Transforming the top floor of a 19th century cotton mill to design studio / office

Before and after pictures of this years big office renovation project and move. The new office/studio is open plan on the top floor of a 19th century cotton mill which has beams and rusty steel pillars and old oil from the machines still on the floors. The walls were peeling and unloved. But there are BIG windows letting in lot’s of natural light (and rain and weeds) and it’s open plan. With a bit of imagination this space could be great:

Even though we’re in, we are pretty much working around boxes and unpacking as we go. We’re still open for business so working on orders (which has always been the priority) so we still have lots to do to make it gorgeous. For now it’s very much a blank canvas.

Hope you like it so far.

We’ll get some pictures up of the finished studio soon (well probably just the tidy instagrammable parts).

 

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Before and after pics of the new studio

Earlier in the new year it became obvious that we had outgrown our studio and we needed more SPACE and somewhere BIGGER.

It’s been a busy first part of the year for us. We found the perfect office space – the top floor of a gorgeous grade II listed cotton mill with beautiful views, lot’s of natural light (so much potential) but that needed lot’s and lot’s of work. Here’s a quick before and after of the office build / renovation. As you can see it was pretty grubby before, but not strangers to hard graft (here’s pics from our very first studio space part 1  and part 2 here that was in a different old mill… we have a thing for old mills that need a bit of love…) we got the keys in June and set to work:

We’re in, it’s gorgeous, light bright and spacious and we are just finding our feet again. It’s a nice place to be.

More transformation pics to follow…

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DIY Silk Flower Wall – Romantic summer backdrop for weddings/photography

Something pretty – Make a blank wall look pretty with silk flowers and masking tape.

When we’re not making greetings card orders & wedding invitations, we are usually thinking up our next creative outlet or making pretty spaces in the office or at home. Here’s an easy DIY activity to try at home or as wedding venue dressing/decor.

Actually, we are putting all the finishing touches to the office this week. All those fiddley little jobs that get pushed to the bottom of the to do list week in week out when busy. We’ve finally got around to sorting the showroom area to display our furniture & interiors. The idea of ours was to have a different wall with a different theme to allow for the items to be displayed and to help with photography. One of the walls (my favourite) has been decorated with silk flowers. A full wall of flowers, which I’ve been dying to do for months.

We decorated one wall in an array of beautiful silk wild flowers to make a romantic whimsical backdrop for furniture that we sell to display as a showroom corner in the studio. And this one is about as cheap as it gets for wall decor.

You will need:

• silk flowers in your favourite colours (I picked these wild flowers up from IKEA)
• masking tape
• scissors

And a bare wall to decorate.

Stick flower stems in a straight line to the wall using strips of masking tape. Don’t worry about having neat masking tape or hiding the tape behind stems etc, keep it rustic and have the masking tape on display over the stems – it all adds to the charm.

Alternate the flower heads in each row to ensure even splashes of colour and avoid the whole thing looking too asymmetrical and neat. Yep it really is that easy!

This would look great as flower decorations at a wedding reception. Let us know if you do this on your day – we’d love to share your pictures

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What we did this weekend – DIY Art. As easy as abc

This week me & Lilly made an alphabet wall art. Lilly is loving her abc’s at the moment and I’d searched the internet for some cool posters / wall art ideas to buy and frame but nothing quite grabbed us. So we got creative and made our very own abc alphabet wall art.

This is really easy project for any crafter at any level to do. You will need:

A Ribba IKEA deep frame

1 Piece of Square White Card

A pack of wooden alphabet letters (from any craft shop) which cost around £1.50

Paints assorted colours – we used 5 vibrant acrylic paints

Glue Gun

And it really is as simple as painting the alphabet letters. Let them dry. When dry layout on the card in your own pattern. You can have fun here choosing the correct letters with your little helper letting them choose the correct letter. Glue gun the back of each letter and stick. Frame. That’s it.

This will go in Lilly’s room alongside her other 2 wall art pieces (see blog post).

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DIY Contemporary Wall Art

Made by a 3 year old who knows what she likes.

Inspired by this piece below as seen in Heals a few weekends back priced at £160 by Ellsworth Kelly.

