A woman in a rust-orange shirt and dark trousers walks through a large, ornate museum gallery filled with carved stone monuments and sculptures. It is one of the sculpture halls at the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

Fabler’s Press is a small independent studio creating handmade paper goods inspired by the decorative arts of the past.

The idea grew out of my love for museums. I have always been fascinated by old tapestries, ancient textiles, painted ornaments and the intricate details found on objects made long before our time. 

The fabler is a storyteller. Motifs of animals, flowers, figures and fantastical creatures are all fragments of visual stories passed from one pair of hands to another. I’m especially drawn to the makers behind these things. The artisans whose names have been forgotten, but whose imagination remains woven into the patterns they left behind.

Fabler’s Press brings these fragments into the present, reinterpreting them as beautifully made paper goods for modern life. Each greeting card is made by hand, by me - Abida, with an appreciation for the character that comes from the process itself.

I don’t believe beautiful things need to be flawless. Like the objects found in museum cabinets that have gathered the patina of age, the irregularities of handmade work and the small imperfections of things that have been used and lived in reveal a certain kind of beauty. 

The intention is simple: to make paper goods that feel a little more special to give.