Love, naturally!

Valentine's day is fast approaching and I have been creating some little coin purses out of cute, bright, heart fabrics to celebrate the day, which you can see here.

Yesterday I felt the need to create an Etsy valentine treasury and I decided to go for the natural approach. I found some beautiful items, which you can see below. Click on any image to find out more.

LINO, beige sand ... BagsSofissimaP... $75.36	Old Heart barn wood... TheLonelyHeart $28.00	Kraft Hearts Paper ... KatsPaperTrail $4.50	Vintage Wood Letter... MonkiVintage $60.00
Papercut - Love beg... allcutupbydg $125.00	Laser Cut Mini Wood... TimberGreenWoo... $3.95	Michigan Pebble Bea... StoneMe $15.50	I Love You Greeting... sparrownestscr... $6.00
Red Heart - Holiday... Buttonlandia $4.00	50 Vintage French P... newnanc $2.25	Valentine's Day... HavokDesigns $26.00	Hanging Paper Heart... OrigamiDelight... $3.00
Valentine's Day... houseofismay $7.50	Handmade Initial Le... RoseberryStore $24.00	25 Chunky Driftwood... StairLodgeSupp... $10.00	Natural heart stone... MedBeachStones $9.80

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

The Art Rooms

I have now been back in England for a week out of my four week visit. It's really lovely to be back with family and friends, although the weather leaves a lot to be desired....

What I do love, is scouting around for new designs and I recently discovered these beautifully simple greetings cards by "The Art Rooms". They are manufactured in the Lake District and printed onto cotton board, using cotton waste fibres. The printing method uses an old Heidelberg platen press using Letterpress printing, a method that I have mentioned in a past blog and something that I have grown to love. I love the way that it imprints the card and creates a tactile feel. You can find more of these beautiful designs here.

Snail's Pace

There are some beautiful cards around at the moment and I picked these two up the other day. What I love abut them is the fact that they use old fashioned printing techniques and each one is hand done, so that there is a sense of individuality to them.They both use a technique called letterpress. This was a technique invented in the mid 15th century where a raised surface of the reversed design is inked and then pressed onto a sheet of paper to obtain a positive image. What I love is that you can see the imprint of the block on the paper, and I love the fact that each image is unique as the paint sits slightly differently on each imprint.
By the second half of the 20th century, the letterpress was not used as much, but it has recently been revived and the relief printing can now be produced from digitally rendered art. These two images attracted me because of their Asian influences as well as the beautiful colour. You can see more like this at Archivist. For a more modern twist, check out these beautiful cards at Modern Optic. It is run by Leslie, a designer who creates cards featuring architecture and design in beautiful colours. As Leslie says "I take pride in modern designs, bright colours and deep impressions".......