Not For Squares

Last night we received an email from the organ­isers of the Dirty Dan­cing Fest­ival. Yep! There is a Dirty Dan­cing Festival.

Why did they con­tact Coulson Macleod?  Well, they want us to donate our ‘Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner’ print for their silent auc­tion, which is being held after the ‘Time of Your Life’ Gala. How won­der­fully cheesy is that?

And the best bit about the Fest­ival? It’s being held at the lake where they filmed this…

The sched­ule of events made me smile. You can take part in a water­melon car­ry­ing con­test, a cast look-a-like con­test, and there’s even a lake lift com­pet­i­tion (I’d be inclined to give this a go!)

Little fact for you: the film was set in the sum­mer, yet the lake lift was filmed in Octo­ber (there’s no close-up shots of their faces as appar­ently their lips were blue!) Since the leaves were already turn­ing, they had to paint the leaves in the back­ground and if you look closely you can see where they missed a few in one spot.

Whilst at the Fest­ival you can have salsa, shag, and mambo les­sons and then watch the A-Lure dan­cers per­form the moves correctly.

So for any­one inter­ested, the Fest­ival is being held 17^th — 18^th Septem­ber at Lake Lure in North Car­o­lina. And if the pro­spect of spend­ing your week­end sur­roun­ded by fel­low enthu­si­asts recre­at­ing Baby and Johnny moments is not a big enough pull, the loc­a­tion itself is gor­geous. In fact National Geo­graphic declared Lake Lure as one of the ten most beau­ti­ful man-made lakes in the world.

We haven’t decided yet to donate our print. What do you think?

As a child I was, like most chil­dren, a massive Enid Blyton fan. Massive.

The highly inform­at­ive Enid Blyton Soci­ety list all the book jack­ets and I found the ones that I actu­ally read. And the memor­ies came flood­ing back. So I thought I’d share them with you.

My all time favour­ite books were the Faraway Tree adven­tures, where I spent many a happy hour hav­ing fun with Moon-Face, Mis­ter Watzis­name, Silky, and the Sauce­pan Man. I ima­gined feast­ing on Pop Bis­cuits and Google Buns and slid­ing down the slippery-slip that spir­als down inside the trunk.

And of course I can’t for­get the Fam­ous Five…

What’s your favourite?

Today we had an order from a cus­tomer who said that she’d seen our ‘What Is Love?’ art print in a café.

She had taken a photo of the print and tracked us down.

And this is the café…

It’s called The Laden Table and is in Bor­ough­bridge in North York­shire. Isn’t it lovely? If you ever hap­pen to be in the area, do pop in and say hello to Nic­ola who runs it.

They run cre­at­ive writ­ing courses, as well as serving up mouth-watering cakes like this one…

And this is our ‘What Is Love?’ print that is hanging on the wall at The Laden Table…

I used to live in Scot­land. At the very top. In the High­lands. With views of purple heather clad hills and the wild north sea.

The air was cold and clean. Whisky was pure single malt. Made in the vil­lage where I lived. And ven­ison was a staple.

So I thought I’d revel in a little bit of Scottishness.

The first is ANTA. Their fact­ory shop was just down the road. And I fell head over heels in love with their hand­made tartan stoneware.

Everything from ANTA is made in Scot­land. The woolen yarn used for their car­pets and tweeds is sourced in the West­ern Isles and is woven in the Bor­ders. The oak fur­niture is made in the High­lands and some of the wood is homegrown. ANTA was cre­ated by design­ers Annie and Lach­lan Stew­art. And this is their amaz­ing home.

The second bit of Scot­tish love­li­ness is Papa Stour. An online mar­ket­place for all things hand­made in Scot­land.  Papa Stour embraces art, crafts­man­ship and design in its purest form, like this bone china pod…

or this hand­sewn notebook…

or this lambswood baby blanket…

Slainte Mhath!

Yes I know it’s a Bill Wither’s song, but there really is just the two of us. And we can make it if we try (I’ll ignore the castles in the sky bit).

Coulson Macleod is a teeny weeny company.

There’s Mark, he’s the Coulson half. And there’s me, Han­nah, the Macleod half.

The busi­ness is built on love and driven by pas­sion. This is true. This is not some made-up mar­ket­ing spiel.

Mark and I met, fell in love, moved in together and then got bored of star­ing at blank walls. We knew what we liked. But couldn’t find it to buy. Or if we did, we couldn’t afford it.

Then we said, “I bet there are other people out there just like us,” (or words to that effect).

Coulson Macleod is our baby. We love it and nur­ture it. We wake in the night to think about it. We proudly tell oth­ers about it. We glow with pride when it does well. It is ours. And we’re on a won­der­ful journey.

Per­haps Mark and I are build­ing big castles way on high. Just the two of us. You and I.

Lim­ited edi­tion vintage-style art print by Coulson Macleod

“What is love?

To solve that riddle with just one answer is bey­ond me, for love is many dif­fer­ent and con­tra­dict­ory things.

In the early stages love is excite­ment and breath­less­ness, it is the ache of sep­ar­a­tion and the com­fort of togeth­er­ness, and it builds inex­or­ably to that moment when ‘I’ becomes ‘we’.

Later, if blessed, love becomes a stronger, less trans­it­ory thing, a found­a­tion for two lives lived as one.

It is all around us, there for the tak­ing, yet to seek it out is futile.

It can­not be bought or stolen or given.  It can­not be avoided or denied.

Love is the beau­ti­ful, won­der­ful, mys­ter­i­ous mor­tar that binds two souls together and I first heard its voice on the day I met you.

