A case in point to why I’ll never be an earth mother.

When my son was 6 weeks old he was due to be checked up by the doctor, I decided to have a walk through the park with him first and pop into the shop to stock up on biscuits for all our lovely passing visitors. I walked through the door with my pram and my eyes immediately went to the stand with the posh wine on offer. Wow good deal I thought to myself and popped it into my basket and walked on. There it rattled as I (cleverly) steered the pram one handed around the aisles. Ah the Gin was on offer too – as I carefully studied the labels I felt some eyes watching me. When I looked up I saw this woman about my age with a look of disgust on her face.  I then realised here I was with a tiny baby and my basket was full of booze. Quick lighten the situation I thought. “What ever gets you through the day!” I said breezily and her mouth opened in horror. Damn I just made it worse. I put the Gin down and made a quick exit. At the check out I realised I was about to go into the doctors with a bottle of wine and this might not go down too well.  So I stuffed it in Spuds’ changing bag so the doctor wouldn’t see. In the doctors office I had to be stealth when fishing the baby’s progress booklet out and hope she didn’t hear a rattle clink against the bottle.

In hindsight I could have bought it another time – I could have even sent my husband out to get some, then I wouldn’t have ended up in this ludicrous situation, but nah. When thinking back – why did I even care what people thought? Sneery lady doesn’t know me and me and Spuds are doing just fine. We laugh, we play and we have had the best time getting to know each other. Yes I may never be the earth mother I envisioned I would turn into upon giving birth; I don’t breastfeed, I don’t have reusable nappies, I was back at work just 2 weeks after he was born - contrary to popular belief you don’t magically change personalities overnight when you become a mum. I’m still me; flaws and all and we make things up as we go. I’m happy I stayed true to myself and I’m sure he will be proud of me for working hard and making the decisions I have, I’m glad he will get to know me as a person as well as a mother.

L xx

Tips and lessons learnt in my first year… illustrated by animals.

Hi all and happy Wednesday to you!

I realised the other day that I’m getting really close to the anniversary of when I left my day job last year to become a full time business owner. I was all set to do a reflective post but when I decided to write a list of tips it occurred to me that I’m starting to get boring. These are all valid tips and lessons learnt but they needed spicing up. It’s the recession, we need smiles. I thought - what is the best thing about being online for your job? - well that’s easy - internet animals of course. So here to help me illustrate my point are the best of them. Enjoy.

I hope that brightened your Wednesday. If you are self employed and have any further tips to share please let me know and I’ll add an illustrated tip to the list :)

L xxx

All these photos are from Funnyordie.com  As they have been shared so many times I can’t trace the owners so if anyone knows who they are please let me know so I can credit them. Thanks.

A hello and a catch up!

Hello all! I have had a couple of months away from the blog as I adapted to life with business plus a little baby but I am now back and ready to post lots of fun things including more bridal files, self employment experiences, life with little spuds and general things that make me smile. I am also happy to open up and answer any questions you may have or any subject you would like me to address using the ‘Ask me anything’ link on the right hand side of the page. A lot of you have been asking how I made the movie about our baby which has been lovely and I will be writing a post about how I did it in the coming weeks. I would just like this opportunity to say thank you again for the wonderful comments on this post. It made us very happy.

Just a bit of a catch up on things that have been happening in my absence. I have said goodbye to some of my long term brides and grooms as they skipped off into the sunset to be married, a special mention to Alex who has been with me since we sent out her engagement party invites in January 2011 - an Alex shaped hole is now left in my life (you will see her bridal file on the blog next week!) As well as saying thank you and goodbye to some truly lovely couples I have said hello to a lot of newly engaged couples who I am so excited to work with - so much so I am now fully booked until October this year. I cannot stress enough how much I am loving and have loved working with every single one of you - I really do think it’s a privilege to chosen to be a part of your day.

A couple of weeks ago my lovely friend Kat asked me to write a post for her blog on coping with a new baby and a business. She has recently added a brand new section to the Rock n roll Bride site called the Green Room that addresses issues for wedding professionals and anyone who is in business really. It’s a really inspirational read and I thoroughly recommend a browse through the posts. Read my contribution here with honest accounts of my scaredy cat pregnancy.

I also contributed to an article Kat wrote about Husband and Wife teams as me and Ledgerlicious are now one of those couples! Great article - check it out.

Speaking of the Green Room, my friend, fellow designer and collaborative partner; Abbey Warner from Sugalily was interviewed as part of The Inspirations series. I got a mention from her about our special greeting cards project and as she is someone who has always been an inspiration to me it is an honor for such a mention. Abbey’s achievements are fantastic but it’s her hard work, talent, dedication and kindness that makes her truly special. I will be posting an article very soon about our amazing project that has done so well already! Here is a little peek from the Lucy and Lily collection.

