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Charlie

Our Top 10 Eco Valentine’s Day Gift Guide featuring ethical British businesses

Charlie

Our 2017 Eco Valentine’s Day Gift Guide

Samantha and I are sharing our favourite finds for a possible Eco Valentine’s Day gift for your loved one – women, men, and even a gift from your little ones. We’ve stuck to all UK based businesses and artisans, most of them small independent businesses. You’ll also find we’ve tried to include ideas across a span of costs, with only one true ‘blow the budget’ gift.

In putting together this guide we discovered that neither of us celebrate Valentine’s Day in a big way. I’m sure lots of people choose to celebrate their love and gratitude towards each other on a daily basis. But for those who are looking to give something special or just a token of their love, here are some ideas.

Personalised Valentine’s Biscuits

The Kitsch Hen is run by a former TNWC Real Bride, Caroline (part one + part two of her wedding is not to be missed). Her iced biscuits are homemade from locally sourced ingredients, and all handstamped. We love this option because it can be personalised to a meaningful message – lyrics from ‘your’ song, a love quote from your favourite novel, or just a simple ‘I Love You’. A scrumptious Eco Valentine’s Day gift.

£12 for 6 personalised biscuits – Buy them here

You Are My Favourite Valentine’s Day Card

Our friend Lucy Says I Do always has a fab offering of Valentine’s Day cards, and we love this design. Short and sweet, perfect for anyone not wanting to give an overly mushy card full of text. Printed onto FSC approved card and with a brown kraft envelope it’s a great card for the eco-chic.

£3.25 – Buy it here

Fairtrade Gold Heart Ruby Ring

Charlie

An Eco Christmas Gift Guide featuring all ethical British businesses

Charlie

Our 2016 Eco Christmas Gift Guide

It’s December and we want to help you with your gift searching with our eco Christmas gift guide. Samantha and I have been scouring the internet to bring you our favourite eco-chic finds – from gifts to decorations to wrapping.

You might think ‘not another Christmas gift guide’ but we promise ours is a bit special because all the items we’ve chosen have eco credentials, all come from UK based businesses (many of them small independent businesses), and we’ve kept the majority of items affordable with a few luxuries thrown in.

The items in our eco Christmas gift guide are handpicked by us because we feel they are truly worth sharing – they are not just what’s ‘on trend’ or cool this year. We’ve also included direct links to where you can buy the items to make it even simpler. So go dive in and support our ethical British businesses.

If you love a more rustic and natural Christmas style, then check out all blog archives for natural Christmas decorating ideas and DIY projects – my personal favourite being the DIY guide for making snowflakes from vintage doilies.

Decorations for an Eco Christmas

First up in our eco Christmas gift guide – our favourite eco Christmas finds for decorating your home…

Snowflake Garland from Paper Tree

This pretty paper snowflake garland is a super version of those handmade paper ones you (attempt) to make. Plus, these 14 handcrafted snowflakes unfold to create a 3D effect.

£7.50 – Buy it here

Eco Credentials – Made from recycled and FSC paper; Paper Tree are members of 1% for the Planet and give 1% of our sales to environmental organisations.

Beeswax Christmas Tree Candles from Gold&Black Candles

Beeswax is the ultimate candle and with it’s gorgeous gold colour couldn’t be more glorious at this festive time. Made by hand from 100% pure beewax the set of 3 Christmas Tree candles urn for approximately 8 hours each.

£20 (set of 3) – Buy it here

Eco Credentials – natural beeswax; gift box from recycled board and paper covering from sustainable forests.

Mistletoe Wreath from Paper Tree

A beautiful hand crafted paper mistletoe wreath with raffia hanging string and ribbon. The mistletoe is hand crafted from eco-friendly saa paper – we love this.

£25.95 – Buy it here

Eco Credentials – Made from recycled and FSC paper; Paper Tree are members of 1% for the Planet and give 1% of their sales to environmental organisations.

