A FLEETING SHOPPING SPREE

...a little treat before we enter 2012. I have lots of new hand made pieces about to be popped on the shelves of my little vintage shop, The Vintage Drawer, mid January. Before I do this though I need to make a little space. Do you fancy a last little spend, a fleeting shopping spree, then take advantage of 15% discount on anything that takes your fancy.....all you have to do is type in the following code at checkout

TOOMUCHCAKE

offer is available until midnight on 1st January 2012

Click here to open the shop door...

xxx

it's christmas eve's eve!!!

"have yourself a very vintage christmas"

The studio will be back open on 3rd Jan,

however I will be answering emails during the festivities,

so if you are taking the time to do a spot of wedding planning

and you have any questions regarding the printed collections

or the vintage drawer I will try my very hardest

to answer your query within 24 hours...

x x x x x x

Image Credit: Christmas in the Studio taken by Becky Mitchell

Christmas Coffee Morning 2011

...a crazy, hoarding, uplifting, testing, busy, charming, floral, exciting, direction changing, life learning, exhausting, vintage inspiring, energising, printed and embroidered kinda of year....

Some weeks have blended into months due to the nature of the diary and the demands of being self employed. Sometimes having to sacrifice family time to meet deadlines, working into 'silly o'clock' when all you want to do is sleep, days having to be an accountant when all you want to do is get your teeth into designing or finishing an order.....but nothing can match being your own boss. Every morning I start the day feeling energised, as each day is different, interesting and challenging. The last two years, since I became a designer/maker of stationery full time have been so rewarding. One of the rewards that I hold dear to my heart are all the new friends that I have met as I have been step-stoning my way from month to month. So a few weeks ago I decided to open the studio doors and hold my very first Christmas Coffee Morning a small gathering of new friends and people I desperately needed to catch up with. Thank you all so much for popping along and making this mad ol' stationer a happy one....and thank you for helping to eat lots of delicious home baking and thank goodness for Marks and Spencers!! Oh and I can strongly recommend Betty's Christmas Tea Blend.......

So here are a few pics of the morning taken by a special little lady who I love dearly, who also happens to be a wonderful photographer - the one and only Becky Mitchell....

This is my last post of the year and I promise to be back with more frequent posts next year - lots of new exciting ventures to document. Lots of inspiring images, me on my travels, new designs and colour palettes, a few little special offers, a few twists and turns, exciting collaborations, and a vintage fair that I will be helping to organise....

So I wish you a wonderful time with your friends and families, wrap up warm, love and be loved, fill your house with laughter, good music, good food, flash those fairy lights, mark what 'you' want to watch in the Radio Times, write your wish list for 2012, and ensure you put on at least 7lbs in pure indulgence, mine tends to be accumulated through posh crisps, baileys and a whole christmas cake to myself (I love marzipan), so deck your hallways with bells and holly and I will leave you with the christmas song that is my 'christmas guilty pleasure' So before you go and leave me and enjoy your christmas I want to know what is your 'christmas guilty pleasure song'..................

WINNER of the Christmas Love Giveaway!!

...Thank you all for entering..Yeyyyyh I am pleased to announce that the winner is 'Witchmountain' - if you would like to contact me on info@vickytrainor.co.uk with your address and I will pop the goodies in the post to you in time for christmas! The winning comment was selected using Random

Afternoon Tea of vintage pastels....

...my goodness, apologies but I haven't posted over here for a couple of weeks....my 'to do' list just got in the way.... but here's a little order I have been working on this week.
January 'finally' sees the launch of two new collections for 2012 (which I have talked about here on the blog for a couple of months now). The Collage Collection and Afternoon Tea. Here is an early order placed this month for a set of thank you cards from the Afternoon Tea collection. It comes in an extensive range of vintage pastels (as you can see here) and each one is individual decorated with appliqued pieces of floral fabrics and pearl buttons - Invitations & Thank You Cards are £4.00 each. Samples are already available and you can email me info@vickytrainor.co.uk to request a sample pack - each pack consists of an invitation or thank you card and place card and is £5.00 which id refunded when placing an order (let me know if you have a specific colour theme)....

