Pack it up

Be the king of the swingers with this amazing backpack from Five Past Five. It's hand crafted, hand stitched, and hands down the best looking backpack I've ever seen. Plus, its sturdy sides and geometric shape are perfect for your laptop. Get yours here.

We featured this item in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of our favourite bags, sleeves, and covers for those all-important pieces of tech in your lives. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

September features update for Hello Pretty's designers.

Hello Pretty frequently sends out an update to let our designers know what's cooking, what's new on the site and where to find it.

This is the update email for September.

Hello designfriends!

We've been doing all of the things since we last messaged you. And that's a lot of things. Here are some of them:

1. Our fancy new image system has polished up your photos to make them crisper & brighter.
2. We have nifty forums for you guys to share information or get help from the Hello Pretty community. Or, tell someone that you have a crush on them. Go on and make it your own.

That's right - shoppers from around the world can now view an item's prices in South African Rand as well as four other major currencies. BOOM.

More than a third of the visitors to Hello Pretty are outside of South Africa. That's a lot. Really a lot. So if you haven't yet, set your international shipping prices.

You may have noticed that people now message you, and send shipping requests, directly from your store. Which is pretty cool because we've had a lot of international sales as a result (do we really have to bring up the international shipping thing again? ;) ).

Have you had anything exciting come about via the in-site messaging? Tell us about it! We'd love to hear.

Data is your friend! Scott, our in-house developer genius, has built you some butt-kicking month-end reports.

They tell you about your sales for both the current month and the entire duration that you've been on the site, your most viewed products, what countries the people viewing your store are from (set your international shipping!) and more things. These are still in their test phase, so if you notice anything that looks odd let us know.

All good things must come to an end, sadly, and that end for the Seller referral system is on the last day of August. Some of you have earned yourself enough free upgrades through this to pay Beyoncé's salary for a year. Dang.

You can still get in on that action though - you'll get a free month for you and for the designer you refer, so long as they apply before 7 September.

From the 1st of September you can run a giveaway through Hello Pretty for R350. We've built up a superduper following on our social media: just under 30 000 on Facebook, 5 500 on Twitter, 3 500 on Instagram, and 3 700 on Pinterest. So you'll get decent bang for your buck.

Huh?? Why does this cost money?! Well, we're a very little team. Running a giveaway takes at least a full day of our time. And we spend cash money on promoting our social media posts about you.

Giveaways are fortnightly. If you're into it, drop us a line.

Right. That's enough words for now. Thanks for supporting Hello Pretty. We love you guys and what you do.

Until next time!
The Hello Pretty Team.

This guy's carving beats your carving.

I'm an impatient person. Like, flips out in traffic kind of impatient. And then I see something like this, which makes me want to be a better person.

Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth from Tugboat Printshop are two crazy talented humans, who undoubtedly tested the strength of their relationship during the two years that it took to carve this ah-MAZING forest landscape.

From BoredPanda:

"Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based artistic duo, has unveiled their “Overlook” woodcut print, an epic work of art that they spent the last 2 years (on and off) designing and making.

The dedicated duo, which runs the Tugboat print shop, painstakingly cut trees, leaves, grasses, rivers and mountains into a board measuring 28 in x 46 in (71 cm x 117 cm). The dizzyingly detailed vista is then printed with three colors. “A panoramic infinity will be suggested by the print’s ability to eventually meet itself seemlessly at the edges,” explain the artists, “expanding like an eternal ‘wallpaper’ into an ever stretching vista!”

The piece will be sold as a single piece, diptych, triptych, or as an endless wallpaper."

I mean. Incredible. Checkout the fantastic behind the scenes pics on their Instagram over here.

Hello Pretty Staff Picks: Sara

It's staff picks time! You should all be getting to know us quite well by now - well, well enough to know what to buy us for our birthdays.

Today we have numbers person Sara picking out what she would most like you to gift her with:

"Much like our fellow Pretty, Lee, I too love the geometrics and the monochromatic. In complement, I of course love any clean, contemporary living space with peeks of warm neutrals and untouched wood. But to keep things comfy, I like to splash specks of crazy colour in the form of quirky decor and illustrations. As for my fashion pieces, I like it simple and smart paired with cool accessories."

Naaice. What would you pick?

Tree-themed treats

I have a huge weakness for pretty cushions, and this one is no different. iSpy's cushion covers are all screen printed by hand and this one's bright, Scandi-inspired print is my favourite. It comes in two different colourways - the one you see here in blue and coral, and an equally delightful coral and pink version.

We featured this item in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of our favourite items using trees as a motif. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

3D printed cityscape shells

We stumbled upon this amazing post on boredpanda recently, which is just too gorgeous not to share - Japanese artist Aki Inomata has printed out 3D, clear plastic shells covered in mini cities for hermit crabs.

According to boredpanda, 'Hermit crabs usually inhabit vacated snail shells, but in their absence, they’ve been known to inhabit pieces of wood, stone or plastic, so their “partnership” with Inomata isn’t all that strange. Instead of their usual shells, Inomata provided them with tiny works of art to carry on their backs. The series is aptly titled “Why Not Hand Over a ‘Shelter’ to Hermit Crabs?”'

