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Hello Pretty's Birthday!

We had a birthday in December! We celebrated our public launch in the best way possible - with cake and nice people. (that's all you really want from life you know?) In terms of birthdays, it can get pretty complicated. There's the birth of the idea, the birth of the team, the birth of site itself (our private beta launch), and then the day we opened our metaphorical doors to the general public with our out of beta launch. So all in all, this tiny baby company has been around for three years, and is not such a baby anymore. (I feel like company years should actually work like dog years. We did a lot of learning during that time!)

Let me tell you, we're so proud of this cool thing we've built. People told us we were crazy, told us we were wrong, predicted that we were doomed to fail - and there we were, three years down the line, shoving cake in our faces.

Our success is reliant on the success of our sellers - the more we help South African small busineses thrive, the more we thrive. As Sam has said on occassion, we're like a pyramid scheme, but awesome!

There's no way to fully describe how satisfying it is to be able to help entrepreneurs grow - I wake up every morning feeling filled with purpose, and am incredibly grateful for that (Although it turns out that skipping around town delivering cupcakes is pretty satisfying too!)

Thank you all for your amazing and overwhelming support - to the buyers, the sellers, the bloggers, the magazines, the long suffering friends - we wouldn't be here without you all. We well and truly love each and every one of you for enabling us to do what we love.

Now I need to go before I get downright emotional. Hearts and puppies and kittens and stuff.

My very own Painting for Ants by Lorraine Loots

In case you've been snoozing and not heard of Lorraine Loot's 365 Paintings for Ants project for 2013, she explains it on her website. In a nutshell, every day for the full year of 2013 Lorraine painted a miniature painting about the size of a coin. You could book a painting, and when you did you got to pick what you wanted to be of. And her work is consistently mindblowing and gorgeous and incredible.

They arrive beautifully framed. It's a bit difficult to take a photo because of the glass in the front of the frame, but I made an attempt. This is mine:

She has since developed the project into a postcard collection (365 Postcards for Ants) . You can see an archive of all her paintings from the 2013 project over here: http://paintingsforants.tumblr.com/archive

Thank you Lee (and Lorraine), I'm so proud of my artwork.

365 Paintings for Ants with Lorraine Loots from Gareth Pon on Vimeo.

Pretty Personal with Riz & Resh of the Dollie House

Photographic duo Riz & Resh are long time friends and favourites of ours - they recently made us look fancy in our own little photo shoot, and we've had the likes of A Ring To It and Bow Peep turn to them for product photography. Bottom line is, they have mad skillz.

And to our delight, they've joined us as Hello Pretty sellers! They're selling product photography packages that are pretty darn great, and we felt that they deserved to be on the other side of the lense for a change.

Pretty Personal with Riz & Resh of the Dollie House

Products shown:

Styled Product Shoot

Hello! Tell us a little about yourself.
The Dollie House is the home to Riz and Resh Dollie. We're both simple beings who find great pleasure in food and greenery (not the bushy kind you're thinking of).

Resh is a quiet individual with a vision of living clean and building a sustainable existence for his family. He is the eldest of five brothers and is an avid yogi with an honours in Anthropology. He is also the prettier member of The Dollie House.

Riz has a great passion for people and Instagramming meals. Riz has worked in every sphere of media and has been messing around with cameras for over ten years. Riz's students gave her a pet name; B.B.D. (we will leave this open to your interpretation).

We both travel as often as possible and feel as that it's an essential part of the growth of a person.
How/why did the Dollie House?
The Dollie House was the love child born from our shared passion for visual pleasure. We both hail from art backgrounds and chose to focus on the anthropology of people and their memories. We're both fascinated by human behaviour and observation, and photography was a good way for us to express what we saw and experienced through sharing brief passionate moments of peoples' lives.
What do you love?
We both thrive in any natural environment and have a keen affinity to aesthetics of the visual kind. We love pretty things, appreciating good food and reading as often as possible

Riz loves talking and Resh enjoys silent conversations. Resh loves cooking and Riz loves eating. We love constant change, hence the choice to grow The Dollie House.
Can you tell us about the wonderful things the Dollie House makes/does?
We offer a range of lifestyle photography packages and visual styling for shoots and interiors. Riz focuses on events, family, portrait, maternity and wedding photography. Resh thrives in making things pleasurable for the eye and desirable for the soul; he spends his time styling shoots and visually merchandising store windows.
Tell us something unusual about you/your trade/etc that people generally don't know.
We shoot weddings most weekends and because we're so passionate about our jobs, we often become family confidants for the day. After a few hours with a client's family, we often feel like we're a part of the family. People always feel the need to share their family histories with you.