Rustic Driftwood Christmas Tree Decorations from Emma Lane Designs

Charlie

Free printable Christmas gift tags in six beautiful designs

Charlie

What a treat we have for you today – free printable Christmas gift tags exclusively created for our readers by a selection of our talented wedding stationery designers. Themed around ‘A Natural Christmas’ each design captures the individual style of the designer, and there are various sheets for you to download and print off.

We’ve come up with some various idea of how you might choose to use these beautiful Christmas gift tags – whether printed out onto recycled card and cut out as traditional gift tags, or perhaps you’d prefer to print them off on sticker paper and simple stick them onto your wrapped gifts.

Speaking of gifts, check out the blog this weekend for our special eco-chic Christmas Gift Guide.

Download your free mixed Christmas gift tags

First up we have a sheet of each of the 6 designs of Christmas gift tags.

Download the mixed sheet of Christmas gift tag designs

Here’s what the sheet looks like printed out…

Next up we have created individual sheets of each of the 6 designs of Christmas gift tags, so if there’s one design you really love, you can print out a sheet of just that design.

Download our Christmas gift tag and meet the designers

Charlie

A guide to making pretty floral dressing gowns as for gifts for your bridesmaids from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

Can you imagine making your bridesmaids a beautiful floral dressing gown as a wedding gift to them? Personally my sewing skills don’t stretch that far, but if yours do then read on to find out how Lucy from Lucy Says I Do created them for her wedding in today’s guest post.

If you’re inspired by Lucy’s handmade wedding, then check out her other guest blog posts for us on her bridesmaids dresses, growing your own wedding flowers, her Edwardian wedding dress, and personalised wedding stationery.

Over to Lucy…

When we got married I wanted to give my bridesmaids something special, something they could keep, something personal to say thank you. Together with my mum’s help we made each of them their own dressing gown/robe that I gave them the evening before the wedding. It was a great surprise and they absolutely loved them!

First we bought a simple dressing gown pattern online (from here). Then when we knew how much fabric we needed for each dressing gown, we bought the fabric. I decided to make each one different, as a way of showing each bridesmaid’s different personality, so I spent a long time choosing the different fabrics. I bought the fabric from a variety of places: Shepherds Bush Market and the fabric shops on Goldhawk Road, Etsy, ebay and Liberty.

Charlie

Elegant English country garden party inspired handmade wedding stationery from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

For all of you embarking on the hunt for you wedding stationery, today’s post is bound to inspire you. We are joined again by the lovely Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, who has been sharing a number of guest blog posts all about the handmade elements of her own wedding (read all about her bridesmaids dresses, homegrown flowers, and antique wedding dress).

Lucy runs her own business (and one of our recommended suppliers) Lucy Says I Do, creating all kinds of beautiful wedding invitations, paper goods and gifts, so it’s pretty cool to hear about how she designed her own wedding stationery.

Over to Lucy to tell us all about it…

As with all of the inputs to our wedding, the invitations were a real labour of love! We wanted all our guests to be given a taster of what our day was about, what was important to us, and hopefully generate a little bit of anticipation for the big day!

Charlie

The story of a handmade bride’s stunning antique lace Edwardian wedding dress from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

Another lovely treat for you on the blog today from guest blogger Lucy of Lucy Says I Do – especially for all of you who share my love of the Edwardian era when it comes to weddings. If you’re a regular blog reader you’ve probably already read Lucy’s previous guest posts on her bridesmaids dresses and growing your own wedding flowers, which are full of inspiration.

Today Lucy is sharing the story of how she came to choose her stunning Edwardian wedding dress – I’m just a little bit jealous! Who else is? If you have the budget to have a wedding dress made for you, then I hope you’ll be inspired by Lucy’s story. Love Charlie x

Over to Lucy…

Notoriously fussy when it comes to clothes, I imagined the search for my wedding dress was going to be difficult and long, and I was a little apprehensive, as were my mum and my sister! When I booked my first dress appointments I knew what I didn’t want, but I was yet to see anything (in magazines or online) that I could see myself in on my wedding day.

