blue on ivory chosen by Louise and Mark (3rd image down). I've picked these two as the end results look totally different even though everything on the designs except the colours are the same. Colour theory in action ...!

Say It Says Mini Interview

The Leaf Press has featured in a mini-interview with Folksy sellers on the fabulous Say It Says blog. I have a range of wedding invitation samples for sale on Folksy. You can read the interview here.

Say it Says interview with The Leaf Press

Wedding favours

Wedding favours are something I plan to introduce in the coming months as part of my wedding stationery range. As luck would have it I have had the opportunity to practise recently with the favours for my sister's wedding. I was presented with crackers (with silver charms) for the ladies and a packet of popping candy for the men. Here are the results:

Cracker with navy tag and navy ribbon with the Bride & Groom's names and wedding date.

The text inside the tag.

Popping candy in a glassine envelope with a navy and silver tag.

There was a slight predicament with the crackers which turned out to be Christmas themed. This led to a tedious 2 hours pulling the contents out and replacing with non-Christmas related charms!

I already produce guest books as part of my range of journals but I designed a slightly different front panel and end sheets to fit in with the snowflake them my sister is having for her wedding. (Yes, I know it's August!)

Owls watching tennis

Today the owls are nervously watching Andy Murray play in the Wimbledon final.

It's a nerve-wracking business so they're looking forward to returning to their tree where they feature on the owl wedding invites.

Baby shower and leaving school cards

I thought I would share images of two recent commissions I have done.

The first is for previous wedding stationery customers who are now having a baby (yay - congratulations Alex & Craig!) who requested invitation cards for their baby shower which were based on the design they had for their wedding invites - birds in trees. As you'll see from the image, the birds are still sitting in the tree and a stork is delivering their baby.

The second is for a friend who works in a school as a teaching assistant and who wanted to give the leaving pupils a goodbye and good luck card each. This design features owls designed to appeal to 11 year olds - they're wearing the school uniform (okay, perhaps that bit won't appeal!) and are texting each other. One owl is holding a book with the title 'books are cool' as a tribute to the fact that my friend specialises in reading/literacy. The other is (perhaps more typically) plugged into earphones.

a close up of the owls:

I think I had the easy bit - she now has to write messages on 30 cards!

Floral wedding stationery

This is a design introduced recently which features a  design made up of swirls with leaves, flowers and butterflies (made from heart shapes) .

Most of my designs are centred on two colours but I've gone for a one colour base for this range, to suit couples whose theme is centred on just one colour which they'd like to be as prominent as possible.

This range of stationery was on display at the recent Glemham Hall Open Day.  Glemham Hall is a fantastic wedding venue in mid Suffolk (just off the A12). I provided stationery for the tables in the marquee. There was a classical theme with birdcages draped with butterflies and foliage as centre pieces.

Here is the stationery on the tables.

The Floral range of wedding stationery can be viewed on this page with samples available to purchase for 90p + £1.00 postage here .

Glemham Hall is on the A12 between Lowestoft and Ipswich. Their website is  http://www.glemhamhall.co.uk/.

'Confetti' wedding planning book

This is a second design for a wedding planning notebook. I'd originally intended to come up with a larger spiral bound planner using this design but found the spiral binding meant the end result wasn't quite as neat as I'd have liked. So it's the same format as the 'My Wedding Plans' notebook - A6 size to fit in a pocket or bag. There are four colour schemes which I hope will fit most people's wedding colour schemes or just favourite colour preferences.

I always think that these books will be purchased for the Bride-to-be but recent orders have included books for the Bride and Groom-to-be together, as a gift to accompany the proposal (hope she said yes!), a hen party gift and a set of notebooks to be given by the Bride-to-be to the Chief Bridesmaid, Mother of the Bride and Husband-to-be for them to make their own notes. Perhaps I should include these ideas in my advertising!

New wedding stationery ranges

I have been neglecting my blog again, aaaagh! This post is going to focus on the new wedding stationery ranges I've introduced this year.  In forthcoming posts I'm going to talk about other new designs I've been working on, wedding fairs, other wedding related ideas and products and ideas for those of you who are interested in making your own books (although you could of course buy mine!).

So back to the wedding stationery.  I've introduced five new ranges recently.  Two of them are a new style of ticket based information. They come with a perforated RSVP slip and are presented in a card wallet (similar to what you would receive tickets in). One is themed in the style of a concert ticket and the other as an airline type ticket.

'Just the ticket' -

'Travel ticket' -

The third design is called 'Spots' for obvious reasons. It's a design I started last year but couldn't get it to look as I wanted it to, because I'd over-complicated it I think. Here it is in a variety of colours (customers can choose any two colours).

'Spots' -

The fourth design is similar to my Birds in Trees design but this time features owls (in response to customer requests). It's the first design which I've done in landscape layout, which threw up a few additional challenges in terms of laying the text out.

'Owls' -

The fifth design I'm going to talk about in my next post. It started life as a design for use at a local wedding venue's open day.

All of the wedding stationery ranges can be viewed on my website at http://www.theleafpress.co.uk/theleafpressshop/cat_304098--015-Wedding-stationery.html .

Thanks for reading!