You Want Fries With That? Our First Solo Exhibition, Sofi's Bar, Edinburgh, 2013

Our exhibition is officially open at Sofi's bar! We had our launch night on Friday and we are so thrilled that so many people came along to the event. The bar was packed out! We'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who came down, and an even bigger one to those of you who bought prints and our christmas cards. You all totally made our night!



Today I thought I would share a couple of snaps of us hanging all our prints in the show. We have over 20 on display in the main bar and a few in the back room with our special "You Want Fries With That" illustrations. We got to hang our giant screen printed specs again which got a lot of wonderful compliments :D Love them! We've never actually had a space to hang up so many of our illustrations before so it was a real delight for us to see everything in all its glory up on the walls. Don't they look fabulous in their wee frames?!



Our Tea-Rex illustration sold out on Friday night, so I'm going to be popping back to Sofi's with a few more for sale. Our Merry Pugging Christmas cards were also massively popular; we're really delighted how many sold as we're donating 10% from each pack to Teenage Cancer Trust this year. All our work will be exhibited and on sale through Christmas which is absolutely incredible! Sofi's have been super supportive or our work and are the perfect venue for us. It's one of our favourite bars in Edinburgh - so cozy and such a lovely vintage vibe! We're really honoured they asked us to do the show. I was a bit nervous about it all but am completely over the moon now it's all up. It was a bit out of my comfort zone, but that's always a good thing if you ask me!



David and I made a couple of special edition Twistee Treat wooden brooches to wear at the launch party too - well, you can't have a show called 'You Want Fries With That?' and not have a badge for your uniform! So good! We also made some special edition pocket mirrors for the show as well. I'm totally addicted... Speaking of, we also made a batch of chocolate and raspberry macaroons, a pile of Oreo truffles and had lots of lolly pops and plenty of cava (of course!) for everyone who came. It was sugar-tastic and we've got some new sweet treat fans! After the bar closed a bunch of us went out dancing, which we felt was well earned. We put in a lot of hard work recently so it was really lovely to get the chance to celebrate our achievements properly with all our friends and family. Such a great night!

The show will be running till January 2014 at Sofi's Bar in Edinburgh, so if you're in town be sure to pop in and feast your eyes, get a wee drink and get cozy in this wonderful little bar. You might bump into us there too - defo come say hi if you do, we'd love to meet you!

Those of you who can't make it can visit all our illustrations in our Etsy store here ;) a virtual tour!


Thanks again to everyone for all of your amazing support. We think you're spectacular!
xox

New Products! Mirrors, Prints & Pug Cards Galore...

They're here! They're finally here!

We've been working really hard on our new product range and we are delighted we can finally share them all with you. Our brand new range of products are now available in our Etsy boutique and if we can say so ourselves, we think they look tremendous! 

Check 'em out! We wanted to bring out a new product that was small, handy and would always bring a smile... Don't these amazing pocket mirrors hit the spot perfectly? 

We've created 8 different designs to choose from; some incorporate our most popular illustrations and prints and we have a few that have been created just for this range :) At just over 2 inches in size they're perfect to tuck into your make up bag and take on your travels!

That's not all though! We've also added some new prints and stationery to the shop too :) We've been working hard to expand the shop since our holiday and you can certainly tell that the sunshine has done us the world of good!

For all you pug loving people we've created 3 new cards to add to your collection! We spotted a lot of these lovely dogs in America and can't get enough of these little guys :D We hope you like them!

Of all our new stuff, my most favorite item is the bunting on the moon mirror :) I'm taking it everywhere!

What's your favorite?

We hope you love the new collection as much as we do :)

Check out all our new products online or see them for real in Glasgow this weekend.
We'll be giving the person who places our 250th order on Etsy a free gift to celebrate the occasion too... better get in there quickly!
xox

New Stall Layout! Christmas Craft & Design Market

What an excellent weekend!

On Saturday we ran a stall at the ever awesome Market up by Edinburgh Castle and we had a fantastic day :D

We got to trial our new products, like our wooden brooches and christmas cards, and we had the chance to experiment with a whole new layout... White table cloths and a new rack for our A4 prints :D What do you think? A little less eye-catching and vibrant than our previous look, but we think the white helps the colours *pop*

A peek at our stall-exclusive Christmas Tree decorations here :D We're talking about putting them online but we've not decided yet. Seemed to go down well on the day! Are you a fan of our little mushrooms? Or perhaps you're more of a fox and hound fan? Well... sausage dog that is :) 

We'd love to hear what you guys think about our new look. Miss the check table cloth? Or are you loving how clean and clear the table is now? You know us best and we really appreciate your feedback!

