HelloPretty

Our very own #WDC2014 mini project

If you follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, you would have seen us jumping into the spirit of World Design Captial feet first. We all agreed that this is an important year for everybody, whether you were a recognised project or not. It's so easy to get involved, even in a tiny way.

And so we set out to inject a teensy bit of yellow into our daily lives. And as we've been going along, we've been thrilled to see people jumping in - tagging us in something yellow that brightened up their day, or sending us yellow inspiration. It's the most satisfying feeling to have people interacting with us in that way - all of a sudden this small thing becomes much bigger and more exciting. We're not changing the world, but hopefully it brings a smile to the faces of the people who see it, and in turn directs them to the collective awesomeness that is WDC2014.

I recently received an email from Nadia, the talented illustrator and maker behind Bvbblegvm, saying that she had made us something yellow, which was just so exciting. Is this not amazing? Not only is it pretty, yellow, and generally fabulous, it imparts some solid wisdom as well.

Shorly after that I received an email from Nikita from Didzy Designs saying that she had designed some new phone covers to join the yellow madness and I just broke into a huge cheesy smile. I'm just so excited by everyone joining in. 365 yellow photos is no small feat! We value the encouragement and support so much, and so far we have yet to resort to photos of bananas.

Some sweet found #dailyyellow inpiration from Stacey of The Love Bucket and a snapshot in the life of Andrea Jane.

So thank you Nadia, Nikita, Stacey, Andrea and to all our followers that encourage our mini project - we'll be sending a lot more yellow your way!

Calling all the Single Ladies! (Closed)

Valentine’s Day. Enough said, right? Smug couples being all smug-coupley up in your face, all the time, everywhere. But wait! Press pause on your Glee marathon and put away your knitting needles, because if you’re a single lady, you could win yourself these earrings from Duke & Dutch.

These babies are modelled after the agapanthus flower, which is indigenous to South Africa, and are solid silver. They’re looking for a loving home, and who’s to say it can’t be with you?

There’s one catch: You can’t enter. Aaawkwaaard. But, your friends can enter for you!

Nominate your single friend by tagging her in a comment on this post on our Facebook page. Nominate as many single friends as you like, each in their own comment.
You can also nominate a friend by tagging her and us (http://twitter.com/helloprettysa) on Twitter.

So go on - share! :D

Hello Pretty’s standard competition terms and conditions apply.

Use our Drop a Hint to send a R50 voucher & a nudge in the right direction for Valentine's Day.

I know, I know. It was only just new year, and now we’re talking about Valentine’s day. But do the maths and you will discover (probably to your shock, which is what happened to us) that it is only three weeks away.

So: we are having a promotion. It is a big promotion, and it is very cool. In fact, you may never have seen a bigger or cooler promotion anywhere, ever.

Instead of sitting around and hoping that your boyfriend / girlfriend / husband / wife / fiancé gets it right and presents you with exactly what you want, help him or her out and send them a clue. And also send them fifty bucks!

There’s a thrilling little button in the left sidebar of every product on Hello Pretty that allows you to do just that:

See?

And the best part: when you drop that hint, whoever you’re dropping it to will get a R50 voucher to use on the site towards getting you that something pretty that you like.

Of course, there are some terms and conditions. Sorry! Always with the conditions:
    1. You can only use one voucher per seller at a time.
    2. The voucher will only work on purchases of more than R50.
    3. All good things must come to an end. This good thing will end on Feb 10th.

And lastly: You have to tell everyone you know about this. We can’t force you to — but come on. This is awesome.

When you get your presents, please send us a picture of you with them. We love getting pictures from happy customers.

Love,
Hello Pretty.

Happy New Year!

Many thanks so all your support over the past year - we couldn’t have come this far without you all. You have given us the opportunity to help small businesses grow, to support local design, to showcase the AMAZING talent that we have in this country, and to do something we really love each day. Many of you have become friends, and we are so in love with the community that we have started to develop.

May 2014 be kind to you all, and we hope we can keep impressing you and going from strength to strength to be the best that we can be. Not just for us (and the pink Ferrari I’m saving up for), but for all of you, customers and designers alike.

You inspire us every single day!

We give pretty gifts too...

