We have moved!

Thanks for stopping by but we have now moved our blog to memeloudesigns.wordpress.com please click on the link and have a read :-)

Hollie Nicole photography

I recently had some new product and mood shots done for my greeting card ranges by my friend and fab photographer Hollie. Having good product shots make such a difference to my business.

Hollie use to be a work college of mine and last year she decided to set up her own photography business. She is such a talented photographer and her business is going from strength to strength.

She does wedding, portrait and product photography. Below are a few examples of her work. I highly recommend Hollie. She’s friendly, professional and so easy to work with. If you would like more information  on Hollie you can visit her website here http://www.hollienicolephotography.co.uk

Weddings

Family portraits

My product shots

The lovely Hollie herself!

 

My new Christmas card range “Cosy Christmas"

Well it’s officially Christmas month so I thought it was about time that I told you all about my new christmas card range called “Cosy Christmas”. I tried to keep this range a bit more traditional and stick to the usual greeting card size format rather then doing an unusual shape or size.

I was inspired to design “Cosy Christmas” purely because I love the woodland trends that have been around this year and designing animals and creatures is my most favourite thing to design.  I know santa and baubles are not woodland but they still play a huge part in being cosy and warm when you are at home on christmas day.

I wanted you to get a sense of warmth when you look at the cards so the colour palette had to be right. I really like bright colours and colours that clash. I love how the red is really prominent in this range even though its only featured a small bit on some of the cards. I also really like the clash with the red and the teal.

The range consists of 8 designs and come with a brown craft envelope-perfect for christmas! They are available to buy here on my website memelou.com.

Have a lovely day!

My first trade fair

Oh my oh my..........It’s been a rather quiet week here at memelou so I decided it was time to take the plunge and book a trade fair. I’ve put it off for the last couple of years mainly due to funds, having the confidence, the ranges and starting a family.

Memelou is run on a shoestring budget. I do freelancing to pay for memelou and of course to survive. The result being that memelou has took a very long time to get to this point. I’ve also had my little Oliver in the middle of this so I freelance and do memelou to fit around him as many mum’s who do this it is not an easy task!

I’m quite an impulsive person so if I decide to do something I almost do it instantly. Although I have thought about doing a tradeshow for a long time it just wasn’t possible until now so on Monday I decided to do one and by Tuesday I had booked it! It was between Top drawer and Progressive greetings live.

I decided Topdrawer was too short notice to get everything ready for January so I decided to go with Progressive greetings live as thats in June next year which gives me ample time to plan. They have a section for newbies like me called Springboard so it’s pretty perfect.

So now the fun starts..........LOTS of planning to do but I’m so glad I’ve took the plunge and am giving memelou the chance to meet the world. I’m excited.....and nervous!

My journey

I woke up today to the sad news that Robin Williams had passed away yesterday. Like millions around the world, I didn’t know him but I feel like I did and I just know that he was a good person.
It’s been alleged that he committed suicide due to his long battle with depression and depression is something that I can relate to- please excuse my poor punctuation, spelling,grammar etc.

I write this with tears streaming down my face. Not so long ago I was almost at that place and I never thought in a million years that I would ever get depressed like that and understand why people kill themselves but now I do. Various things have happened to me in my life and perhaps I didn’t deal as well with them as I should have and maybe this triggered something in my brain as an adult. No one really know what causes depression. I’ve always had tendencies to feel it in my adult life along with anxiety but have always known how to stop it before it gets too bad. Usually by exercising, meditating, changing my diet and allowing myself to be alone for head space. After the birth of my son, I hit rock bottom. I didn’t know why as I was so incredibly happy to have him. I loved him desparately, bonded with him but I felt incredibly vulnerable and sad- sad to the core and for the first time in my life I could understand how depression can lead to people contemplating suicide.

I have everything. A wonderful, loving family, who gave me the best childhood, an amazing husband who supports me and loves me, the most wonderful, beautiful, happiest little boy, amazing friends and a career that I love and enjoy and dreamed of doing. I literally have everything that matters. I’m very lucky so I couldn’t understand why I had this utter sadness, feeling of complete hopelessness and feeling in a constant state of torment.

I have been seeing a therapist for many years and she has taught me how to control it but like I said it had never been bad enough to affect my life until the birth of my son. I ignored it as I thought it was just the baby blues but it got worse and worse to the point where I thought I can’t live like this but I don’t know whats wrong with me. I couldn’t tell anyone as I feared they would think I was a bad mum and a pathetic human being so I tried to hide it. I also didn’t think I needed to go to my therapist as she would think I was pathetic and incapable of coping with daily life too. My family and husband noticed there was something very wrong and urged me to get help. Thank goodness I listened too them and went back to my therapist.