When Vicky met Daisy

Once upon a Time at a fabulous soiree in August Vicky met Daisy.

A friendship blossomed, and we have chatted, laughed,

nagged and pestered each other ever since

Well yesterday, through thick dense fog and wonderful A1 roadworks

I went to meet Daisy as well as the wonderful Mrs Scoops.

Non stop chat and general mischievousness filled the day.

And I love them both dearly.

Well what has that got to do with these photos I hear you ask??

Well, Daisy is actaully Ali,

but she runs a fabulous little business in Warwick

called Daisy Cupcakes,

and in a little beautifully wrapped white handbag box

was these three gorgeous hand crafted bundles of sweetness.

So here they are and I couldn't resist phtoographing them this morning.

Ali can also send her little iced pretties through the post to you.

How fabulous is that!!!!

(cupcakes can be bought in sets of six)

(oh! And the stationery is mine - obviously!!)

The Vintage Drawer Christmas Love Giveaway

love . love . love

Back in January I launched only one new collection for 2011 and this was named The Vintage Drawer. It is my little guilty pleasure that I cannot put down and sometimes have been known to take on holiday with me. I adore sitting in my studio working on clients orders, making new pieces for the vintage shop and coming up with new little ideas while stitching in a world of my own.... I am a very happy ol' stationer - and it is this happiness that I want to parcel up and giveaway to you to say a really big thank you for your support, kindness, stopping by every now and then here at my little blog, leaving gorgeous messages on Facebook and finding new friendships in the wonderful world of Twitter

So here's a little set of pretties from the shop shelves of The Vintage Drawer, would you like to have them all as an early Christmas present???? Then one of you shall!! All will be wrapped in tissue and popped in one big parcel and sent directly to you in time for the festivities!!

All you have to do is complete the following sentence by filling in the blank space and leave a comment at the end of this post.

"Dear Santa I promise to be ..................... this christmas"

The winner will be randomly picked on Friday 9th December 2011
Please be warned I may repeat your comment over on my facebook page
or over at twitter so please ensure that
all naughty words used are spelt correctly.....

PLEASE NOTE ANYONE CAN ENTER
(will post overseas too!)

Right you fabulous lot - make me laugh with your comments

...a travelling...

for those of you planning ahead - I will be with my stationery at Mrs Scoops and Little Miss G's wedding fair in Crook Barn nr Milton Keynes on Sunday 26th February 2012 - wave if you will be there.......xxxx

from wedding cakes to larder shelves

now on the shelves over at my little vintage shop

Pretty ribbons new to The Vintage Drawer, to decorate your vintage inspired wedding cake, to drpae around your lamp (looks lovely on an evening), to pin to your plate rail, or pretty up the shelves to your dresser....a few more will be made this week..... lots of christmas stocking fillers and cards over there too......xxxxxx

lines of pretties

... these lines of pretties will be introduced to the vintage drawer in days over on the vintage shelves of my little online store. They take rather a long time to make so prices will start from £17. I am also in the middle of stitching together a few more metres so the little collection will keep growing. What are they for I hear you cry!!! Well lovely people they are for anything/anyone that you feel needs decorating. Will look stunning wrapped round your wedding cake as a pretty tier ribbon or tied around a pretty little vase or two or as pretty choker style scarf ties... I would love to know your thoughts as this is a very new addition to this collection of linens. Or what you would use them for yourself. They currently look fabulous draped over my floral print on the studio wall and will find it very hard to remove them as I want to leave them there forever.....I have also just wrapped the length that I have nearly completed this evening around my lampshade and it looks wonderful..... The list of uses is endless....

a studio snapshot

army trucks, petticoats and lipstick

"Meet Lisa...this lady is very special".

As most of you know I launched The Vintage Drawer Collection in February this year and Lisa was my very first client to order from the little range of linens back in those early months. I can't explain my excitement when I had a sneaky peak at her wedding album last month, beautiful photographs taken by the loveliest lady Hannah Millard.

You can see more from Lisa & Ric's forties styled day by popping over to Rock n Roll Bride, here Lisa talks about her day and her ideas.......a day of true love and a little boy named 'Bear'.xxxxx