My ebay dress

It is quite a few years now since I bought this dress on ebay. The seller was called the greetingcardlady, so I mentioned that I did cards too. Colleen had just started her own card business and we agreed to meet at the National Stationery show, which we were both going to. We met, clicked, became firm friends and later Colleen became my partner in American anzu. Who would have thought it all from a dress and all from ebay?!

Below is a picture of Colleen (on the right) and me in the office last week.

Colleen's visit

It has been a long pause from blogging indeed thanks to a truly vicious cold, but hopefully everything is back on track and I have lots to write about. As I mentioned before, my business partner Colleen came over last week and I had a lovely time showing her and her daughter the London sights from Tower Bridge, to Harrods food hall to the biggest sight of all the anzu office! We did lots of different things too such as going to the Royal Courts of justice and watching a case. It was great to see Colleen again, because as well as being partners we are great friends and actually met in a very unusual way. More about that tomorrow...

This is us doing our version of an America's next model photo shoot in a phonebox in Pimlico!

Blossom displays

With the danger of overwhelming you with yet more blossoms, there are a lot of beautiful window displays in London at the moment that are simply bursting with Spring. Here are a couple of examples I spotted on Bond St - the top one is a fine art shop and the bottom is the window of Asprey.

Blossom lined street

I can hardly believe that five days has gone by without adding to the blog, but it has been pretty hectic as I have been finishing the office off, my American business partner Colleen came over and I had a very small drinks party to settle into the office. I'll add a couple more things about this later, but in the meantime here are the photos of my street the way it looks at the moment. It looks almost as if there has been a flurry of snow the blossoms are so full. I especially like it because the entirely white blossoms line the full length of the street which is full of white stucco early Victorian buildings.

Fashion tea invite

As mentioned before on my blog, I have recently done work for Wellicious including them using my shop shelves image for a Fashion tea that they are taking part in at 23 Portland Place, London on Saturday 10th May. Above is the invite (click on it to make it bigger), which is also open to anzu blog readers. There will be lots of cool small designers such as The Alchemist and Mimi boutique selling their stuff, complementary beauty treatments and soothing cups of tea. So if you fancy pampering yourself RSVP to attend and to receive a goody bag to myfashiontea@wellicious.com

Why not? (no. 4)

Why not use one of these noticeboards to display cards in your shop? 

I have used this one in trade shows for years and it always draws attention to the product. You can find nice similar ones on ebay quite cheaply

The anzu office

Here are a couple of photographs of the new anzu office, which I can hardly believe is nearly done after four days intensive work on it. I especially love my old bakelite pyramid phone which has been converted into a light, the old Edwardian picture frame I got for peanuts on ebay and the floating book shelves. The bottom book cleverly slots around the base giving the illusion that the books are just floating on the wall. You can buy these from the quirky and fun online shop www.snow-home.co.uk

Anzu website

We have just updated the anzu website www.anzu.co.uk with all the new stuff! Please pay us a visit!

Leighton House

Having to work on getting the new office together, I am finding myself drawn to the whole idea of the Victorian artist's studio at the moment. One of the best examples of this is to be found not far from me in Holland Park, in Leighton house, the home of Pre-raphaelite painter Frederic Leighton. It has everything you would want from a Victorian studio - a copious number of easels, rugs, piles of books, a decorative screen, as well as an impressive collection of objet d'art collected during Leighton's many travels. The studio is no longer as it was, but much of the house is - below is a picture of the extraordinary Arab Hall. It's well worth a visit, visit www.rbkc.gov.uk/LeightonHouseMuseum for more information.

The new office!

Above is a little picture of the new office, which we have literally just moved into. It's got good light, is a reasonable size and has wooden floors and I can't wait to start working on it! There is quite a bit of arranging, a number of boxes to be unpacked, and some painting to be done. Today, I am waiting for a Dutch colonial antique cabinet to arrive that I ordered in Sri Lanka. It goes to show how expensive things in England are that even with the shipping, it works out way cheaper than buying it here and I am really looking forward to getting it. So keep checking back, and hopefully there will be some good "after the makeover" shots!

Lovebirds

Around this time, the birds around my flat get incredibly noisy, which I find amazing considering I live in central London. I don't know much about birdsong, but there seem to be quite a number of different calls and they sound quite exotic. It is beautiful and so intense that sometimes when I wake and have my eyes closed I can almost imagine I'm in the middle of a rainforest. Unfortunately, it does happen at four in the morning so I do get a little sleep deprived around this time! My friend Andrea told me that they are all looking for mates and that is why they are singing so intently. Last year, the calls slowly dwindled off one by one as no doubt they all happily paired off, except for one sorry chap who continued for months afterwards. I can only think he was left on his own. Anyway, all this got me to thinking that I should paint a little lovebirds image to put on a card, and here's the finished article!