In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we’re post­ing a daily love poem & a Coulson Macleod typo­graphic print. Just because we love love.

‘Did Not’ by Thomas Moore

‘Twas a new feel­ing — some­thing more

Than we had dared to own before,

Which then we hid not;

We saw it in each other’s eye,

And wished, in very half-breathed sigh,

To speak, but did not.

She felt my lips’ impas­sioned touch -

‘Twas the first time I dared so much,

And yet she chid not;

But whispered o’er my burn­ing brow,

‘Oh, do you doubt I love you now?’

Sweet soul! I did not.

Warmly I felt her bosom thrill,

I pressed it closer, closer still,

Though gently bid not;

Till — oh! the world hath sel­dom heard

Of lov­ers, who so nearly erred,

And yet, who did not.

Related art­icles:

• Love Is Not
• Coulson Macleod Wed­ding: Venue

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we’re post­ing a daily love poem & a Coulson Macleod typo­graphic print. Just because we love love.

‘First Day’ by Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remem­ber the first day,

First hour, first moment of your meet­ing me;

If bright or dim the sea­son, it might be

Sum­mer or winter for aught I can say.

So unre­cor­ded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the bud­ding of my tree

That would not blos­som yet for many a May.

If only I could recol­lect it! Such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As trace­less as a thaw of bygone snow.

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand! — Did one but know!

Related art­icles:

• Love Is Not
• Valentine’s Day Top Ten

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we’re post­ing a daily love poem & a Coulson Macleod typo­graphic print. Just because we love love.

‘A Statue Of Eros’ by Zen­odo­tos (325 BC).

Who carved Love

and placed him by

this foun­tain,

think­ing

he could control

such fire

with water?

Related art­icles:

• Coulson Macleod Wed­ding: Save The Date
• Valentine’s Day Top Ten

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we thought we’d post a love poem & a Coulson Macleod typo­graphic print daily. Just because we love love.

‘Love Is Not’ by Mar­cus Argentarius (20 BC — 30 AD).

Love is not just a func­tion of the eyes.

Beau­ti­ful objects will, of course, inspire

Pos­sess­ive urges — you need not despise

Your taste. But when insa­ti­able desire

Inflames you for a girl who’s out of fashion,

Lack­ing in glam­our — plain, in fact — that fire

Is genu­ine; that’s the authen­tic passion.

Beauty, though, any critic can admire.

Related art­icles:

• Valentine’s Day Top Ten
• Coulson Macleod Wed­ding: Invitation

Launched at the Spirit of Christ­mas Fair, ladies & gen­tle­men we are delighted to introduce

Coulson Macleod’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ lime­stone typo­graphic print…

solid lime­stone print. unframed.

Lime­stone size is 40cm x 20cm x 1.2cm

solid lime­stone print. framed with reclaimed wood.

Size when framed is 48cm x 28cm x 4cm.

The frame is hand­made using reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers. We pur­pose­fully retain any defects in the tim­ber to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, nail holes, warps and water marks, so each frame is totally unique.

Related art­icles:

• Mid­life Crisis
• Baby Gaga
• Wed­ded Bliss

Coulson Macleod can proudly announce its first col­lab­or­a­tion with…

Ruby Wren.

With every Valentine’s pur­chase of one of our typo­graphic prints, we are includ­ing a hand­made Ruby Wren love card. Each heart has been indi­vidu­ally cut by hand. A true labour of love.

And best of all, this card is exclus­ive to Coulson Macleod.

The card is lov­ingly hand cut from wild­flower seed paper. No, not just any old paper for us. You can actu­ally plant your card in your garden or win­dow box and wait for the flowers to grow in the sum­mer. Lit­er­ally watch your love blos­som each year. How lovely is that?

And this is what you could be growing…

• Pretty yel­low Birds­foot Tre­foil, Black Medick, and Meadow Buttercup.
• Red Cam­pion.
• White Cam­pion.
• Purple thistle-like Black Knap­weed and purple Self­heal, a mem­ber of the mint family.
• Feath­ery foliaged Yarrow.
• Watch the leaves of your Com­mon Vetch fold at night and attract bees and but­ter­flies with your ice-pink Musk Mallow.
• It was con­sidered lucky to step on an Ox-eye Daisy, the first flower of the year.

And these lush grasses will sprout too…

• Rib­wort Plantain.
• Brown­top Bent.
• Red Fes­cue.
• Cres­ted Dogstail.
• Meadow Fes­cue.
• Smooth Stalk Meadow Grass.

And guess what the C5-sized envel­ope is made from?

Ele­phant poo!

Ruby Wren buys this exotic stuff from a small Somerset-based com­pany that make 100% recycled paper in the UK in a tra­di­tional paper mill. They are approved by the National Asso­ci­ation of Paper Mer­chants and are mem­bers of the Brit­ish Asso­ci­ation of Fair Trade Shops.

And just in case you won­der­ing, which I’m guess­ing you are, the envel­opes don’t smell. Ele­phants are herb­i­vores, which means their waste is very clean. So don’t try this at home using poo from say, your dog. And as ele­phant poo is obvi­ously a waste product it will rot very eas­ily. And if that wasn’t enough won­der­ful eco-friendly news, the com­pany who make the ele­phant poo paper sup­port The Mil­len­nium Found­a­tion in Sri Lanka who home and look after old ele­phants. So, by using ele­phant poo paper we’re actu­ally help­ing elephants.

Oh, and just in case you think we’d slipped up with the cel­lo­phane outer wrap­per. It’s made from corn starch.

So, not only are our Valentine’s Day cards free. They are also exclus­ive. They sup­port small local busi­ness. They are envir­on­ment­ally friendly. They save ele­phants. And they are a garden­ing gift. Phew! And of course you’ll get massive Brownie points for being so ori­ginal and thoughtful.

Ruby Wren has been fea­tured in numer­ous magazines includ­ing House Beau­ti­ful and You&Your Wed­ding and you can find their cards sold in the Insti­tute of Con­tem­por­ary Arts in London.

So for good­ness sake, don’t go and buy a shop-bought Valentine’s Day card this year.

Simply type “LOVECARD” into the com­ments box on the check­out page for your free Valentine’s Day card.

Related art­icles:

• Coulson Macleod’s Little Love Notes
• Coulson Macleod Cre­ates Far More Than Words

Coulson Macleod vis­ited their first wed­ding venue this morning.

And we think it’s perfect.

Here’s a sneak peek of Dod­moor House…

Con­ver­ted barns. Private court­yard. Flag­stones. Bare brick walls. Very rus­tic. Very Coulson Macleod.

What do you think?

Related art­icles:

Coulson Macleod Is All Loved Up

Not sure why we didn’t blog about this earlier. Per­haps we felt it was too per­sonal. Which is ridicu­lous. Not only have we told the world on our Face­book page and via Twit­ter, but Coulson Macleod has always been about us. How we came together, fell in love, and had an idea for a busi­ness. Our Simple Little Love Story has been writ­ten about by Kevin Roberts on his blog.

Any­way, on Christ­mas Day, in front of fam­ily, Coulson popped the ques­tion to Macleod. And Macleod (that’s me) obvi­ously said “yes”. Then I cried. And cried some more.

‘What Is Love?’ (the lim­ited edi­tion typo­graphic print pic­tured above) was writ­ten by Coulson for me when we first star­ted the business.

Think I’m going to cry again!

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!