Goodbye Summer

I'm so missing summer right now. I don't know where you are in the world reading this - but here in England, it's getting very cold!

This is a photo I took in my garden this summer. 

Rosey x

/ / Shop Update / /

Mini cupid's arrows now in the shop. 
Ideal for Valentine's Day, Anniversaries and Weddings.

Rosey
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Weekend Project

For those of you who have the time (I wish!) to make lovely things at the weekend - this D.I.Y terrarium looks like a whole lot of fun and something little people can join in on too. Here is the full article on how to make it, by Yumi Sakugawa.

Rosey 

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/ / H A P P Y O C T O B E R / /

Happy October!
It's that time again..! my birthday month, so I am offering all you lovely customers a 10% discount throughout my entire online shop for the month of October. Please use the discount code HAPPYOCTOBER during checkout to receive it. 
Valid until the 31st October 2014.

Rosey
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/ / S H O U T O U T / /

I just wanted to give a big shout out to Swoonnose for your continued support for Sepia Smiles.
Thank you for featuring my products on your gorgeous website and within your Facebook community.
Check out their site, brides to be!

Rosey
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/ / I N S T O R E / /

Sepia Smiles Gifts and Home Decor now available in store at Shop Angelina Illinois. Go take a looksie if you are in the area!

Rosey
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Coming Soon

New confetti bags being added to the shop soon.

Feedback

Some recent customer feedback. Always makes me happy :-)

Pink Decor Ideas

I have a bit of a thing for pink decor at the moment. A short while back I would have never in a million years considered decorating/painting a room in my house pink - even though I clearly like the color. But when I realized it can still look OK as long as there's not too much other 'girlieness' I have changed my mind. For me personally it would have to be a pale pink that's not too garish like this one or this one for the color to stay there without fear of being painted over with my usual shade of white!

Anyone else got a pink room?

Rosey

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View the picture credits and the rest of my Pink Decor on my Pinterest Board. 

/ / SALE / /

25% OFF. All gold favor bags. Ideal for wedding confetti and favors. View them here.

Rosey
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/ / Featured / / Brides Magazine UK

Our 'Message in a Bottle' wedding invitations have been featured on Brides Magazine along with some other extra small wedding invitations. Have a look at their slideshow here.

Rosey
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Meet My Maker

Meet my maker! - Julie aka Mum making some beautiful crystal adorned wedding invitations. Like me she is also a bit of a perfectionist and loves the more intricate jobs. Find out a little bit more about Julie and my online shop here - Sepia Smiles Shop.

Rosey
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Inside Anthropologie Kings Road

I thought I'd share some snaps I took on my visit to London's Kings Road Anthropologie store last week. My favorite things were the candles - (I love candles and theirs always look and smell divine!) the ceramic shadow boxes and the painted furniture. 

Rosey

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Help Getting Hitched

I'm loving this new Facebook Wedding Page - 'Help Getting Hitched'. Full of useful links and loveliness for your weddings. Thanks for featuring my polka dot bags ladies!

Rosey
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Lovely Feedback

Nice feedback from a happy customer - always makes me smile!

Rosey
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/ / New to the Shop / /

Just added to the shop - Fortune Confetti!! 
I love fortune cookies and thought this would be a novel way to incorporate them into my confetti bags. Hope you like 'em. I have added two styles to the shop. Individual bags which are ideal for favors or to send in the post and boxed sets of mini bags - great for gifts and for use at dinner parties.

Rosey
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/ / New to the Shop / /

Hand-painted feather garlands and feather escort/place cards - just added to the shop.

Etsy Headquarters Tour - Brooklyn

Last week I was lucky enough to visit the e-commerce hub for buyers and sellers of handmade goods, vintage goods, and art supplies - Etsy at their headquarters in DUMBO ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass")neighborhood of Brooklyn. 

I have been selling on Etsy since 2009 and it's on there that I started my online wedding business Sepia Smiles. I have tried other online sites in the past and have always stuck with them as they provide the most useful seller tools and have a vibrant community of 30 million buyers and creative businesses. Since being on Etsy I have learnt a lot and my business has grown gradually over time. 

Anthropologie US contacted me in June last year after seeing my message in a bottle gifts and asked if I would consider designing a range of them for their holidays and valentines capsule. Of course, I was so delighted as I had always had a dream of selling my products through them. They then placed a large order for their retail stores and their online store. This was all great news and I was of course very keen to fulfill on the order. The only problem was that I did not have the access to the funds and the facility to create such a large order on my own and in such a short timescale - the order needed to be turned around and shipped within a month.

This is when I approached my family friend and Management Consultant, Lance Jones who owns Working Strategy. I asked him if he could help and he was prepared to finance the procurement, manufacturing and shipping on receipt of the purchase order. The partnership worked really well and we have shipped several orders to Anthropologie since.

Etsy will soon be rolling out a wholesale marketplace (currently in beta) and they were interested in finding out more about how myself and Lance worked together as a team in fulfilling the large wholesale orders. We were more than happy to help answer their questions and they made us feel very welcome. As we were visiting on a Tuesday we were lucky enough to be included in Eatsy where we enjoyed locally grown food and we had a tour of the offices. I must say if there ever was a place that I would love to work at - it's there! We were shown around by Nadine Heintz who was super helpful and friendly and made us feel so welcome. We were so inspired by how they work together as a team based on equality and camaraderie. 