My first appointment was at Jane Bourvis’s Atelier, and that’s where my wedding dress story ends, short but oh so sweet! As soon as I walked in, I knew we’d found something very special.

Charlie

A handmade bride’s guide to growing your own wedding flowers for a rustic country garden feel from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

We’re back today with the lovely Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, who is sharing with us some of the wonderful DIY projects from her own country wedding. If you missed her first guest blog on designing and creating her bridesmaids dresses, do check it out here. Over to Lucy…

We wanted to embrace the location of the wedding and play with the English Country Garden idea. I love flowers and plants that are found in wild flower meadows and old walled gardens, and I wanted to incorporate these into our wedding. We were also heavily inspired by the wonderful Petersham Nurseries, and their beautiful plants and flowers.

We decorated the area outside of the marquee with a multitude of plants and flowers, many of which we grew from seedlings specifically for the wedding. We decided on the plants and flowers we wanted, and made sure they were likely to be flowering or at least alive at the time of the wedding and set to work planting and potting them up.

Charlie

Designing and creating bespoke bridesmaids dresses with an English Country Garden theme from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

I’m delighted that the incredibly creative Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, a recommended TNWC supplier who designs beautiful wedding stationery, will be joining us for a series of guest blog posts whilst I’m off on maternity leave. Lucy had a stunning wedding that was featured on Love My Dress and she booked wedding photographer Mark Tattersall after seeing his photos of our wedding.

Lucy created so many lovely things for her wedding, that I’m really excited to share some of them here with you – I just know you’re going to be inspired. Love Charlie x

Over to Lucy…

I knew I wanted to make dresses that suited the wedding, so my thoughts were: English Country Garden, summery, fun, and natural. In addition to this I wanted the girls to feel really special when wearing them, so they needed to be high quality, feminine, soft and elegant.

My sister (one of my lovely bridesmaids) and I designed the bridesmaids’ dresses together. We decided to design the print as an English country garden story. When developing the design I created an ‘English Country Garden’ inspiration board to help focus my ideas for the print. Here’s my print inspiration board:

Taking different natural elements of the English Country Garden idea we developed the print to include lots of detail including: flowers, fruits and insects. I loved the way the print developed, and the way that every time you looked at it you’d notice something different. Including the little bumblebees! We made sure we incorporated botanical elements such as the strawberry plant, but we balanced this with soft painterly effect flowers to make sure the print maintained a softness, like that of wild flowers.

Here’s a sample piece of the print, how many different elements can you spot?

Charlie

Celebrating our second wedding anniversary with a bespoke apple blossom keepsake print from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

Today Mr Rigg and I are celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary. Two years ago today (or at least this past weekend), we were saying our “I do’s” and celebrating with 70 of our closest family and friends. If you’re new to the blog and would like to see some photos from our wedding you can find them all here.

This year is pretty special as we’re sharing it with a new addition, a little person in my belly that likes to wriggle around and remind us that it’s here and on it’s way. Last year we celebrated with a picnic dinner on our allotment, this year it’s the cinema and a meal out – as we are being told so often we should make the most of this baby free time. Personally, I’m just too excited about this baby arriving to currently care about forfeited meals out and trips to the cinema.

Neither me nor Mr Rigg are particularly big on celebrating anniversaries, or buying each other extravagant gifts, but this year I felt the urge to create something as a lovely reminder of our wedding day. With so many lovely businesses featured on The Natural Wedding Company directory, I am always seeing beautiful ideas not only for weddings, but for holidays and gifts, and much more.

This was how I came across Lucy Says I Do. A relatively recent addition to the directory, Lucy Says I Do is run by Lucy Clark (of this incredibly beautiful wedding), who it turns out hired our wedding photographer Mark Tattersall to capture her day after seeing our wedding pictures. As well as creating rather beautiful wedding stationery, Lucy also designs prints incorporating your wedding vows, poems or readings.

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