O Happy Day indeed, Aardvark Prints

How could you not be cheered, when looking at Aardvark's O Happy Day print?  This duo claim to be inspired by handmade signs, typography, village halls, fruit cake, tweed overcoats and twice-fried chips (I prefer triple myself but I'll let them away with that one) and they create everything on a vintage press in Rye.

Their Manifesto 2010 also contains lots of very very good guidance on how to live.  What's your favourite piece of advice?  For me I can't decide between "Sing", "Make Stuff" and "Keep it Wonky'. The prints start at £35 unframed.

Etsy Pick: Handmade Registry

So what with the wedding coming up very soon (I promise I will stop banging on about the wedding soon - well soonish anyway!) I have been getting a few messages from folk asking if we have a wedding list anywhere. As it happens, we don't and we don't intende to. We both have all the stuff we need really, combining two households recently actually demonstrated that we have plenty more than we actually need if truth be told! Besides, all we really want is for all our fabulous friends and loved ones to rock up to our wedding party when we return and have a whole heap of fun celebrating with us.

But it got me thinking, how amazing would it be if you could set up a registry featuring all your favourite handmade things from Etsy and Folksy? So, in the spirit of research you understand, I decided to pick out a few things that would definitely feature on my handmade registry, you know just in case any of our lovely guests are reading and feel an absolute need to buy us something!

First up, everyone needs a nice bit of the old china on the list and isn't this White and Gold Tea Cup and Saucer from Esther Coombs just adorable? It is available from Esther's Etsy shop and costs $48, which according to Etsy's new currency conversion feature is approximately £31.09



Another range of ceramics to catch my eye was the Alphabet Ceramic Plate Collection from Just Noey. Available on Etsy, each plate costs $33.50/£21.70 - I want them all!



Now on to art! This beautiful Birds on Paper Wire papercut from Mr Yen would look just divine up on the bedroom wall, a snip at just $42/£27.21. If you love papercut work I highly recommend you check out Mr Yen's shop on Etsy right now by the way!




Another piece of artwork that caught my eye was this delightful letterpress piece from AARDVARK, which costs £25 and is available from their Folksy shop here.



And what a lovely sentiment to finish this post on that is!

Disclaimer: should anyone be inspired by this post to set such a thing up I am happy to receive my commission in the form of lots of lovely handmade things. That's a deal, yes?