Wedding pics!

So, it's only been a mere 2 months (!) since our wedding and I'm finally getting around to sharing some pics with you! And what an epic two months it has been; the usual pre-xmas craziness at work, xmas itself, moving house, a honeymoon, some big changes at I&S (more on that soon!), all whilst growing a small girl-child inside me. FULL ON.

Anyway back to the wedding! From the 400 odd shots that the very awesome Kate Berry sent to me, I had a LOT of trouble narrowing them down! Below is my very limited selection of favourites. Fortunately there's a bunch of pics over on Kate's blog if you'd like to see more!

It started with a wonderful morning getting ready at home with my favourite girls...








Hair & makeup by Dana & Poppy from Kenny & The Sunshine Girls, native bouquets by Brianna Read, bridesmaid's dresses made in the I&S studio by Teegs, bridal gown by Gwendolynne, vintage glomesh a $3 score at the Ceres flea market :)

Meanwhile over at the Ceres Village Green a crowd is gathering and a groom is doing a fine impression of keeping his cool...





Then there was the ceremony! (Jason, our celebrant was awesome, highly recommend!)







After being showered with rose petals (possibly my favourite moment of the day!), we wandered off into the little garden laneways of Ceres for some pics with our awesome photographer Kate Berry. Some climbing of locked gates may have been involved...







After the photos we made our way back up the hill to The Merri Table to celebrate with all our loved ones over an awesome buffet of organic & local food. The weather was perfect, the setting was beautiful and everyone had a great time. What more could we have ask for?

What an awesome day. xx

Getting hitched - the making of!

My gorgeous new husband (ha!) Dave and I, freshly married @ CERES. Photo by Kate Berry

Wow. What an absolutely spectacular day. I'm a little bit shell-shocked to be honest. I've never been one to imagine that I would put so much into one single day, and for the most part I've felt pretty relaxed about it all... but when you consider just how much time and combined effort and energy went in to the lead up to this event, it makes sense that right now I just feel emotionally & physically spent. But it was so, so worth it.

To do the day justice I'm going to wait till the photos come through from the ever talented and lovely Kate Berry, all we have for now is the teaser above :) In the meantime however, here are some pics of just some of the work that went into making this very special day happen. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such talented people who generously contributed their time and talents to make the day what it was...


Papercut gumleaves

It all started with this papercut pattern - a strip of gumleaves that I designed and papercut on my cutting machine (bought pretty much for this purpose but justified as a work expense because it also cuts signage!). This pattern formed the basis for the invites, decorations and even the cake...


Cones for rose petals, ready to be filled


Gumleaf design cut out of icing (!!) and placed around a cake made by Nikkishell and her secret pastry chef talents! 

The next epic task was the bridesmaids' dresses. Because I was a bit fixated on some sort of mint/teal/aqua kind of colour scheme, and because there was nothing decent to speak of in these colours on the rack, Teegs bravely put her hand up for the task. A task that became more epic than either of us imagined, with the chosen pattern involving two layers of silk and one layer of chiffon. And if you've ever sewn with silk... well then I don't need to go on. Let me just say that woman has talent and endurance in equal measure.


Teegs cutting out pattern pieces...


Epic hemming...


The lovely Phoebe joined us for the last two days to help with some hand stitching


Of course we needed some silk ties to match for the groomsmen - I made these and astounded myself with the fact that they actually turned out looking like real ties!


A little leftover of the silk was printed in our Leuca design...


...and made into 100 bomboniere filled with blue sugared almonds!

Continuing the theme of multi talented studio buddies (also wait till you see the rings made by Abby Seymour!) here's a sneak peek of some of the floral work put together by the exceptionally talented Brianna Read, who should most definitely quit her day job...


Corsages and boutonniere by Brianna Read

I can't wait to show you more photos. It was a day I'm going to treasure in my memory for years to come...

xx

Big changes over at Ink & Spindle

Our beloved Ink & Spindle studio - want to work here?

It'd be a bit of an understatement to say that life is a little bit full on right now.

I'm 19 weeks pregnant, getting married in 2 weeks, PLUS my landlord just gave us notice that they'd like to move back in to the gorgeous house we've made our home (great timing), PLUS there's some major changes happening over at I&S!

If you haven't heard the news already, Ink & Spindle is looking for a new business partner! More details over here, but in essence Teegs has made the big and difficult decision to move back up north to where she feels her true home and future lie. It's a decision that's been a long time coming and basically needs to happen now whilst I'm still able to handle a major transition (before my hands are full of baby etc!).