I recently waxed lyrical about Kelly from Sunflowers and Spears’s #bloggersecretsanta, and our fab gift from citygirlsearching’s Roxy. But I do have to blow our own horn a little too! Before I had any idea of the amazingness that was on it’s way to us from Roxy, I was more excited to send our gift than receive one - it was so much fun sourcing all the goodies, and I even knuckled down and did a spot of DIY (you can take my word for the fact that I’m no Martha Stewart, and that as a result you should all be impressed).

I decided to do a yellow and gold themed gift, and scoured the site for small but lovely and useful items to include. After finally narrowing down my gigantic list of potential gifts, I settled on these:

A set of button clips by Bow Peep (not strictly part of the colour scheme, but adorable none the less)

A set of gold reindeer vinyl stickers by Match Set Love

And a voucher for the lucky lady to pick out something from Hello Pretty for herself.

A paper plane brooch by Landi Kuhn
A set of button clips by Bow Peep (not strictly part of the colour scheme, but adorable none the less)
A set of gold reindeer vinyl stickers by Match Set Love
And a voucher for the lucky lady to pick out something from Hello Pretty for herself

Inspired by Lovilee’s “Christmas in a Bottle,” I grabbed a sweet customised Consol jar that I bought at iheartmarket (and made by Sk8shade’s lovely mom), and jazzed it up with a lick of gold spray paint. I quickly became addicted and spray painted everything else, myself and parts of my dog too.

Our recipient is the very gorgeous mom-to-be Samantha, from everythingsamanthahearts, and since soon she will be gifted with a bouncing baby girl, I threw in a cupcake flavoured Yankee Candle for a few moments of indulgent “me-time” every now and then in between the new baby madness. (For all their many many pros, rumour has it newborns don’t sleep much. Mom deserves a candlelit bubble bath every now and then while Dad babysits!)

After a while spent dealing with nail destroying post office anxiety, the glitter and polka dot Christmas box eventually arrived, and I am so happy to report that Samantha loved it. All of us at Hello Pretty wish you the most wonderful Christmas and you have our most heartfelt congrats on the pending new addition to your family. We hope the arrival of baby Olive is the first happening in a long line of other great things that make 2014 your best year yet.

Kisses!

A Very Pretty Blogger Secret Santa

So we like getting presents. Our whole job is proof of that. (Plus buying online and having your stuff arrive all packaged up is kind of like mini me-to-me prezzies)

So we eagerly jumped on the #bloggersecretsanta bandwagon, organised by Kelly of Sunflowers and Spears, and I am SO glad we did.

When our package arrived, I squealed like a lunatic in the Post Office - which is fine because it was a Christmas rush kind of day, and everyone in there was feeling kind of crazy anyway - and stormed out, fighting the urge to rip it open in my car while I was still in the parking lot.

Over and above the excitement of receiving a Secret Santa gift, there was also the added excitement over that fact that it had come all the way from South Korea. I mean. How cool?

Roxy Hutton of citygirlsearching was our Santa, and boy did she hit the nail on the head. Aaaalll of the cute pink cat stationery in the world seemed to spill from that envelope. Every single detail was given thought and a great deal of love, and as a result it took over half an hour to unwrap (I had to take photos of everything to show you all, otherwise there’s no proof it actually happened. You know, like yesterday’s latte art or this morning’s Eggs Benedict.)

Many thanks Roxy - you are a gift giving genius and I am in love with everything you sent and the considerable effort you put in. *hug*

Ohohohoh! Also, if you love this stuff, Roxy is now SELLING it! You can now also be the owner of pastel cat stationery from South Korea! Check it out over here.

A Pretty Christmas

To all of our dearest supporters, we wish you the most amazing Christmas, filled with love and blessings (universal ones - we’re all about diversity here), and that it’s everything you could hope for.

Stay safe, be merry, and keep a large stash of heartburn medicine and liver tonics near by!

(And we hope your loved ones were smart enough to gift you with a lil something something from Hello Pretty!)

Pretty Mexican

Ai Chihuahua!

Now Pretties, as you all know we’re into great design here at HP HQ. And even more into great branding. And even more into great pink branding. You get the idea.

So it should come as no surprise that the recent Chihuahua Mexicatessan pop up restaurant in Durban ticked all the right boxes. Armed with sombreros and greeted by Señor El Jimador himself, we knew that this joint was going to give us the Christmas party we needed (and felt we deserved) - we love our jobs with all of our little hearts, but the internet never sleeps (and if it did we’d be pretty screwed), so we just get a little tired sometimes. Our solution? Take our dilemma to an awesome venue and dissolve it in tequila until we can walk away feeling re-inspired.

