Lonali

Reducing wastage is the driving force behind premium fashion brand House of Lonali. As owner and Lead Designer Lonali Rodrigo puts it, the brand is “all about upcycling and isn’t limited to just fashion.”

Lifestyle products like their signature notebooks are one-of-a-kind, perfect for the environmentally conscious. The notebooks are unique by nature, made locally with 100% sustainable materials such as upcycled fabric and recycled paper mixed with banana fibre.  Most importantly, according to Lonali, the notebooks are made by Women in Need. The brand is conscious of their social impact, and the small design team of two work closely with individuals and cottage industry for the production process.

House of Lonali retails at The Design Collective in Kirulapone and Urban Island in Colombo 7. They also retail in the United Kingdom, and will be available soon in Singapore and the UAE.

To buy directly, contact them on Facebook and @houseoflonali on Instagram.

Night Shades sell a range of stationery including notebooks, reward stickers, weekly planners, corkboards, scrapbooks and more — designed and sourced according to their brand values. Oenone hopes to expand her range of locally-made products in the future.

“All of our products have a touch of inspiration that reflects our brand values to empower and create resilient individuals.” she tells us.

Night Shades currently operates online through Facebook and Instagram @nightshadesstationery, with both pickup and delivery options available.

Keep an eye out for Night Shades at various pop up sales, or browse their range of scrapbooks at Cotton+Paper in Bambalapitya.

VS Crafty
Creating cards was owner of VS Crafty, Vindya Perera’s hobby since she made cards for her friends in school. After leaving school, she turned it into a business and her client list expanded through referrals and Facebook.

“I love to see the joy in my client’s eyes when they see the card that I’ve created,” she tells us. As such, her cards aren’t bulk made, and are created according to the client’s wishes with the help of her family. Factors like size, colour, card stock, paper patterns, embellishments, details of the occasion, inspiration from clients, etc are all discussed and sketched out to create the perfect handmade card.

VS Crafty focuses on creating specialised greeting cards for any occasion or season, with normal printing or foil printing on request. They also do customized scrapbooks, photo albums/booklets, memory books, ink calligraphy for any document (like wedding invitations), and much more on request, with finished products available for pick up or delivery. They operate through Facebook and Instagram @vscrafty, as well as pop up markets.

Hello Pepper
Owner of Hello Pepper Ishika Perera believes that cards are more meaningful than gifts sometimes. Coupled with her realisation that there aren’t enough locally-designed greeting cards, she created Hello Pepper, focusing on Sri Lankan designs which celebrate the positive side of Sri Lanka while also addressing the negative.

The cards are created by Ishika herself, where she applies her meticulous planning skills gained from her career in architecture, from rough sketches to final digital designs. She started with locally themed Christmas cards, with themes like Architectural Representations of a Local Christmas, Current Affairs with a Seasonal Twist, Christmas with a Conscience and Christmas representations of Sri Lankan elements. From there, she designed a range of Birthday, Valentine’s Day, Anniversary, Apology and all purpose cards using local elements such as Araliya flowers, jambu, donkeys, etc.

With so much local inspiration to be found, from culture to current events, her designs are ever evolving. Hello Pepper cards are sold at Pendi, Barefoot and The Design Collective, and bulk orders can be done directly.