I’m now virtually 100% better. I see a Human Givens therapist and she has changed my life but you can also speak to the samaritans or even your local GP. Just talking to someone made my head a lot clearer. I saw my therapist yesterday and she is very happy with my progress. I feel like I’ve been on a incredibly tough journey and come out a different and better person at the end.

If you are reading this post and find it hard to understand depression. Please know this, we can not snap out of it. If it was that easy don’t you think we would love to do it to feel better? We are not having a bad day and tomorrow will be better. Another thing I hear is"You have it all what have you got to be depressed about"...........it doesn’t work like that. All I know is it happens, It was an incredibly difficult time. I would not wish it on anyone and people need to stop treating it as a taboo subject.

I know this is my creative blog used for my creative business but I felt that I have a connection to the outside world, why not share how I feel? Social media can have its faults but it can also have incredible power in a positive way and thats why I felt I had to share this with everyone today and hope it can make a positive difference to someone/anyone reading this. This wasn’t a easy post for me to write. I am a very private person and this blog post will come as a shock to some of my friends. Everyone see’s me as a happy, positive person. which I am 90% of the time but even people that can seem very happy on the outside can be suffering terribly on the inside sometimes. What Robin Williams must have been feeling to take his own life-if thats turns out to be the case, must have been utter despair and my heart truly breaks for him and his family. I hope in the sadness of his death something positive can come out of it in people suffering with depression find the courage to get help and if you think someone you know is suffering with depression, talk to them, be there for them.

The main reason I wanted to write this blog post today is to urge any of you out there that feel life is to much to please talk to someone. Once I was better and felt able to talk about how I had been feeling It’s amazing to hear how many people suffer with the same thing. You are not alone. You matter. You need to be here. If you are suffering from depression you have nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of people feel the same. Depression needs addressing. It can ruin lives. Life is a beautiful thing. You only get one shot at it so lets try to live it and live it well.  R.I.P Robin Williams, may you be at peace.

Naughty me!

Oh My was my last post really in October-Thats terrible! I have no excuses apart from I have been extremely busy since then. I’ve been up to all kind of things. Working on some new ranges, still perfecting my wedding range. I have also teamed up with “A fresh Bunch” so have been working on various designs for them as well as freelancing for my many customers. Am I forgiven?
Any way here’s a little taster of one of my wedding ranges. I hope to bring them to you very soon. Watch this space!!

Holidays are coming

Good morning all.  I'm very excited today as we have just done the photo shoot for our Xmas baubles card range. 

I love these because in true Meme Lou style, these are not only cards but also a gift.  Instead of cluttering up the mantelpiece your friends and family can hang them from the tree as a decoration

They are now available to buy from www.memelou.com 

Print and pattern

I'm excited to reveal that my Animalistic and Yummy ranges of cards have been featured on print & pattern today.

It's so nice to see my work on here again as there are so many amazing designs on there I really admire

Remember if you want to buy any of my cards you can at memelou.com and use the NEWSTORE coupon code for a 10% discount. 

Thank you very much Print and Pattern!

Meet Baby Oliver

As you all know I've been a bit slack with my blogging. Mainly due to having major house developments forcing me to freelance more in house and also because I was pregnant. Well I'm happy to say both are over with! I now have a lovely house and a beautiful baby boy called Oliver. He was born on 16th February and weighed 8lb 8oz. He's the loveliest little boy and I just wanted you all to meet him.

www.Memelou.com is here!

I am so happy to announce that my website is finally ready! It's taken a very long time to create but I'm thrilled with it. Mr G built it himself and I'm very proud of it and him, it's perfect. To have my own brand of greeting cards was all I've ever wanted so to now finally have it, well let's just say I couldn't be happier.  It's taken 2 years to get Me-Me Lou up and running properly and at times I thought I would never get there. I've met some fantastic people along the way who have guided and supported me throughout and to you guys I thank you from the bottom of my heart. My Dream has come true so as a massive thank you I want to give all www.memelou.com shoppers a 10% discount off all cards. Just enter NEWSHOP at the check out. Happy shopping :-)

Do you think I'm obsessed with Owls???

I've always liked Owls on houseware products/ greetings and generally everything but strangely enough I don't like real life ones! I think I'm becoming rather obsessed with them as everything I've been picking up lately has them on. I'm even inflicting them on my unborn child! Here's a few snaps of my obsession.......I think it's quite a nice obsession to have. Happy Friday all!