We've got a few more stalls lined up before Christmas and hope to attract as many new friends as possible. December is going to be busy, but I've a feeling our best month yet... fingers crossed!

Hope you had an excellent weekend too

xx

The Market Design Fair, 17th November, Edinburgh

Free this saturday? Come visit us at The Market!

We've got a new set up for our stall and a whole bunch of fun new products - perfect for the upcoming holidays :) There's going to be loads of amazing designers, artists and crafters showing off their best skills and plenty of tasty treats to tickle your taste buds.... and it's free entry too :D Perfect!!

The Details:

Where?        St Columbas by the Castle, on the top of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland 

When?         11am till 5pm on the 17th November 2012

Why?           Because you love awesome stuff... and so do we :)

Can't make it? Don't be sad! Why don't you enter our new giveaway and try n bag yourself some free stuff instead :) Everyone's a winner!

Hope to see you there lovelies! 

Our First Window Display! Installation & Exhibition In Coco Chocolate Shop Edinburgh, Scotland

SURPRISE!

We've just hung our first ever window display in our favorite spot in Edinburgh and we couldn't be more thrilled! Doesn't it look fantastic? We've been fan's of the delicious gourmet chocolate at Coco's in  Edinburgh since it opened in 2004. To say we were super excited when we confirmed to take on their window space and exhibition area to fill both their Bruntsfield and Broughton Street shops with our work is a massive understatement - it's a dream! 

It didn't take us long to work out what to do, as we've always wanted to do it... Giant glasses have been a dream of ours for some time now, and we were totally psyched to get the chance to finally create them. We decided that if we're going to do it, we're going to do it properly; bring on the large scale screen-printer!

Rather than ship our idea off to some faceless printing company, we decided to take things into our own hands and to create our very own spectacular screenprint. We've never printed on this kind of scale before, so our project was a big experiment for the two of us. We are so impressed with how well it all went! So, how did we make it? Well, after taking the shop measurements ('Coco' is painted on the window, and we wanted to make a feature of it), we calculated where we wanted everything to go and then created our artwork to scale and printed it onto acetate. Looking good already!

We used a massive screen for the job as we wanted to get the glasses printed in one whole piece rather than having to join them together. To do this, we coated the screen with a photo emulation and used the acetates to expose the image onto it, like you would expose a negative to create a photograph. When you wash the screen, the bits that were covered during exposure dissolve off and you're left with your image. Perfect! Next, we attach the screen to the press, pop paper underneath and screen-print using black and our signature mint green... So satisfying!

Once the prints were dry, we mounted them onto Kappa board and cut them out by hand. 

Then we wrapped everything up in bubblewrap to transport it to the store for hanging...

Using see-through fishing line, we started the installation by hanging the ribbon and glasses at the top, then worked our way down. Once we had the signage hanging, we could start playing with the layout of our products and the all important chocolate! We had an idea of where we wanted our prodcuts to go, so we started with them and added in Coco's sweet treats to fill it up and make it look irresistible. . .

When we were happy with the way the window looked, we took a well deserved chocolate break before starting to hang our work inside. It would have been rude not to sample some of Coco's creations after all that hard work; it is the best chocolate in town and we were drooling whilst we were working! 

Ahhhhh! All in a hard day's work :D Our pictures are a little dark as we were in the store late last night hanging it all up; we couldn't bare to keep it a secret any longer! We're going to take a few daytime snaps of both shops and all the work to share with you in the next few days... Any excuse for another hot chocolate ;)

We're so proud of our first visual merchandising project as Vivid Please; it was a really big challenge for us but we think we did a brilliant job! We'd like to say a massive thank you to Coco Chocolate for all the support and such a fun and exciting opportunity!

We'd really love to hear what you guys think of it all - we hope you like it as much as we do :)

New Products: Illustrated Cards & Prints!

boyfriend note cards

Hello lovelies!

We've been working like little bee's here at Vivid HQ on lots of fun new goodies for our shop. We created these new cards and prints which were exclusively for sale at our last market and we are delighted to announce they are now available in our online boutique too :D 

pug print

We've released our little pug illustration from the keepsake card as a full sized print as he's been getting a lot of friendly attention :D We've also created 6 new cards with a few of our favorite things on them...

sweet things note cards

Gumball machines, French Fancies and little sweeties for the ladies - c'est bon! And retro record players, red converse shoes and mint green headphones for the guys. Such a cute couple, right ;)

retro notecards

Finally, our extra special retro cards with our marshmallow fluff jar, vintage salon, garden flamingos and clock radio illustrations are now available to buy as a set. Looking good, right?