(Photo: www.hollybooth.com)

I also had the real pleasure of being involved in Cherry Pie Lane’s 2012 collection shoot photographed by the very talented Nicola from Daffodil Waves photography. I love Charlie’s work so I was really happy when she asked me to be involved. Check out the shoot on Whimsical Wonderland Wedding blog. I think our styles really compliment each other don’t you? So much so we might have another little something in the pipeline ;)

(Photo: Daffodil Waves photography)

Finally, as most of you know, during the whirlwind that was early January I won the award for best stationery at the Wedding Ideas awards. I have to say I still can’t believe it. I am so happy and it is a fantastic achievement I will always be proud of. Below is my slightly lame acceptance speech - I can’t watch it to often as I sound like a doofus and look like a wildebeest (12 days before giving birth!) but there it is and proof I really didn’t believe I would win.

Phew. That’s about it for now but what a great start to the year! All that and a wonderful first few months of parenthood which I’ll be chatting about next week. A daft post to follow tomorrow morning, I can’t resist - it’s been too long ;)

L xx

A benchmark moment.

When I was seven I came second in a national art competition. I didn’t even know I had won until a really cool toy was delivered through the post. A little house with a cat sat at the door that doubled up as a carry case. I thought it was just lovely to win a prize for doing something I loved and it became my favourite toy purely because of what it meant to me. Turns out that was it though - I relentlessly sent off my pictures and drawings to competitions and TV shows but never got a sniff… yes Tony Hart I’m looking at you.

Throughout my art education I was destined to be an average student, especially from A-Levels onwards. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and more importantly I really didn’t feel the need to justify it. This attitude it turns out is art student suicide. I became a C grade A Level student after disagreements with my teacher, 2:2 degree student after I was told by my tutor if I didn’t have the depth of thought in my work needed to be a success. It’s a bit of a disappointment to have your work rejected like that however I kind of knew that I was destined to be more of a commercial artist than the next Tracey Emin and I was fine with that.

The point of all this is; if I had listened to my teachers and tutors I would have never set up my business. I would have believed them when they said to use commercial art to make a living would make me a sell out. Turns out getting away from education and pursuing what I knew in my head to be the right thing for me would become something so amazing. Struggling artist or successful business owner? I know what I would pick.

Lucy Ledger Designs will be two on the 17th March 2012. It has without a doubt been the most rewarding two years of my life and the weekend of the 13th January has just confirmed that trusting my instincts was absolutely the right thing to do. My second ever prize for doing what I love was a best wedding stationery award and it was without a doubt a benchmark moment in my life. I still can’t believe it.

Thank you so much to all my brides and grooms that got me to the finals and to the judges for naming me as the winner. Thank you to the Wedding Ideas team for supporting me and my work from the start. I am not a huge company; I am most definitely an independent small business but the amount of support I have been given from my clients and industry peers has been amazing and overwhelming. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m going to stop now before I do a Gwynnie.

I am away from my studio for a few weeks now to take on a more personal challenge of becoming a mum and I will keep you updated about that. I just want to say an extra thanks to all my clients for being so amazingly supportive about this. I am so lucky to be able to work with you all.

So that’s it for now. The moral of my story being; you don’t have to be a success at everything to become a success, you just have to trust your instincts and things will fall into place.

L xxx

The cat in my baby’s hats… Preparing for baby - sort of.

So I found out his week that my baby boy Tristan is breech and in a position where the doctors can’t move him and I was told I will be having a C section on the 25th January. 13 days time. Wow amazing… but crumbs. I got back from the hospital and looked around the house - NOTHING was ready. In an attempt to kick start my maternal instincts I thought I’d spend sometime  - you know - doing baby stuff. I was trying to emulate what you see on films where a contented mum-to-be folds teeny baby grows on her bump and sighs with happiness as she puts them away. But after dropping the damn baby grow for the third time and trying to pick it up from the floor in the most ungraceful squat-like fashion I was already over it.

So there I was sat on the floor surrounded by stuff wondering where to start when a little pile of hats caught my eye. The cat was lying on the bed and in an obvious attempt of task avoidance I thought it might be funny to try all the hats on him… so for your viewing pleasure here is Pip modelling all my baby hats. enjoy :)

Polka hat cat.

Beanie hat cat. Innit.

Stripey hat cat. Brrapp.

Fluffy Deerstalker hat cat. What o’ old chap lets solve some crimessss.