We've already been pretty overwhelmed with the response so far, so I'm feeling confident that we'll find the right person. We've worked so hard over the last 5 years to build our business to where it is, but I'm looking forward to finding someone who can put a bit of themselves and new energy into the business. It's not a huge money maker by any means but I feel like what we've built is so unique and so full of opportunity. Plus it's a lovely place to work :)

If you like the sound of that and are ready for a big commitment, drop us an email!

xx

turning 5

Turning 5. Now there's a little bit of a big deal. Half a decade of running our beloved little textile studio, helping it slowly evolve into something that we can be truly proud of. I wouldn't say "growing" because to be truthful there hasn't been a whole lot of growth. Economy aside we've never wanted it to become some big unyeildy thing. More importantly the last 5 years have been about doing what we do better and better. Better practices, better processes, better basecloths, better designs.

I'm the type of person that needs things to feel streamlined and organised before I feel ready to tackle new things. And it feels like I&S is really getting to that stage where everything makes sense and is there for a reason. Sometimes I imagine the way our business moves being like a little inchworm - it reaches forward a bit, pauses, contracts, then reaches forward again. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next "reach forward" stage will look like.

I was off work sick with a nasty cold the other week (cold + pregnancy = ugh!) when I realised we urgently needed to make a poster to promote our upcoming birthday/open studio (which has already been and gone, sorry!). I had some beautiful gifted native bouquets in the house and big piece of paper. A bit of careful rearranging later and #5 came alive. It was the most fun I'd had in months!

Snipping and arranging stems on the coffee table


A handy window spot and an overcast day made for easy photographing

xx Lara.

A little bit of big news

It's been over three months since my last post. That's gotta be a new record. But this time I have a pretty good excuse:

Say hello to the tiny person growing in my belly!

Whew! It's been a fairly trying few months that's for sure, though I think I've had it a lot easier than most people. A bit of morning sickness but no vomiting, lots of feeling extremely tired in the afternoons and falling asleep at about 8:30pm. No exciting food cravings (not sure if Laughing Cow Cheese counts; I've always had the capacity to eat a whole wheel of that) but lots of food aversions and a lot of difficulty cooking or thinking about food. The worst has been the indigestion and having to avoid some of my favourite foods - tomato, citrus, chocolate (!!) and even onions. Add a gluten free diet on top of that and it does make eating times a little tricky! Thank god for avocados (especially delivered ones from Barham Avocados - they're the best!).

That all said, we're 15 weeks along now and starting to feel more human again. It's been exciting to finally share the news. And I've also finally had some energy to plan our rather impending wedding (got a shotgun, anyone?). Only 6 weeks away now and getting excited, looking forward to sharing more about that and all the lovely creative people involved in putting it all together!

Talk about knocking a whole bunch of life milestones on the head all at once. Feel like a walking cliche  ;)

Stay tuned for a bit of a blog-post-backlog, i.e. all the things I would have blogged about over the last 3 months if I'd had the energy!

xx

Blogging and big botanical prints

My first post in two months. Not for lack of things going on, as always the opposite is true! Life's been throwing curve balls again and although in some ways the last month or so has been quite challenging and sucky it's also had it's fair share of good stuff so I can't really complain. My little garden is going well, wedding plans are in the works, I&S has a new website on the brink of launch and we're exhibiting at Design Made Trade in 1.5 weeks. All fun stuff.

I also FINALLY got to launch some new designs! We were holding off launching them till the website was ready but my patience ran out. I've reblogged some pictures/text below from the Ink & Spindle blog, hope you like :)

Waratah in Coal & Snow - photo by Sean Fens'

Introducing two new & rather large prints - Waratah and Silver Gum!

WARATAH
"Inspired by the beautiful, unique Tasmania variety of Waratah, this print was originally carved and printed from a lino block, retaining all the beautiful and irregular textures of lino printing."

I  designed Waratah late last year, inspired after a trip to the spectacular Capturing Flora exhibition in Ballarat. I knew that I wanted to firstly develop a lino print and capture the beautiful texture of that medium in a screen print. The carving was done over one rather warm weekend down at Fairhaven, perfect weather to soften the lino!


Waratah - original line drawing & carving the lino


Waratah - lino carving almost complete and made easier with Abby's fancy Japanese carving tools


The final lino print. This was scanned and doubled in size before being turned into a repeat


The final result! Waratah in Coal & Snow


Waratah in Turmeric & Snow

SILVER GUM
"Silver Gum came to life one morning during a bicycle ride to work through Royal Park. Enamoured by the leaf forms, Lara picked these almost-flowering stems and popped them in her pannier for photographing later in the back yard. Both colours in this design are printed from a single screen – the second colour is printed with the screen rotated 180 degrees."

Silver Gum is another one of those designs that spent a lot of time brewing in the back of my mind before finally coming to life. The tricky bit was finding the perfect shaped leaf, but once that happened the rest of the process was fairly straightforward. I can't wait to see this print turned into some gorgeous curtains or upholstery.


Silver Gum - laying out stems for photographing


The final result - Silver Gum in Eucalyptus & Moss


Silver Gum in Almond & Snow

xx Lara.