We're really excited to share that we've also working away on a new line of products for some time now which has been stupidly hard to keep a secret! A lot of time and effort has been put in and we are really close to spilling the beans :D Keep your eyes peeled for something super exciting coming to the shop and blog soon :)

In the mean time, we hope you love our new stationery and remember that there is a 20% discount available at our etsy shop too. Simply enter the coupon code: SPOOKTACULAR20 at the checkout... beware, the code will expire very soon so if you want to snap up some of these new works you better get in there quick!

New Products! Because Good Things Come To Those Who...

Make

Check out our two new prints :D
Inspired by our love of making and baking, we couldn't resist making these two new artworks which bring a cute twist to the phrase 'Good things come to those who wait'! 

Bake

The make print is currently hanging in our studio, Vivid HQ, and the bake print in our kitchen. They both bring a lot of joy and inspiration to embrace what we're up to! Currently available as 10 x 8 inches, A4 and A3, we think these make the perfect gift for home :)

If you're a maker or a baker we'd love to hear your thoughts :D
Treat yourself to one here

Enjoy!

New Products: Geek Prints & Lillyshop

tea-rex 

Hello geek friends!

This week we have gone all out and created 3 new nerdy additions for our little boutique. How exciting! First up is our new Tea-Rex print. Recently there has been a lot of dino chat going on and we couldn't resist designing an illustration of this epic creature with a fun twist. Being tea-monsters ourselves, we thought it would be nice to invite this grand fellow along for our next cuppa. 

cheers!

We think he would be a terrific companion for our afternoon tea sessions :D 

Available as an A5 print for only £6 it would be rude not to!

Spectacular guy                   Spectacular girl

We have also re-designed our Spectacular keepsake cards into full sized A4 prints!

For only £12 each, you can treat your favorite person with an extra special 'I Think You Are Spectacular' artwork showing either our geek glasses or our classic wing-tipped specs. Better still, get one of each to hang above your bed :) Mad Men eat your heart out!

Check out all of our illustrated prints here

www.lilyshop.com

Finally, we have also opened a mini boutique over at Lilyshop.com!

Like Etsy, this little design market is all about avoiding the high-street and scoring yourself some unique and one of a kind pieces from artists all over the world. At the end of each week there is also a big 'Yard Sale' where you can bag yourself a wee treat at a fraction of the standard price. How awesome is that? Keep you eye's peeled for a sneaky Vivid treat :) 

You can find us online here

Phew! What an exciting week!

We hope you like our new prints and would love to hear what you think.

For those in Edinburgh on Sunday we hope to see you at the Gin In Teacups market too :D Be sure to say hi if you pop in, we'd love to meet you!

Happy Weekend

xox

New Products: We Love Scotland... A Latte!

Scotland Print

We love Scotland!
Despite the crap weather, you just can't beat the banter.

We grew up in Edinburgh and that is where our hearts will always be!

Scotland Print

We decided to create our Scotland print to celebrate our home town and our love for the little country that many forget. It's great to be from Great Britain, but even greater to be a Scot...

Did you know Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes were written in Scotland? And that we invented the radar, the flushing toilet, the telephone, the bicycle, the refrigerator, the television, MRI scanners, penicillin, tarmac ... and we even cloned Dolly the sheep! Phew!

 And that's just the start of it. I guess with it being so dreich all the time, we can focus a lot more on inventing and creating as we can't go out and play. Could you imagine a world without these things? We can barely even imagine an afternoon without some of them! 

Scotland Print

For us, home will always be where our heart is. 

We are proud to announce that we will also make custom orders for this little print if your heart belongs to another town in our beautiful country. Lets share the love! Check out our Love Scotland print in our Etsy Shop. If you want to learn more about how great it is to be Scottish click here and if you would like to come visit, click here. We'd love to see you!

I love you a latte...

Our second new addition this adorable keepsake card.

Using photo corners to hold the artwork in place means that the print can be easily slipped out and hung on the wall. We are tired of seeing so many beautiful cards end up in the bin so we decided to create our own range that functions as it's own work of art. Simple yet beautiful. 

Latte card

This print has the cute line 'I Love You A Latte' followed by three small hearts. It's illustration is of a take out paper cup as we have a bit of an addiction for coffee to go! 

Latte print

Perfect for all you caffeine junkies, this little mini print will get you through those long days. A lovely reminder that someone is thinking of you... and starbucks! Hee hee!

You can snap up your mini print here and check out the rest of our range of keepsake cards here.

We hope you like our new work!

If you have any requests or suggestions we'd love to hear them :D

Happy Friday...