Perfect Match

If I were a pencil, you will be my sharpener -"I love you" - Perfect match made in heaven. Happy Valentine's Day to you and your soul mates. 😍💘💕❤️

Valentine's Galentine's Stay In Date (Part 2)

In Part 1 we have covered the food aspect for Valentine's / Galentine's stay in date. Now, we will work on the drinks! Yay! 🍹 

For drinks, to suit the fun googly eye paper cones that we have for the food, we have chosen Soda Pop - sweet and bubbly. To match the theme of the date, we will make our own drinks label for the soda pop. To play on the word SODA, we came up with two different labels "SODArling" (So Darling)  and "SODAteable" (SO Dateable) , along with a star filled confetti pattern. This also aligns well with the theme of love. We all will be a Darling to someone, and Dateable. 😍💘 Love is all around us.

To make the drinks labels follow the following steps :

1. Tools and Ingredients :

• 2 bottles of soda pop (we have gone with a nice pink rose lemonade from Fentimen's) 
• Double sided tape
• Scissors  
• A4 paper to print the drinks labels downloadable via this link . Each sheet contains 2 labels, good for 2 bottles.

2. With some soapy water remove the existing drinks labels.

3. Print the labels on to an A4 sheet of paper. With scissors, cut out each label.

4. Align the heart shape on the label to the center of each bottle.

5. Wrap the label round the bottle.  

6. When both ends meet, tape one end of the label with double sided tape to secure the label onto the soda pop bottle.

7. Repeat the steps for the above for the second bottle "SODArling". Oh darling! 

8. Et voilà your own bottled drinks fit for any date. Totally darling, totally dateable. Woop!!  🙌

Now you will have food and drinks all ready for this weekend's Valentine's / Galentine's day. Party time! 🎉 Happy Valentine's Day and have a lovely jubbly one. 😊💘💕

Valentine's Galentine's Stay In Date DIY (Part 1)

Whether it is Valentine's or a Galentine's that you are celebrating this weekend, if your plan is to stay at home, have some fun and snuggle in for some tv and movies we have the perfect stay in food and soda pop DIY project for it. Yay! Eyes see love, so let's celebrate L-O-V-E 💘😍

This DIY post will be a 2 part blog post. Part 1 we will run through how to make our "Eyes See Love, Snacks Cones". Yes! We are in love with eye patterns - we have illustrated some googly eyes and hearts 👀❤️ for this paper cone pattern - C-U-T-E-ness. Part 2 of the tutorial, we will be making some matching "SODArling , SODAteable SODA pop" DIY fizzy drinks labels. So, love, here we go!

1. Tools and Ingredients

• Scissors
• Prepared snacks such as microwave pop corn ( we chose pop corn, other alternative snacks such as fries, nuts, crisps, fish fingers, chicken nuggets are all good alternatives too - #nom 🍿🍟🍪🍫😋 )
• Stapler
• A4 paper to print "Eyes See Love Snack Cones" sheet which can be downloaded via this link 

2. Print "Eyes See Love Snack Cones" sheet from the downloaded file. Each sheet yields 2 cones. However, if you decide to "supersize me" it, it's also possible to upsize and use one sheet per cone. 

3. Trim away the white boarders, and fold the sheet in half.  

4. Using the scissors, cut the sheets to 2 equal halves.

​5. Roll sheet up to form a paper cone. 

​6. Staple to close the edge of the folds to form a cone.

​7. Repeat step 5-6 to make more paper cones.

8. ​Fill the paper cones with your prepared snacks.