We both love visual storytelling, and voluntary information usually helps strengthen the visual depth of the photographs.

Pretty Personal with Riz & Resh of the Dollie House

These beautiful shots by Ronél Kruger Photography.

Lee’s Start-the-New-Year-Right

Vintage Gold Swarovski Bracelet by Civetta Spark

2015's coming, guys! See it in properly.

This week we featured a selection of things to vamp up your new year's party in Pretty Cool, our weekly all-pictures newsletter. There's a new theme every week, and this week we showcased 13 things from the site along that theme.

Fill in your details here to get in on that action:

Product pictured above: Vintage Gold Swarovski Bracelet by Civetta Spark

Pretty Personal with Cecile from Ménagerie

Pretty Personal with Cecile of the Menagerie

1. Hello! Tell us a little about yourself.

I come from a graphic design / film industry creative background. A while after my daughter was born I realised I just couldn't keep up the hectic hours that the film industry demands, and there is something about having kids that makes you want to do something that feels more authentic and worthy. I have a lifelong interest in handmade stuff, and since the craft movement has had such a revival I started a small but very beautiful handmade goods market (once per month) in Stellenbosch called The Treasury Market (it ran for 2 years but I now only do pop-up markets). I met so many wonderful people through the market, and was itching to do something myself and so Ménagerie was born.

2. How / why Menagerie?

Ménagerie is an English word that was used to describe any collection of exotic animals that pre-dated the existence of zoos. It is now also used to describe an odd or eclectic assortment of things, which I thought was quite apt for my animal cushions. I like the name because it is derived from the French word 'ménage' meaning household, and mine is very important to me. Not to be confused with 'ménage à trois' though ;)

3. What do you love?

My kids, aged 5 and 2, inspire me every day. They are so unselfconsciously creative, and prove that it is still possible to do original things, something one often forgets in our pinterest/internet dominated world. I also just love living in Cape Town, visiting our many excellent markets (like the Milnerton market for finding aged treasures) and making use of our easy access to nature. I have a love/hate relationship with the interweb, I love keeping up to date with shifting trends but I feel one has to cut yourself off too so you are not too influenced by it. I am also very inspired by some local makers who have managed to build up some beautiful brands!

Pretty Personal with Cecile of the Menagerie

4. Can you tell us about the wonderful things Menagerie makes?

Menagerie makes a range of cushions that are silkscreened by hand on natural cotton. For the animal cushions I start with a photo that has some charm (for which I buy an extended license so I can use it for items for resale) and then I do some extensive photoshopping on it to enhance the charm and change it into a modern looking bitmap image. I am now starting to bring out some more colourful items and am especially excited about a screen printed doll I am designing.

5. Tell us something unusual about you / your trade / etc that people generally don't know.

Once my daughter, aged 4, snuck upstairs into my studio, where she is not really allowed in office hours, and this conversation happened:

She: "Mommy, what are you doooiiing?"

Me: "I am sewing."

She: "Whyyy?"

Me (a bit irritated since I was trying to finish something): "So I can make money so we can buy things."

She (looking at me dumbfounded): "But mommy, you aren't making money, you're making cushions!"

Lol, until I figure out how to just make the money, I will just have to keep making cushions!

Pretty Personal with Cecile of the Menagerie

Products shown:

Hello Pretty is Winding Down

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Hello Pretty's Birthday!

My very own Painting for Ants by Lorraine Loots

Pretty Personal with Riz & Resh of the Dollie House

Lee’s Start-the-New-Year-Right

Pretty Personal with Cecile from Ménagerie

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