With the faux grass flooring I was awfully tempted to just wing it barefoot, but I managed to reign myself in for the sake of my coworkers. (It was tough guys. I’m just a farm girl from Bloem on the inside.) We were handed a gigantic bowl of nachos and guacamole, and settled in amongst the chock-full restaurant’s other patrons - it was pretty festive all around, and I found myself rubbing shoulders with the likes of Skullboy, Miss Molly and Sol-Sol. Clearly the place to see and be seen, no? (I had just cut off all of my hair - I totally wanted to be seen.)

So while this post veers somewhat drastically off our usual blog topics, it is relevant, I promise. The brain child of foodie genius Neil Roake, who has also been responsible for the original Craft Trattoria, Freedom Cafe, The Concierge Hotel and Larneys, Chihuahua Mexicatessan showed off SA talent at its best - both in the design and in the kitchen. It quickly became a hub of awesomeness for talented Durban creatives, making it the ideal place to get our creative juices kickstarted again.

We had pulled pork, nachos, Coronas and churros until our waiter had to kindly and gently nudge our round bodies out of the door like (the collective noun for) slightly unruly yoga balls many hours later. All in all it was a great experience that brought out the luchador in us! It left us feeling refreshed, and excited for what 2014 will bring. We’re an awesome team that’s become like family, and sometimes just to spend some quality, non-work time together is a great reminder of that.

So thanks y’all, we heart you the most.

Pretty Prints and Patterns

I’ll have to admit, I’m a sucker for a great print. And I’m ESPECIALLY a sucker for these digital painted illustrations by Isabel Arenas.

Being super talented and fabulous, Isabel blows us all out of the water with her work, sketching straight onto her computer via a graphic tablet - it all makes me feel somewhat inferior really… *doodles a stick man*

She’s won a whole bunch of really impressive awards too, and is well worth throwing money at. This one is on my lust list:

Fill your day with some pretty things by talented people, and hopefully it will end up being fantastic - how can it not?

Happy Wednesday Pretties!

Wanted: a Hello Pretty intern

** UPDATE: applications are now closed. Thank you, all you lovely people **

I think it’s time to concede that we don’t have enough hands or hours in the day to do everything that needs doing around here. Like a boss! We could use a little help.

We’re looking for someone to fill an intern position for a fixed period of three months, starting as soon as you’re able to.

The main thing you’ll be doing is blogging and helping run our various social media channels, with the occasional customer support and probably some shopping. So it’s a pretty cool position! But bear in mind that this an intern, and therefore a junior, position

This isn’t an in-office position - you’ll be working from your home (or coffee shops, or whatever floats your boat). If the right candidate isn’t in Cape Town where we are, that is ok.

The right someone will:

heart design in all its forms;
be one of those people whose friends give them a hard time for never putting their phone down over dinner
have an insatiable Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram addiction;
be fun-loving, have a sense of humour and be friendly (no internet whiners please);
be a spelling and grammar nazi… someone who never, ever writes words like ‘bcoz’ or ‘wud’, and someone who respects proper capitalisation;
have a smart phone and laptop or computer, with permanent internet connectivity;
have completed matric;
love shopping; and
be good at following instructions and reading properly. This might sound like a ridiculous request but you would be surprised how many people do not.

If you’re into photography, that would be a nice bonus too.

To Apply

Do not send us a CV. This will be the fastest way to get us to reject your application. Don’t even be tempted. We can see your finger poised over that ‘Attach’ button. Back away!
Write to us and in one or two paragraphs, tell us who you are. If this includes relevant work experience then that’s cool, but we don’t need to know about the waitressing job you did while you were in school.
Send links to all your public social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc). We are going to choose a candidate based on their social media persona. Don’t worry, we are nice people and will not judge you if you have posted the occasional ‘party-juice’ tweet (unless your grammar turns to rubbish when you do) ;)

The address to contact is info@hellopretty.co.za. Use the subject “Intern Application: {YOUR NAME}”. The people you’re contacting are Scott, Adeline and Sam. You can see who we are on our About page. We are really sorry, but we are not in a position to respond to every application, even though we would like to. Thanks for understanding. We’ll be accepting applications for one week.

We’re looking forward to meeting you!