9. Tickety boo! Food done ✔️. The snack cones are now ready to roll with the stay-in date.

As it is a stay in date, ( we love stay in dates especially during the cold winters ) so that we can be in our pjs and completely be in the most chilled out state.  We definitely love to have a movie on 🤓🎬 here's our top picks for this Valentine's / Galentine's :

• Leap Year  ( this year is a leap year so may be an apt film to watch )
• The Artist
• While You Were Sleeping
• P.S. I love you
• Zoolander
• I Give it A Year

Ta-ra for now. More tomorrow , on Part 2 of this blog post for the soda pop for this weekend's Valentine's / Galentine's stay in date. 😊💕🎉

Origami Cicada Bug

The studio has been bugged by a strong infection that doesn't seem to heal. Hopefully back in shape soon, apologies for the slow replies.  🤒😷🐛

An origami bug folded using paper from our latest "Have it your way Notepad" , soon to be released, to reflect our #currentmood

DOT LONDON - DOT LONDONER OF THE YEAR

Hurrah! Yay! We have been shortlisted for an award!

Our website has a dot london domain - iama.london . At the end of 2015, Dot London, London's very own domain has launched the inaugural Dot London Small Business Awards. We are extemely happy, over the moon, completely in awe and ecstatic to be shortlisted as the finalist for the category of "Dot Londoner of the Year".

The award's judges include head judge, BBC's Dragons' Den, entrepreneur Sarah Willingham, along with a judging team which include some of London's most prominent brands, including Meantime Brewery, Oliver Bonas, Brompton Bikes, Made.com and LEON Restaurants.

We Need Your Help 

Till 8th Janaury 2016, we'll require everyone's help to cast a vote for us to nominate us to be Dot Londoner of the Year. 

To vote for us  ( many thanks in advance ) : 

1. Click on the following link,  http://awards.london/dot-londoner-of-the-year.php 
2.  "Click to Vote" for IAMA.LONDON
3. Enter your email address to submit the vote  

Awards ceremony will be on the 21st January, 2016 and the results will be announced then.

Tree Massive - Grow the Tallest Tree in Instagram

Christmas is full of fun, cheer and Christmas Tree!  🎅🏻🎄

On Instagram we have recently been contacted by New Future Graphic (NFG Studio) - A London based full service Creative Agency, as they have started a very fun and creative grow a Christmas tree project on Instagram called "Tree Massive".

What does the Tree Massive project involve?

Digitally we need to decorate, create, embellish 3 Instagram squares - i.e. Three different Christmas tree image layers to help stack up the digital tree and make it grow tall, massively, fun and colourfully! YAY! This type of project is right up our alley - as it has all the fun factor and we like to create digital illustrations.

What did we create?

We stayed conventional, as we love baubles on Christmas trees. We decided to use our own hands to create the baubles and using the concept of dove hand shadows by overlapping our hands to make "Dove Hand Shaped" baubles - signifying peace, love and cheerfulness. After which we fasten these baubles to the trees with neon fluorescent ribbons. It's a combination of black and white photography, and some illustration - mix and matching.

Oh did we say that we also spread the rainbow hues across the 3 Instagram tree layers? 🌈🖌 

Interested? What do you need to do? 

Join this fun and festive project!

• Head to Tree Massive's website http://www.tree.construction (we even absolutely love how creative the web address is 🎄😋🎅🏻💻)
• Read the instructions available and download the templates
• Start creating
• Submit your 3 tree layers back to contact@newfuturegraphic.co.uk
• Wait and see the tree grow! 
• 👀 Take note! Quick quick there is still a bit of time as deadline is 21st December, 2015 and they will top the star on the tree! 🎄✨ 

Happy creating!  

Meet : Shop At The Museum

Shop at the Museum Christmas Pop Up at La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris - Photo courtesy of Yannick Debain.

It's our pleasure to introduce our latest stockist in Paris : Shop At The Museum www.shopatthemuseum.fr . What's best - we caught up with the founder Virginie Martin-Robin, to learn more about being a founder, museums, gifting, christmas and cakes in Paris and most important of all, to know about their latest Christmas Pop Up collaboration at La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris.

I AM A : What was the idea behind setting up Shop At the Museum ?

Virginie : During my travels all around the world, I love visiting all the museums' gift shops. I always thought how great it will be if we can find all of them in one place! Et voilà!

I AM A : Which museum is your favourite ?

