Vintage scrapbooking

I’ve long been a fan of Jessie Chorley and Buddug’s beautiful handmade books, jewellery and stationery. Beginning life as a stall on Broadway Market, the creative best-friends since opened a tiny space called The Shop on Columbia Road in London’s East End - recently up-sizing to a "proper" boutique on the same street at number 146.  

Jessie takes fusty old books and re-vitalises them, adapting the body of the book by adding collage, embroidered threads, buttons and stitched pockets to create one-of-a-kind scrapbooks, travel journals or wedding guest books. You can buy one from about £30 or learn how to make them yourself at one of her workshops (which would make a nice creative hen idea too!).  

She’s recently launched a wedding service – offering handmade invites, stationery and favour boxes, all following the old-fashioned collage theme.  

Meanwhile fellow welsh designer Buddug creates whimsical jewellery, plates and tiles from enamel, all adorned with a handwritten script.

Old-fashioned stationery shop, Berlin

I was in Berlin for a work trip last week and came across R.S.V.P, a charming stationery shop in Mitte – the sort of place that you simply can’t leave without making an unnecessary pencil / notebook / paper purchase.

There were plenty of goods here that could make beautiful name cards or favour tags; scotch tape in tutti-frutti colours, beautiful letterpress-style note cards for thank-you’s, and the perennially useful old-fashioned luggage tags in a range of sizes. And thankfully, you can shop on-line too: http://rsvp-berlin.de/onlineshop

Inspiration from Maison Martin Margiela

I went to the preview of Somerset House's exhibition celebrating 20 years of Belgian designer Maison Martin Margiela and came out completely inspired by his amazing approach to design and fashion. Simple yet inventive ideas like white-washing furniture and stacked-up cardboard boxes to create impact could be translated for weddings, events or home décor… and I loved the display of old invitations to MMM fashion shows from years gone by:

Antique printing blocks

I picked up these wonderful old wooden letter printing blocks at one of my favourite London vintage furniture shops, The Dog and Wardrobe, just off Broadway Market in the East End (head to the market on a Saturday for an array of food stalls, cafes and boutiques). 

I thought I’d start experimenting with using them to block-print our initials and the wedding date on the front covers of the Order of Service booklets (I may start to regret this idea 100 prints later!).

Paris or Battersea?

My vintage fabric and crockery hunt seems to have captured friends’ and readers’ imaginations... I was touched to receive a second gift from Paris yesterday, in the form of some beautiful embroidered floral napkins that my colleague Sarah kindly brought back from her favourite Parisian flea market, Vanves (weekend mornings on Avenues Georges Lafenestre and Marc Sangnier).

She also found these wonderfully old-fashioned wedding gift cards at her local Battersea car boot sale (Sundays, 1.30-4.30 on Battersea Park Road) – I love the faded colours, curly-wurly script and the stories that they conjure... I wonder what became of the recpients! You can see more of Sarah’s flea market finds (along with her gorgeous handmade patchworks) on her blog PostcardsFromBattersea… which is on my list of must-reads for inspiration.