two posts in one day!

saw these pretty felt bags on pinterest. followed the link to the blog and finally found the etsy shop. but sadly she doesn't have any for sale right now. lucas' favorite game to play these days is to put his precious toy bunny into a bag or tin suitcase and carry him round for a few minutes, pull him out, kiss him and put him back in. i think he'd like a buttoning bag. Ours just would not do as he has no concept of 'fragile'. I do think ribbon, circle tag & a button would look oh so lovely on our kraft bags. Which reminds me (warned you i'd ramble), the oh so talented Glen of Prop D used our lolly bags at a recent event promoting his business. When his photos turned up in my inbox I gasped. Oh the beauty.

newish month resolution

Mondays will now be blog days, I've been so uncommitted in the past. which is silly, my favorite thing to do on a computer is look at blogs. i am a little fearful that i'm to boring for weekly blogging. so an apology- i will ramble, it may be all a little self indulgent and I can't spell.
(photo was sent to us by Anett. she filled our lolly bags with flowering tea of all things. what on earth is flowering tea and why have I not tried it? Hopefully I'll find out soon as she is starting a website: mylittleteapot.com.au)

lots of brown boxes

our new things have arrived. Kim & sara had a morning of heavy lifting while I held down the fort. I ate my way through a pack of gummy bears and generally kicked back! I will never grow tired of opening brown boxes and seeing our stationery inside, all lined up and colourful. ahhhhhh sugar high. so if you are in need of a little poppies stationery- jump on the website, or follow this link straight to the new things. and don't forget we are donating 30% of sales to the Japan Earthquake Appeal from now until the 15th of April. xx

colours

I had to share this picture of a few parcels I've just done up. I feel a little silly saying this- but our new things are so so pretty. I'm tempted to send them to myself. Total fluke that the new sticker designs match the new colourful string & tie envelopes. These will be available for purchase by the end of the month, along with all our other new things. We will be donating 30% of sales to the Japan Earthquake Appeal from now until the 15th of April. xx
(sorry for the photo quality- its a quick phone snap)

merry merry merry

my desk has become rather impractical and wonderfully colourful. strips of bright paper, bakers twine, sticky tape, and the mess of a year coming to an end. i am full of thanks for this mess. I am thankful for you. thanks for writing notes to family and friends, for choosing to celebrate a birthday with a poppies gift- you have given sara and i work to do and we are ever grateful and continually surprised that this is the life we get to live- dreaming, drawing and making. we wish you joy and laughter and time spent in the sunshine this christmas. my hope is that the love shared will cause us all to dream bigger, live better and continually figure out what it is to be truly human. i'll be sitting with toes dipped in sisters pool reading the chronicles of narnia again, my yearly ritual. xx ( photo is little boy lucas and his well loved bunny- can you believe i get to see those cheeks and chubby fingers every day)

a year planned out

Sara and I have big ideas for our new studio- all incredibly organised and pretty, no more piles of paper and chaos.
we're grown ups after all (found my first grey hair last week- then sara pointed out a second the next day)
in the spirt of all things organised our wall planners will be on sale for one week starting today. hooray for neat

i's and e's

oops- spelt poppies wrong in the email address- it is all fixed now, thanks for letting me know so quickly.
email alana@poppiesforgrace.com for the magnolia square secret word. x

magnolia square+poppies+lots of other pretty things

we will be setting up camp at magnolia square for four days of christmas fun- starting this thursday at 5pm. If you are a melbournite do stop by-it just happens to be one of the prettiest of market places. we have a secret word hidden up our sleeves, and if you whisper it to us (when you spend $30 on the stand) you will be carrying home a 2011 wall planner free of charge. If you'd like to know the word email alana@poppiesforgrace.com hehehehe- we are a little over excited by this bit of silliness. I'm rather impressed by my word choice. hope to see you there. with joy, alana & sara

a christmas time sale

up to 30% off selected gift items. woohoo. all you need to do is go to the sale section of our website from the 17th of November-30th of November. we think things like desk sets and sticky notes make pretty nifty teacher gifts, so of course these are included in the sale. woohoo again. now off to make a merry cup of tea xx alana

amy oliver photography

its always a delight to find photos in an email. here are a few treats from a recent email from sweet melbourne photographer amy oliver. i adore her style, the lighting is just dreamy. thanks amy for sharing these with us, its made our day.