Doorstop

Phone cover

My gorgeous Lamp

My jewellery

Candle holder

A grow egg for my baby

Photo album

A blanket I was given for my baby (that I asked for :))

Cute little owl blankets for my little baby

My Baby shower at "The Marvellous Tearoom company"

Yesterday my amazing friends threw me a baby shower at a fab place in Leeds called 'The Marvellous Tearoom company'. It was such a wonderful venue, full of vintage goodies. They opened the place just for us so we could have a lovely private party. We all had afternoon tea........which was to die for....The cakes mmmm so tasty! The Rose lemonade is a taste sensation too. We stuffed our faces and played various games. It was such a perfect afternoon in a perfect venue. Tearoom Angie was lovely and made us all feel very welcome. I would definitely recommend a visit to this gorgeous little place.

Feast your eyes on these delights!

mmmm best Lemonade ever.

Play doh baby game

Happy New Year-It's been a while

Well Hello everyone! Its been a while hasn't it? Happy New year! I hope you all had a great time over christmas. So much has happened since I last blogged. I think most Of you know that I am pregnant and Baby G is due in 5 weeks! I can't quite believe it. We've also finally finished all the work on the house which is why I had to stop blogging in the first place as I had no where to work at home so had to do more freelancing in house for my customers. I'm now back and working from my nice new fab office. I will post photos over the next few weeks as I'm slowly getting things back together. Here's to a fab 2013. I hope it brings you everything you wish for :-)

Will be back soon

Hello everyone. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to post something. These last few months have been very hectic. I've been having major work done on my house resulting in me no longer having an office. I'm going to have a new super duper one (hopefully in the next few months) but as a result I've found I've been taking on more in house freelance work to get me out the house as it's very distracting with all the building work going on etc so the Me-MeLou brand has been put on hold until I get my creative space back. I also have a lot of work to do on Me-MeLou so I will post on the blog once I'm back and will announce it on Twitter etc. Hopefully it won't be too long. Thanks for all your support xx

Vintage Wallpaper

While demolishing my spare room and loft to make way for my super dooper office we discovered this wall paper. I'm guessing it's vintage........maybe late 50's. It's absolutely gorgeous and right up my street. It's such a shame the wall had to come down or I would've kept it. It's amazing what you find hidden away in your house!

Gorgeous!

My New Office

Here at Me-Me Lou HQ we're doing some major building work to extend our loft into an extra bedroom and a new super duper office for me! I did have my office in my spare room but I've out grown that now and need something a lot bigger especially as I want Me-Me Lou to grow into a big business. I'm now working in the kitchen as the spare room is semi demolished and It's not that easy to work in with all the distractions going on. I really can't wait for it to be finished. It's going to be brilliant!

This side will be my office!

Typography

Hello, I hope you all had a fab easter. Today I want to talk about Typography. When I'm designing I sometimes like to draw my own fonts as they are more personal to me and sometimes I can't find a suitable font for the look I want to achieve. It's quite time consuming but very worth while. I have a least 3 different fonts that I've drawn the whole alphabet for but am always adding to my collection. The right sort of font can really change the whole look of a card or print. I'm really picky about fonts and can spend a considerable amount of time looking for the right look. Maybe you can start drawing your own. Here's an example of mine below.

Congratulations Nicola and Darren!

Todays post is dedicated to my best friend Nicola and her partner Darren who are now the proud parents of little Hollie. Hollie was born on the 28th March at 1.30pm and was 7lb 1. Mummy and baby are both doing great and me and Mr G will be going to visit her tomorrow. I can't wait for a big cuddle! So this is for you guys massive Congratulations!!!!

A new card design from my new online range.........coming soon!

I love Garden Gnomes!

Something very odd has happened to me recently.............I've started an obsession with garden Gnomes! This is very bizarre as I used to hate them. If I saw them in someones garden I would cringe. With the weather being so nice recently I've been thinking about what to do with our garden and how to brighten it up (and thats where the Gnomes come in). I still shudder when I think of my garden full of different posing traditional gnomes in the dungarees or floral dresses but when I saw some gnomes in solid bright colours my thoughts changed. I can totally imagine a bright pink or bright green gnome living in there. I love bright colours so I think it's what the garden needs. Block colour Gnomes are really hard to find if they're not in candle form so I will probably have to purchase a couple of the traditional ones and spray paint them in my favourite colours. The metallic Gnome below is from heals and the two candle gnomes are from rice. The others are from Pinterest.

Ok I totally make an exception for these little guys as they are so cute!

Out and about

While I was on my little break in the Lake District I took lots of photos as I usually do when I'm out and about to help me with Inspiration. I'm inspired by everything.....even the food I eat! I wanted to show you what I get from the photos and how I make them into prints. The below show a couple of examples of what I do. Next time you go out, take your camera with you and who knows what you might see to inspire you!

This salad was my Lunch one day and I really liked the colours

A simple stone wall!