I think one of the best things about the offices are all the different communal areas they have access to and also the themed telephone booths. Rather than making personal calls at their desks they get to go into one of the many themed 'photo booths' There a quite a few dotted around the offices - my favorites are the British themed 'telephone box' and the 'depeche a la mode' booth - how cool are they!

The tour ended with a visit up to Etsy Labs which is where all the crafty things happen and the training and meetings. Myself and Lance got to experience the photo booth - a kind of initiation ceremony for new Etsy employees. We had to dress up in funny props and have photos taken - it was good fun although my shots came out pretty bad so I am not posting them here!

I hope myself and Lance were able to help Etsy a little with our experiences with wholesaling and if anyone would like any advice or assistance from us who are in a similar situation to the one I was in - please get in touch - we will be more than happy to help!

The above shots were taken by myself. The big sculpture is actually supposed to be a bee but everyone says it looks like an Owl - I must say - I agree! It's the Etsy mascot and it's called Mr Grit and he is about 9 feet tall. 
The other photos are of the main entrance leading up to the reception which is lined with an amazing living wall - I want one in my house. 

If you want to see some more photos of Etsy HQ take a look at Refinery 29's tour over here.

Up next the visit to Anthropologie Headquarters.

Rosey

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My New Online Collection For Anthropologie US

I am delighted to say that my new collection of online exclusives is now available at Anthropologie US. 
Exclusively designed for bridal showers, baby showers and summer entertaining. 
Hope you like it!
You can view the collection here.

Rosey
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Hello New York!

In June i'm going to New York. Woohoo!! I have never been there or even to America and to say that I am not getting to sleep at night thinking about it would not be a lie! I am so excited because I have wanted to go there my whole life and I am literally fascinated with the States. Most of my amazing clients are from there so it's about time I took a trip.

I am not only going there for fun and sightseeing (although there will be a whole lot of that - tall structures here I come) we will also be including a visit to Etsy Headquarters in Brooklyn and then off to meet with the lovely people at Anthropologie at their URBN headquarters in Philadelphia.

I can't wait to get there and take a gazillion photos - I will share all of our adventures with you when I come back.

I have also been working on another project for Anthropologie - details on that coming soon.

Rosey
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/ / Featured / / Brides Magazine

My 'Save the Date' message in a bottle has been featured in the May/June issue of Brides Magazine in their 'We Heart Details' feature. 
It's also being featured in the US Brides Magazine June/July issue along with my custom confetti bags. 

Thanks Brides Magazine!

Rosey x

/ / New - Gilded Polka Dot Invitations / /

New to the shop are my new gold polka dot invitations - have a mosey on down here 

Rosey x

Custom Wedding Invitations for a Lake Como Wedding

I recently made some really unique wedding invitations for my lovely customer Nina, from Germany.

I made some personalized wedding confetti bags for Nina's 'Save the Dates' and she loved them so much that she asked me to design some invitations for her Lake Como wedding. Of course, I was very happy to oblige. She asked me to include a double sided map and dress code card - which I thought was such a clever idea! 

Above is the final result and Nina described them as her 'dream wedding invitations' which was a delight to hear. Thanks Nina!

I love custom design and when it comes out exactly how the customer had planned it's so rewarding. Please feel free to contact me if you would like me to custom design your own wedding/event invitations. 

Rosey

New to the shop. 

Gold seems to be the colour of the moment so I have been busy adding some new gold themed items to the shop including save the date message bottles and some lovely gold themed favor/confetti bags.

Take a look here.

Rosey

/ / New Stockist / / GiftsMade4u - Raunds

Please say hello to our new stockist GiftsMade4u, which I am very pleased to say is located in my home town of Raunds.

This gorgeous gift shop is packed with so many lovely things - I literally want to buy everything! From bespoke signs and plaques, handmade cushion covers and throws, re-loved furniture (two of my favourites!) clocks and gifts galore you will definitely find something for every occasion. Talking of occasions, our Valentine's Message in a Bottle Kits are now available to buy there too - an ideal alternative to the usual chocolates or flowers ;-)

The shop is run by Caroline Irons. Caroline creates the plaques and signs herself. She is so friendly and welcoming and is clearly very passionate about what she does. 

If you are in the area please make sure you stop in and have a look!

Caroline's Website
Caroline's Facebook Page

Rosey

PHOTOS - GIFTS MADE FOR YOU - MY OWN

This Week in Pictures

Have a lovely weekend!

Rosey 

Featured: The Bijou Bride

I was recently delighted to see that my feather place cards were featured on the fabulous wedding blog, Bijou Bride. A wedding fashion, beauty and styling blog run by London based stylist Alexandra Merri.

Alexandra used the place cards for a surprise trip to Mauritius for her husband. They renewed their vows during an ultra romantic ceremony on the beach. You can read all about it on her blog here - along with some useful tips for weddings abroad too. 

Rosey

Photos courtesy of Bijou Bride

Love Note in a Bottle Kits - now available at Anthropologie US

The latest edition to the 'message in a bottle' range is now available online at Anthropologie US and in stores (America and Canada)

These Love Note in a Bottle kits are a unique alternative to Valentines Cards. Here are the Anthropologie editors notes-

We simply adore this kit as a gift at a Valentine's Day dinner party, or left as a special surprise in your loved one's coat pocket. Write a message to your sweetheart on the strip of paper, and seal it with a kiss inside the glass bottle.

I love their suggestions on how to use them! Do you have any more suggestions?

There is a good chance these will sell out fast so be sure to order yours soon. Click here to be directed to the item page.

Rosey