Ellsworth Kelly was one of the major practitioners of abstract art in the USA after World War II. As early as the 1950s he developed an individual approach that influenced the course of Minimal art, Colour Field Painting, Hard-Edge Painting and Post-Painterly Abstraction.

Lilly said it looked like ribbons. The huge Ikea bag in our office, filled with roll ends & scraps that Lilly plays with when she spends time at the mill and arranges in rows of colours. She knows her shades like no other 3 year old I’ve ever known!

We had an idea… to make our very own Ellsworth Kelly using the ribbon scraps in our own favourite colours:

Ikea Ribba Deep Box Frame Cost £14.99… bargain!

We laid our colours in a row

Then fixed them to a board back with tape & finally framed it. Easy!

This is going to look pretty hung on the wall in Lilly’s new bedroom

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Bringing Summer to the mill

Things are always so much prettier when it’s sunny. When it’s rainy & dull, going into the old mill (where our studio is based) can very gloomy. It’s not the prettiest of spaces when it’s gloomy and we feel a spruce up is needed.

Our studio room itself is lovely and colourful. But the corridor on our floor needs a little help. It’s a long corridor and the entrance to our studio.

We’re thinking lot’s of grass to brighten the space: real grass window decals & artificial grass trims on window ledges; bright & zesty silk flower gerbera blooms & sunflowers, pretty butterfly window stickers, set off by cute picket fences painted white; few potted tree’s & plants…

I’ll post the finished results in the next couple of weeks. Tis going to be too cute!

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Light Up Your Mood

Love these light switch stickers by  Henrietta Swift

 

 

 

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Rennovating the mill – Part Two

See Part 1 of our New Studio renovation here.

We had initially planned to quickly tile the office area with hot pink vinyl floor tiles but after lifting the existing carpet tiles, parts of the floor ripped up which had to be filled before any tiling work could start. But…. underneath revealed wood!

Real wood, which cleaned up would look really cool. So, we decided on a whim to rip the whole of the flooring up. A really dirty hard job which Jeff mainly did (with some girl help from me). We owe Jeff a massive thank you for all the work he’s done over the last week but an especially big thank you for revealing the floor and making a massive obstacle a minor detour.

The larger floor surface was filled with holes which needed filling.

The floor isn’t smooth but with a lick of floor paint and lot’s of cow hide rugs will work fine.

Curtains hide our imperfect wall, saved a load of hassle painting and add warmth to our office area.

Things are starting to take shape. New furniture is in place and lot’s of finishing touches still to be done.

Next Post: A girl’s touch, frilly bits & hot pink steel.

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Rennovating our studio – Part One

It’s been a few weeks since we got the keys for our new studio at Woodend Mill Artist Studio’s in Mossley. Since then we’ve worked every spare hour cleaning, lifting flooring, working on electrics and getting very messy making this blank mill space ‘our space’. Whilst keeping a fully booked and very busy MWL running.

We had spent a couple of months looking for new space to move into as Made With Love had outgrown our home studio too long ago, and with new staff starting, we had no more space to grow into. So the search had started.

Like house hunting, you know when you’ve found the one. Somewhere that makes you feel right the minute you step into it. The space we’re moving into was actually a large empty shell. Disused for years. A former artists studio with paint drips down a wall, no sockets, no lights, damp floors, and rotting windows. It was freezing. But the space was huge and the potential was massive.  

So after months of looking, the search was over & we had found ‘our space’

And so the dirty work began – cleaning/clearing out….

And after a weekend of cleaning….

Next post: Jeffrey’s week of wonder: A floor gets ripped up | Concrete mixers | Electrics, wires & plugs | Man work grrrr! Click here to see the results

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How To Create A Signature For Emails With Your Company Logo or Images

There just hasn’t been the time to learn how to set a fancy signature up for Made With Love. But I’m pleased to say that it’s easy peasy. Saturday nights in on your own can prove very productive if not a little lonely!

Instructions from Web Developers Notes on how to set an email signature up with your company logo using Windows Mail here.

Do you like it? If you find this useful let me know & send me your new fancy pants email!

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