Virginie : Le Musée de la vie Romantique ... so parisian :)

I AM A : Which museum gift store is your favourite ?

Virginie : Shop At The Museum www.shopatthemuseum.fr , because I can see and shop all the products from all my favourite museum shops!

I AM A : Soon it will be Christmas. What's the most important Christmas tradition for you ?

Virginie : Eating gingerbread and Christmas star biscuits!

I AM A : For picking gifts, what are important things you think about / features in gifts that you look for ?

Virginie : The designers, the illustrators. If the person who created the product have a good soul... it will be a good gift for sure.

I AM A : being a founder of Shop at the Museum, is that very different to what you want to be compared to your childhood dreams ?

Virginie : I am reaching step by step to my childhood dreams.

I AM A : If someone want to startup a business what will be your key advice to them ?

Virginie : Start! You will change your ideas many times during working, meeting people, and working with them. Trust your own skills, and find people who have different skills to yourself - that is the best way to improve yourself and the business.

I AM A : We love paris. Which is your favourite bistro and the best place to meet up with you?

Virginie : My canteen is Rose Bakery at Le Bon Marché. ( I am waiting for our lunch, Charmaine ). For work meetings, I like to be on the second floor at Le Café de Flore.

I AM A : Tell us more about your latest pop up project ?

Virginie : From 2nd of December 2015 until 3rd January 2016, Shop at the Museum has a Christmas Pop Up in Paris, at the shop at La Gaîté Lyrique.

The address is 3 bis rue Papin, 75003 Paris.

Shop at the Museum Christmas Pop Up Products Display at La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris - Photo courtesy of Yannick Debain. In this display, products include : Keith Haring Dominoes, Ich et Kar trays, I AM A Morse Code Pencils, Le Chocolat Des Francais chocolate and many many more very colourful and fun items. Shop Now at Shop at the Museum, and don't miss out to visit the store at La Gaîté Lyrique!

#Dontmissout on this special Christmas Pop Up in Paris and Follow Shop at the Museum :

• Website :  http://www.shopatthemuseum.fr
• Instagram : @shopatthemuseum
• Twitter : @shopatthemuseum
• Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/shopatthemuseum
• Pinterest : https://www.pinterest.com/shopatthemuseum/

How to Make A Match Box Advent Calendar

1st Decemeber! That's one of our favorite dates in the year. Why? It's 24 days to Christmas - and every morning, we can pop open the windows of our advent calendar, which only happens in the month of December. Every day, we eagerly look forward, to unveiling a little surprise - and of course, every day just gets that little bit closer to Christmas. Yay!!!

If like us, you like making something, and like gifting sweet little gifts, this tutorial on making your own advent calendar may be just up your alley.

Tools, Materials and Ingredients

• 24 match boxes ( recycling old match boxes will be the best )
• scissors
• double sided tape or glue ( our preference is to use a sticky tape roller such as the "Bostik Sticki Tape Roller" available from Ryman, as it keeps all sticking job dry and neat)
• 24 little gifts to fill the match boxes
• 3 pieces of A4 paper to print the numbered Match box wrappers that can be downloaded here

Cut each individual dates out and use either double sided tape or glue to attach the designs to the boxes. The designs will work for small rectangular boxes too. The idea is to make sure the designs cover the top of the box, or wrap around the box in the case of a match box. 

After the boxes are numbered with the individual days, fill them with little gifts. Our favorites have included: 

• tictacs 
• gold / silver chocolate coins available from Waitrose
• finger tattoos available from Paperchase
• hair bobbles
• key rings
• glitter paper clips
• stickers  
• hand written messages  
• vouchers
• pin badges
• lottery ticket  
• nail clipper
• cute buttons
• matches (why not?) 

After the boxes are filled. Mix them around to mix around the dates.

To display the match boxes, you can affix these boxes on to the wall with tape that does not strip off the paint from the wall e.g. 3M Command Poster Mounting Adhesive Strips, or simply line them up on a mantelpiece.

Have fun and happy counting down to Christmas!