It has been with me every moment since.

This is what love is.”

Love Birds card cour­tesy of Ruby Wren

Writ­ten by Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod has been invited to sell via the very hip and trendy mydeco boutique. How lucky are we?

The main site of mydeco is a home décor portal, cre­ated by Brent Hober­man and Martha Lane Fox, of last​minute​.com.  mydeco “brings together the country’s widest range of home fur­nish­ing products from over 700 retail­ers into one place. From high street stores like Heal’s and John Lewis to niche retailers.”

Within the site is mydeco boutique, which “aims to show­case a lim­ited num­ber of lead­ing inde­pend­ent design­ers that mydeco feels rep­res­ent the UK’s innov­at­ive design talent.”

Coulson Macleod will be sold along­side such huge names as Atelier Abi­gail Ahern, Kelly Hop­pen and Celia Birtwell. Swoon!

‘It’s the indi­vidu­al­ity and char­ac­ter you get that make designer pieces spe­cial,’ says says interi­ors expert Rachel Moses from Design Nation. “Most of the beau­ti­ful items you spot in mydeco boutique are hand­made in Bri­tain. They are all bang on trend, ori­ginal in design (no cheap imit­a­tions here), pro­duced in small batches, and well respec­ted in their indus­tries.” Yep! that’s us.

Keen to find some­thing unique that you won’t see on the high street? Then mydeco boutique is for you. An “exclus­ive treas­ure trove of avant-garde, inde­pend­ent design­ers at your fingertips.”

IMPORTANT NEWS: As of 1^st Septem­ber 2010 Coulson Macleod will be a little bit more expens­ive to buy. Sorry.

We’ve been debat­ing this for some time now here at Coulson Macleod HQ. Basic­ally we don’t want to put our prices up. But if we want to con­tinue grow­ing, then we have to.

For any reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog, you’ll have been fol­low­ing our pro­gress as we grow and learn, the way you do when you launch a new business.

In Septem­ber Coulson Macleod will be 18 months old. It’s been a fant­astic 18 months. When we star­ted the busi­ness we had no idea just what a global brand Coulson Macleod would become. Of course we hoped that people would like our art, and that some would become customers.

As the busi­ness has slowly grown we’ve made little tweaks here and there. And occa­sion­ally we make some whop­ping changes. Over the course of 18 months, we’ve had three com­pletely new web­sites, can any­one remem­ber the first ver­sion? We’ve cre­ated then deleted entire col­lec­tions. And we’ve talked end­lessly about where we want to go in the future. Some­times to each other, some­times to any­one who’ll listen.

The out­come is always the same. That in order to sell through stock­ists, and online mar­ket­places, and to go to trade fairs, and to cre­ate new and excit­ing col­lec­tions, (and then there’s some­thing called VAT, which I don’t under­stand and Coulson gets fed up try­ing to explain!), our prices are just a little too low to make this a long time viable and prof­it­able business.

Our plans don’t involve char­ging Damien Hirst prices so we can retire to a villa in Anti­bes (although that would be nice). When we set out we wanted to cre­ate afford­able art that we loved. This will remain the same. But you’ll just need a few more pen­nies (oh OK then, you’ll need a few more pounds).

So if you fancy own­ing a won­der­ful and unique piece of art at their cur­rent bril­liant prices, then I’d sug­gest buy­ing your Coulson Macleod before 1^st September.

Our latest typo­graphic col­lec­tion ‘Words’ is now avail­able to buy online at Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is made in the exactly same way as our hugely pop­u­lar ‘Love’ col­lec­tion. Gor­geous chunky hand­made prints. But only half the size, just 29cm x 29cm x 8cm.

We’ve kept the lovely vintage-style, with a rough-sawn solid oak frame sur­round­ing a white-washed oak panel prin­ted with dis­tressed typo­graphy. All hand­made with love in the UK.

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is unlim­ited in print quantity.

For any­one inter­ested in know­ing just what goes into a Coulson Macleod wooden art piece… the oak panel is cut and sanded by hand before being covered with a coat of diluted white lac­quer wash to fill the grain, and then sanded and re-washed with the lac­quer a second time. The panel is then over-printed with UV ink. The mitred frame is hand­made using rough-sawn solid oak with a shadow rebate on the groove. We pur­pose­fully retain any defects in the oak to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, warps and water marks, so each frame is totally unique. The prin­ted panel is then encased into the frame which is then glued and pinned, ready for hanging.

Inspired by a cus­tomer who wanted a ‘Love’ print, but just half the size. And we loved it so much, we just had to cre­ate some more. Let us know if you like them!

Our latest typo­graphic art col­lec­tion ‘Land­marks’ can be per­son­al­ized. And we think this would make a totally superb wed­ding present.

All you need to do is give us a list of words (we use roughly 70 words to make up the ones in our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion pic­tured below).

You could cre­ate one that was based on their hon­ey­moon des­tin­a­tion. Or cre­ate one that focuses on places in their lives together, such as where the couple met, the pub they hang out in — you get the idea.

And we at Coulson Macleod HQ do the rest. We’ll find an image that suits the art­work. The res­ult is a one-off piece of bespoke art­work. A totally per­sonal gift. And you’d be loved by the couple forever!

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Your per­son­al­ized art­work based on our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion fea­tures a hand­made frame and pan­elled back­board made from reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers. The planks used to make the back­board vary in size for each print and we retain all those lovely defects in the wood to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, nail holes, warps and water marks, so each art­work is totally unique.

The fin­ished item is then over-printed with dis­tressed image and typo­graphy in UV ink.