Crazy car hat cat. Um I think he’s getting fed up.

Stripey beanie hat cat. You can tell he’s wondering when it will be over…

Wee Willie Winkie hat cat. If I fall asleep maybe she’ll stop…

The finale… Polar bear hat cat. A beauty. Bravo Pip.

So there you have it. My cottage is still in disarray and still nothing is ready for Tristan. But I had a damn good time dressing Pip up.

I’ll try and be orgainised another day.

Happy jaunty hats love to you all.

L xxx

Hen Weekend!

I have decided to have a little fond look back on my own wedding preparations because of not being able to celebrate our first anniversary last year. I always love to hear my brides stories of their hen parties and get as excited as they do! Today two years ago I was away on my hen weekend at the Christmas markets in Prague. Amazingly magical weekend made extra special by all my girls who put extra special touches into the weekend, including a champagne filled hummer limo ride from the airport! Awesomes. Video slideshow fun below.

Happy December all.

L xxxxx

Making new memories.

I’ve been up a while this morning. I took my husband to work at 6 am so I could steal the car for the day and actually make it to the gym later. So it’s the 1st of December today. On my early drive home I heard my favourite Christmas song on the radio for the first time *cough* Shakin Stevens. Anyways.. instead of feeling that surge of Christmas excitement I nearly had to pull the car over and be sick. All of the horror and despair of last year hit me like a brick wall (Wow aren’t we good at blocking these feelings out? - I really didn’t see it coming).

The 18th of December will be a year since we lost my dad. David and I were getting ready to go away for our first wedding anniversary when we received the awful news from home and what was to come was three weeks of hell during what is supposed to be the happiest time of year. Christmas which was always so wonderful for me and my family (I was even a Christmas bride) is suddenly associated with something terrible.

So how do we move on from these awful times? I was chatting to my mum the other day who I know it will be hardest for this year, she is so amazingly brave though and I have a great deal of admiration for her. She said something that has stuck with me. No matter how sad we feel on reflection we will never feel as bad as we did last year. If we could get through that we can get through anything. Very true wise Mama bear.

So what about this year? We could never celebrate Christmas in the way we did before - it just wouldn’t be the same without dad. We decided it’s time to make new memories. We all sat down and made new plans for Christmas this year - a different place to celebrate together, something new. We will always be able to look back on Christmasses with Dad with fondness but now it’s time to attempt to move on. All we wish for this year is a quiet peaceful time and just to be together, we really don’t give a crap about presents and if nothing else a time of hardship really does make you realise just what is important.

So there you have it. Deep breath and carry on. It’s OK to be sad but we know as long as we have each other, that is all that matters.

One final thing I had to mention to Mum when we chatted is to tell her to make the most of her peaceful Christmas this year as next year she will have a boisterous 11 month old hanging on to her ankles. Some more lovely new memories in the making.

L xxx

Photo credit: Emma Case

Back off lady… this is not a hobby.

It totally baffles me that after all these years, people’s options and views are still very old school. It’s all quite amusing. I can tell you now based on some recent findings people just really do not believe that I have a bread-winning business. They don’t. They think I have a hobby and my husband has agreed to let me follow my crafting dream. Bless his hardworking cottons.

The truth is my husband does work exceptionally hard and is incredibly supportive but he has no issues with telling everyone how well his wife is doing.

This issue has come to light with the imminent arrival of baby boy. 11 weeks to go. Yikes. David and I are currently in the process of making big decisions with regards to this life changing situation we are faced with. David will be reducing his hours at work from 1st January to help with business and baby. We are all about the risk taking. Heck you know the saying - ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.’ Well here comes our next dare.

But people don’t believe us. They think we are mad.

I think I’ve found the root of the problem. I was talking to my Mum the other day and she said “Wedding stationery has a bad rap doesn’t it?” It turns out she has been proudly telling her friends about my venture and getting a rather sympathetic response. “Oh how nice for her - I bet she is enjoying being able to craft full time?”. My mum feels she has to point out my monthly turnover and says it’s quite funny to see their eyes on stalks as they finally realise I have a business and not a housewifey hobby. I now tell my mum it’s best to say I run a design business as clearly people have visions of me, a pritstick and some glitter at work.

This kind of attitude has happened to me quite a few times recently too as I face the question of “What do you do - can you take maternity leave?” When I tell them I work from home full time and run a stationery business the general response is; “Oh how wonderful you have a lovely little business you can pick up whenever it suits you - I suspect you will be taking some time away from it.” “Yeah around two weeks” say I. Cue the horrified or, much worse the smug faces of my suspected imminent failure.

“Just you wait until the little prince arrives - your hobby will have to take a back seat”.

