Hello...An Introduction

Hooray! You made it! I can't be the only one who finds it absolutely terrifying sending a little bit of me out in to the world? But thank you for taking the time out to read a bit about little ol' me.

Yeah, that's me.

I'll start simple...I'm Lauren

I'm prone to some exceptionally blonde moments, have an obsession with untranslatable words and would live off Chinese takeaway if I was allowed. Oh, and I may have an ever so teensy tiny addiction to stationery...

Like everyone else, I had a bit of an unexpected 2020. When the first lockdown hit, I was furloughed and by week two I was climbing the walls. Except, not literally. Purely metaphorically. If I had been able to climb the walls, I might have felt better about the whole thing, what with all the climbing gyms closing. Anyway. By week two, it was officially the longest I've ever had off from work, and there was nothing else to do but take off with my bike and camera and explore (for one hour a day only!). After two years living in Brighton, I still only really knew where to find the sea and the stationery, so it was an unexpected silver lining to be able to discover my area a little more. Once it became clear the whole thing was going to last longer than anticipated, well, I started thinking about this.

I'm a serial hobbyist. You name it, I've tried it - jewellery making, lino printing, paper cutting, bookbinding, painting. Oh yeah, somewhere in a cupboard I have all the tools! But it wasn't until I picked up a dip pen a few too many years ago now that something stuck. Maybe it's my obsession with words, but calligraphy and lettering have been a constant ever since. I snuck it into my day jobs, picked up commissions for friends and friends of friends, and did a whole lot of daydreaming about turning it into a legit side hustle.

Don't get me wrong - my day job was great. I spent many happy years as a Visual Merchandiser, even though it is never as glamorous as people assume. You spend most the day crawling around after dust bunnies while someone helpfully mimes "you missed a spot" from the other side of the window. But going back to a four hour round commute in this climate felt a bit reckless. SO I accepted the cosmic nudge and jumped into the terrifying abyss of self-employment. And here I am. Since then, I've helped open a shop (more on that later), landed my first big commissions from complete and total strangers and, most excitingly, printed my own business cards (think American Psycho and you're halfway to how obsessed I was designing them).

My hope for this particular corner is to build a space for fellow stationery lovers and creatives. I've made a lot of mistakes and wasted a lot of time and money on doomed experiments, and if I can save you a little of that pain, well, that makes me happy. And I want to hear your stories, see your work and just be able to talk about the things we all love. We're all better together, as much as our proclivity towards introversion convinces us otherwise. So, drop a line below and say hello. I promise I don't bite!