Folksy Friday - holiday time!

This Friday, I've decided to do a travel-inspired Folksy Friday. Not because I'm about to go on holiday (I wish!) - rather all my housemates have vanished this weekend, off to Barcelona and Cyprus, so I'm left to sit and dream about a Bank Holiday weekend away! I've picked some of my favourite little somethings that I'd want to treat myself to if I was going away, and others that show all the places I could go to on my imaginary little trip! I'm going to sit and soak up the (hopefully not imaginary) sun instead in London :)



Have a lovely long weekend peeps!

Wedding Invitations!

Yes - I proudly bring you my newest little project which took a good many hours at 'Craft Corner' last month. I had a lovely custom order enquiry for some Invitations with a summery pink theme, and after a nice bit of brainstorming, here's my stages for the final product!

Caroline, the lovely Bride to be, chose an Ivory and Pink wedding theme with sparkles and butterflies as the signature (quite handy as you know me and my Butterflies!). We explored the new Chequebook style Invitation which I'd never seen before - it's a brilliant idea, neatly fitting all the information that's normally in a separate bundle into the one special little keepsake.

So, first of all after plenty of scouring the lovely Paper shelves in various shops, I found some lovely thick hammer textured cardstock in an Ivory shade to create the covers. To add a touch of colour to the back, I layered it with an inner lining of 'Raspberry' paper and used my signature Butterfly cut to show the little hint of pink amongst the Ivory.

Next (and most importantly!) - the front cover. After experimenting with my little knife, hearts and ribbons, we settled on a sparkly little design using sequins and a lovely pink 'raspberry' trim featuring the Butterfly cut again. All tied together with a matching pink ribbon, and an elegant font for the all important 'Wedding Invitation'. Printing off 70 of these was a bit nerve-wracking (mainly my disbelief in the new Printer's ability to print straight on such custom pieces of card!) but there was no need - it came out perfectly, and a lot more professional that handwriting them would have been.

For the inside of the invitation, we chose an Ivory parchment paper with a dark grey font and the header of each page in pink. The cheque-book style of the invitation allows for an easy to read Invitation, clearly laid out and organised. The sections in this were the main Invitation, R.S.V.P slip (for the guests to cut out and send back - cutting lines included!), Order of the Day, Accommodation, Guest Information, and finally a special custom map showing the Church and Reception locations. Thankfully (with bribery of biscuits and copious cups of tea) I got Dan to help me on the final production lines - and it was his Designer talents and Computer God status that created the brilliant map :)

So, what do you think? Hope you like it! I'm quite proud of the final result (as I hope the Bride and Groom are!). I'm thinking of offering a sample of this in my shops for interested Brides to be, what do you reckon?

In an English Country Garden...

Time for something a little different - if any of you up North are looking for something to do this weekend (and apparently, touch wood, it's not meant to be too bad!), there's a lovely Garden Event on this Sunday. It's being held at Waddow Lodge near Clitheroe, Lancashire (in the beautiful Ribble Valley), and is raising money for Marie Curie.

As well as a brilliant range of planted areas to wander around, it's a working garden so you'll get to see the ins and outs of life there, including the field turned into a Vegetable Garden! There's also the yummiest of yummy scones, cakes and cups of tea (yes, I've sampled a few so can definitely vouch that they're droolable!), along with a few stalls to browse, and a Plant Wizard (aka. Peter Foley) there to answer any plant or gardening questions you may have!

So treat yourself to a day out on Sunday, and spread a little Charity love...especially with those cream scones awaiting you! More details can be found on the Marie Curie website here.

Folksy Friday - the Great North!

Admittedly I've been a bit pants on here since my first Folksy Friday 3 weeks ago...but finaly here's my second one! And what a one it is :) The last few weeks have been a bit crazy, culminating in me finally biting the bullet and cementing the plan of leaving Londontown and moving back up North! Which makes me want to put both a happy and sad face - I'll miss my bestest bud Pippa (aka. The Owl & The Party Hat) and my other lovely friends down here, but the North does feel very exciting again..the promise of some proper Fish & Chips for starters! So, today's Folksy is appropriately Northern-based, featuring everything that reminds me of home. 3 weeks and counting! Enjoy :)

New Cards!

Crikey, has it been a busy few weeks! Volcanoes, dooming ash clouds, the biggest Vote I can remember, no PM, a new PM... and of course lots of lovely orders! :)

So, what's been going over at Quite Contrary HQ then? Well I've been putting knife to paper and coming up with some lovely new designs in time for Wedding Season (which will be lovely if the weather ever decides to perk up!) I've also been working on a very big exciting #special something#...but you'll have to wait 'til July to fine out what that is!

Inspired by some recent custom orders, I've been making some new designs for Wedding Cards using some lovely thick Ivory textured cardstock - have a nosey...

And, for those Weddings where you know them, but maybe not well enough for a special personalised one, this cute little A6 'Congrats' one might just fit the bill!

My lovely Boss who went on Maternity leave 2 weeks ago also just had a lovely little boy called Benjamin Charles, aw. One week after she left too! So I got thinking about cards for newborn babys, and came up with this cute little design using the antique Silver Cross design - what do you think?

The Baby Boy version is available too of course (and just as cute ;0) ). I'll be listing them all on my Folksy and Etsy shops

Right, back to the grindstone once again, to a spot of Apprentice and the lovely old teddybear Alan Sugar, yey!