Is that the most irritating statement you have ever heard? By the way if you ever hear me call my son a prince feel free to pop over and slap me.

I tell them it’s not an option. If I drop my ‘hobby’ my mortgage won’t get paid. Still I get vacant expressions. I think if I told them I had a money tree in the garden they would be more inclined to believe it.

The moral of the story is thus. Our little industry is full of hard working visionary females, some working full time at what they love, some working a day job alongside it. We do get a bad rap especially when a baby is thrown into the mix. We can only press on and fulfill our dreams and make it work. Somehow. I’m not saying I’m overly excited about the challenge that lies ahead - it’s scary. But these people, these doubters are the ones that keep me from giving up.

L xxx

Forget inspiration - what about imagination?

I wholeheartedly feel that real inspiration is not found from looking at a product that already exists. The use of the internet is amazing - I would not have a business without it but it also makes it incredibly easy to be inadvertently influenced by other people in your field. Yes of course you can’t help being inspired by the trends and cultural movements going on around you but I think to have a truly successful business with longevity you really need to be creating something that is an extension of your personality and imagination. Only then will it grow with you and have a natural progression.

It would be wrong and naive of me as a collage artist to say everything I do is completely original. Of course as you know I was given a scrapbook of 19th - early 20th century greeting cards by my Nan that I have been inspired by and it actually helped me start the business. I have used elements of the artwork in these cards to re-work into patterns and brushes for my fabrics and backgrounds - I also use vintage diagrams within some of my designs.

What I am talking about however is the idea as a whole; the composition, the imagination and the creativity behind the concept.

When I come to create a new design the last thing I want to do is to trawl existing graphic designers and illustrators websites to see what they are doing. This is probably the worst thing I could do for my brand. I want to create something that represents a part of me and my life. To do that I look to find inspiration from things I have experienced rather than a product.

For example, I have gained a lot of inspiration through travel so I can look through photos or close my eyes and think of the things I have experienced and seen to help me come up with a new concept.

- a peeling shop sign
- a weathered wooden boardwalk down to the beach
- the smell of pumpkin coffee in a small town cafe
- a shabby little tub full of flowers outside a store

I’m also a huge pop culture fan and will often get a spark of an idea from watching a film or listening to a song.

How do I translate those things above into an illustration or design.. well that’s the challenge isn’t it? That is the part I like the most.

So there are my thoughts. I know a lot of people believe there are no original ideas anymore and are happy to copy other people’s concepts and I really do think this has become more prominent in our modern day virtual culture. However I think integrity is the key. I would not feel gratified or motivated to do what I do without knowing I have been true to myself. The result of seeing a finished product that has genuinely been created from me, my experiences and my imagination is what makes me proud to say ‘this is a Lucy Ledger’.

L xxx

An open letter to Carrie Bradshaw.

OK OK OK. I don’t get it. I am self employed, you are self employed. (Snaps for getting a freelance column in New York by the way as we all know how hard it is to secure a steady income in the media world). I see you writing - for like a couple of minutes a day, looking fabulous… in Prada outfits and designer shoes. Occasionally you pop out to a coffee shop to work on your laptop which just fills me with whimsy about the loveliness of working for yourself. You venture out to nightly parties with exclusive guest lists, you do lunch with your girls, you spend hours shopping in designer boutiques. But how is this possible?

I work 10-15 hours a day. I generally look like an escapee in my PJ’s and top knot. I haven’t made it out to a coffee shop yet to look fabulous and make people jealous with a latte and my MacBook Air. I spend nights making lists for the next day and the highlight of my particularly fantastic month of income was knowing we can afford the real Coco Pops instead of Asda’s own.

In short, girl you give us self employed people a bad name. You have created an unachievable lifestyle that no doubt will make people sit up and take notice and say ‘Hell yeah I want this - write 1000 words a week, live and party and have a designer wardrobe’ and it will spawn many a failed and frustrated creative. Where are the long nights of trying to hit a deadline? Where are the frustrations of working out your tax bill spending hours with your accountant? I mean - I’m pretty sure I work 10 times harder than you but my picture is not on the side of a bus.

Finally I think I can declare myself more dedicated than you as I didn’t or wouldn’t drop everything I have worked so hard for to run off to Paris and live with a rodenty looking Russian. Shame on you.

So here it is. Self Employment in a nutshell. Long hours, self doubt, living month to month, a challenging work-life balance but meeting lovely people, rewarding feedback, a sense of achievement and loving living life.

Girl. Keep your Manolos… I have real Coco Pops this month. This clearly tells me life is pretty good.

L xxxx