Anthology 03 - 27 August 2021

August 27, 2021

Welcome to Anthology 03!

As I type I'm recovering quite nicely from a little knee op with the assistance of a well-poofed corner sofa, a mug of soup, and a fresh loaf of sourdough from local deli, Bakers and Graze. Turns out it really is the little things that we turn to for comfort!

I hope your weekend is looking restful/adventurous/full of family and friends* and here in Cheltenham we have NO RAIN forecast for the whole of the Bank Holiday! Some of my recoup hours might be in the garden.

(*delete as required ;-)

Last Friday was all about Christmas with a long and hectic photoshoot with business pals Lola And Blake and the marvellous Felt So Good.

Our friends at Dawn Nurseries cut three Christmas trees for us - and yes we did get some odd looks at the recycling centre afterwards - and we had 19 different models of varying ages arrive throughout the day across six room sets as well as some outdoor shots. 

Our amazing photographer, Laura, captured some really beautiful images a few of which are below. We were all on hand with our own cameras too, taking the odd bit of video as well so you'll definitely see those crop up in stories.

Thanks so much to everyone involved, especially Harriet, who turned over her beautiful house to us for the day! If you're a fellow small biz owner then I highly recommend teaming up with other local businesses for shoots like this.  

Well, we didn't go to Italy! Like many, our international travel plans are temporarily on pause, but I know how much we'll love it and appreciate it even more when we do eventually get to return.

Instead, we decided to spend a few days in Brighton. We've been before but only as a fleeting visit and always with a course to attend, or friends to visit, which didn't really leave much time for a mooch and a wander. That's the best part of going to new places isn't it? The mooching!

We had a lovely wander around The Lanes, and found the Record Store Day release of Alive by Pearl Jam in a local record shop, Cult Hero, which made my day! And I couldn't go past Cass Arts without stopping in and geeking out over the paints and pastels. I had to take a photo of their noticeboard. I call it "How Artists do Business Cards" ;-)

Are you planning any holidays at the moment? 

My sofa day today is heavily punctuated by cuppas, which got me thinking about our first mug designs from 2012. 

We'd never really thought about making mugs, or anything other than art prints to be honest, when Scottish-based mug company, McLaggan Smith, approached us about turning one of our Union Jack prints into a mug design. Of course, I thought it would be a bit weird only having one mug so I designed another one to go with it, inspired by my lifelong love of dunking a biccie in a cup of tea. 

I'd completely forgotten until I looked it up just now that the mug went through a few design changes. Originally, I'd wanted it to be a full colourful rainbow of stripes. However, mug printing is not as straightforward as I thought and the professionals recommended sticking to a range of five colours, and preferably not featuring pink (apparently pink is notoriously difficult for consistency!)

From left to right we have the initial concept, the first redesign, and then the final version. Yellow was too difficult to read and again a bit tricky with the consistency issue. And we had to lose one biscuit to size it all better, so shortcakes bit the dust.

Without a doubt, the best part of the development process was sitting with a stopwatch, a hot cup of tea and a pile of my favourite biscuits to see how long each would dunk for! 

I love how they turned out and it's still my favourite mug to use at home. 

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