The cityscapes include New York, Zaanse Schans, Thailand, Santorini, Honfuer and Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou. Check out the video showing how they're created and how the hermit crabs moved into their new homes:

Process of "Why Hand Over a 'Shelter' to Hermit Crabs? " AKI INOMATA from Aki Inomata on Vimeo.

Pretty right? I kind of want one!

Nadia van der Mescht's creative workshops

Super lovely Nadia van der Mescht recently partnered with Hello Pretty to sell tickets for her latest creative workshops in Cape Town - and we were delighted!

I popped into one of the workshops at Dear Me last week, and true to form, Nadia had thought of every last detail. I hovered around takin photos and listening to some of her pearls of wisdom - I managed to catch the segment on relevant and constructive use of hashtags and from that alone I can highly recommend these workshops for any creative business owner!

The workshop covered creative goal setting, marketing and branding, blogging and social media tips, and how to approach the press, among many others - Nadia has a great way of personalising her content to be relevant to anyone.

Typically, her choice in venue was super - in fact, as someone that's new to Cape Town, I had never been there before, so immediately went back the next day for lunch. It was delicious - I can only imagine the treats they provided for the ladies at the workshop.

Check out Nadia's ongoing Business Tip Series on her blog for great advice all year round, and give her some social media love on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Nice one Nadia - I look forward to the next one!

Studio Visit to Leg Studios

If you were to ask us what we like better - good design or good coffee, we'd find it extremely hard to give you an answer. Thankfully, when we invited ourselves round to Leg Studios, we didn't have to choose!

Leon, Giulia, and Tim have created a bright, busy, and welcoming space with something delightful to look at every way you turn.

Leon Erasmus, Giulia Odendaal, and Tim Richert of Leg Studios

Their studio (in the Salt Circle Arcade) is part office, part store, part experimental and creative space. Along with the beautiful Leg products we know and love, they've also selected a handful of items from some local design favourites, and engaged in collaborations with others - see if you can spot them!

The team made us some superlative coffee, and offered us pastries - which means that they're now basically our favourite people on earth. Conversation covered everything from their background in installation design to what makes their creative engines tick, with a few detours discussing boarding schools, impulse purchases, travel, and more.

We were also lucky enough to be allowed a first look at one of their brand new designs - a concrete version of their beautiful butcher block table. Naturally, I fell head over heels in love with it. The only thing stopping me from trying to sneak it out the studio in my handbag was the fact that being concrete, it would take a little more muscle power than I had to spare.

Thanks again, Leg team, for allowing us to invade your studio (and for the coffee and pastries - nom!). We'll definitely be back for another visit - I'll just need to bring a bigger bag for that table...
You can see the rest of the snaps from our visit here.

If you've just found out about Leg Studios for the first time, you can check out their fantastic designs in their Hello Pretty store, and stay in touch with them on Facebook.

Hello Pretty Staff Picks: Sam

We're doing staff picks again! This time our lovely designer and bosslady Sam is at the helm with her Hello Pretty Lust List:

From the horses mouth (For the record Sam, you are nothing like a horse):

"All of the items on my list are simple in their designs, but with a lot of personality. And I appreciate how difficult it is to make something "simple."

That bed is an item of great beauty. Just look at it. And given my propensity to have more things than space, I just love that their underbed storage actually looks beautiful rather than utilitarian.

As for that cat cushion, well, it's a cat. What more reason could one need?

The Civetta Spark bracelet I want so that I can wear it and feel like one of the first-class passengers in the Titanic (but without the deathly ending).

I no longer need to covet the wine rack because I just went ahead and bought one last week. Yay. It is yellow, and fun, and superb quality.

I have a fixation on creative and beautiful bookshelves (I dare you to try and drag me away from http://bookshelfporn.com) and Simpli Decor's shelves are unlike anything I've ever seen. Even on the internets. One day when we move out of our shoebox and have high ceilings and sweeping open spaces I'll fill a wall with them.

Sandy's plates I fell in love with from the moment I first saw them. Just look at them! They're incredible! All of her work is.

I hate walls being wasted with emptiness when they could be filled with beautiful things. Lynsey-Anne's photo is so delicate and lovely, and Lillian Fairall's balloon dog is the cutest, quirkiest thing ever. I must have him."

There you have it! What are your favourites?

Ermahgerd!

I can't even tell you how much joy this brings me. I get a chuckle every time I look at it, and it's on my list of must-haves for my new apartment. This beauty is by Runny Babbit, who actually does custom requests as well, so you can let your imagination run wild! If you want this one specifically (and why wouldn't you), you can get it here.

We featured this item in our newsletter this week, along with a curated collection of our favourite knitted, crocheted, and cross-stitched items from the site. There's a new theme every week, so if you'd like to be kept in the loop, sign up below!

Hello Pretty is Winding Down

Hello Pretty