wedding photos

we adore our photographer Armel- she takes our slightly clumsy ideas and makes magic out of them. click here and you will see her beautiful work. happiness. We are thinking that we had such fun that perhaps we should dabble in a bit of event styling in the future.

abc

my brother in law is one of those guys who likes to email beautiful, odd and silly photographs, or a link to a birthday invite to an exclusive destination and you can't clink on the 'yes' will attend button. ha ha phil, very funny. well today's email was about pencil carving. It took me by surprise. Worn, chewed pencils turned delightful. ah to be human, fingers covered in black, hours spent. xx

market to market

it's been forever since we last set up a trestle, this weekend poppies will have a stall at Christchurch Hawthorn, Denham Street Hawthorn. The market is a fundraiser for heal africa and along with the stand fee we will be donating 25% of all sales. There is a polling booth next door, so why not vote and wander over and say hello to Sara's sister Raechel. Everything will be at market prices, and hopefully you can buy homemade pickles and jams too. xxx

if poppies were a classroom

trade shows are always delightful. bright colourful things all around. sweet friends, long cups of tea and conversations about small, perfect moments. as always our dear friend rachel worked her styling magic and turned our 3 by 3 into a little poppies school room. in it we placed all our new things, including our christmas offerings. Another dear friend, artist Emma Morgan has designed a pigeon card series, sun shower invitation and a bashful donkey and lamb for christmas. heavenly. She will be popping prints of her work up in her etsy store soon. I'm bursting to get a print of the sun shower for lucas' room.

swallowed up

I did find just the right spot on the photo, as my creativity has been bursting out of me these last weeks.
there is a bird madly flapping about outside my window, very busy. I feel like we could be friends.
we are getting ready for our next show. my dear uncle left two boxes of christmas decorations I grew up with at my door- I have grand plans of putting them with our christmas things on the stand. the jolly round santa is even greater than i remembered. my little room is filling with smells of the past. makes happiness jump out.
i will be back with photos of santa and our school themed stand late next week.

we are on SALE
up to 70% off on all products.
Sale starts Monday 7th June until 30th June.
Limited stock available
xx

inspired to run

i saw this photo on a friends facebook page this morning and wanted to get in it. like another friends little girl who is forever trying to get into the books she loves (she stands on them, hoping they may swallow her up) i need to run through this field. i feel so completely uninspired to draw. i feel lazy and pulled in too many directions. maybe if i built a little hut on this field and took a week to myself i'd find passion returning to me easily. i know it would. now if i could only find the right spot so it would swallow me up xx

a little 2010 sale

our pretty little desk calendars and wall planners are now on sale on the poppies website. yay

trading

what a wild adventure i've just returned from. It started with long term parking at melbourne airport- a baby on the front, a bag on the back, a bag in the left and a stroller in the right. Turns out that my high school back pack etiquette memories have faded- i hit a business man in the head TWISE with it while he was helping us get on the bus!
Sydney was a delight- we stayed in paddington and watched sail boat on the water, ate icecream, ate pizza and ate the best friend rice in the world. It was an extra treat to have 5 days with kate (she is based in sydney). Unfortunately teething, an over stimulated 8 week old and a cold made things trickier than we hoped. thank goodness all the beautiful stores we are in are mainly owned by women- who understand this great task we have- the juggling of being mummy and worker of stationery. there was nothing but kindness as lucas projectile vomited at their feet, finley cried and they had to fill in their own order sheets.
sooooooo good to be home.
xx

babes

'the challenge for business leaders in the 21st century is to assume the mantle of spiritual elder for their cultures, so that life doesn't become trivial and grey for all the people who spend most of their life at work' - jim channon
certainly no dull moments at poppies.