The sun is shining and the weather is sweet…

When the sun finally makes an appearance our thoughts automatically turn to outdoor events. Whether it is a gathering of friends and family for a party or BBQ or something a little more ambitious along the lines of a music festival or village fete there are a few key points to get right and ensure your event is memorable for all the right reasons!

As part of our ‘Reuse and Recycle’ blogs this one is all about diverting your magazines, old wrapping paper, catalogues and pretty much everything printed from the bin and using it as the basis for decoupage decoration.

Simply put, decoupage is using printed material that would otherwise be destined for the recycling bin, cutting out pictures, shapes or motifs, creating a collage and gluing to an object before finishing off with a coat of varnish. All very ‘Blue Peter’ but lots of fun and very satisfying!

The Stationery Subscription Box has suddenly catapulted in to the stratosphere, largely due to our inherent love of stationery. Even though the digital age was supposed to have done away with dated pens and paper the sales of stationery continues to increase year on year.

The advent of high-quality digital printing is making entry to the world of bespoke stationery printing exciting and affordable. Couple that with an easy route to market with ‘off-the-shelf’ e-commerce websites and the stationery boom has gone from a rumble to an explosion. And as far as we are concerned – it’s great!

A Local Printer uses Carbon Capture material for many of our products, which translates in to money donated to Woodland Trust to plant trees.  With our paper merchant partners the combined donations are now in excess of £800,000 which equates to rather a lot of trees. 260,000 to be precise!

What is Carbon Capture?

Carbon Capture is a mechanism for offsetting the carbon generated in the production, storage and distribution of (in our case) paper throught the purchase of 'credits'. The credits translate in to money which in turn is fed back to Woodland Trust who then use it to plant trees which absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

By using Carbon Capture paper our customers are helping to reduce the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere, which is something we can all be proud of.

It is now official that grey is more popular than black – in terms of car colour at least. But in terms of all aspects of design grey has been steadily marching up the charts for several years. A trendy pub or restaurant will greet you with calming grey walls and dark grey trim; soft furnishings match and compliment grey tones; cars, clothes, nails and even hair are now vamping up grey.

Grey has played a strong supporting role for years, particularly with blues and oranges. Its very neutrality makes it a background of choice for layering colour without being overpowering. But what is grey and how can it be used to best effect?