Starfish Lane

There’s only one place to go for stunning invitations that will impress your guests - and that’s Starfish Lane of course!

Beautiful Invitations for Every Occasion

Starting out as a small store in the Malaga market 25 years ago, Starfish Lane has since grown into a wonderland of beautiful papers, sparkling embellishments and beautiful prints.

While they once encompassed a large range of craft supplies, Starfish Lane have narrowed their focus to the art of invitation creation for every occasion.

This team of experts offer a range of services depending on your desired involvement level. For those in the category of time poor or lacking in the creative department, they can do everything for you from the designing, graphics, printing, cutting all the way to the assembling. For the easily excited craft lovers (me) you can browse the rainbow of coloured and textured papers for inspiration if you would rather DIY your invites. If you have a design in mind you can simply bring it in for printing, and every combination in between.

Unique Designs

As perfectionists, they print all the invitations themselves on their own quality paper for a higher quality finish. As well as invitations, they can make rsvp cards, save the dates, place cards, menu cards, seating plans and even creative pieces for guests to sign.

They also rent a portion of their store to vendors who operate online to give them a space to show off their skills and creations. They love supporting other small businesses and giving customers a place to browse more than just one aspect for their big day.

Of course Starfish Lane make invitations for all kinds of celebrations as well as weddings. From twenty-firsts, to christenings to anniversaries, they strive to provide the ultimate customer service experience and use their creative team to customise your invitations to reflect your own unique personality, and carry through the tone and theme of the overall event.

Crafters Paradise

For all the DIY-ers out there, Starfish Lane not only has shelves full of different textured, coloured and not to mention sparkly options when it comes to papers, they also stock a range of paper presses, lace trimmings, stamps, wax seals and any other trimmings you could possibly think of.

Owner Avrile Bird took over Starfish Lane almost 10 years ago upon emigrating from South Africa- where she also owned a large craft store. Although nervous at first to dive into something unknown, her fantastic team (some who still work alongside her today) helped her learn and gain confidence- and here she still is 10 years on.

Above and Beyond

Avrile says her main focus is to go above and beyond for her customers to ensure they are completely satisfied. The team can even create a mock-up of what you might like on the spot to make sure the client has a clear vision of what it will look like and that they are headed in the right direction.

Over her time in Starfish Lane, Avrile says she has seen many trends come and go, with graphics coming in in a big way in the last 5 years. The team at Starfish Lane have a focus on staying on top of the different demands and markets, and constantly evolve to keep themselves on the cutting edge with new ideas.

With so many samples around the store to use as jumping off points, the hardest part is narrowing your choice down to just one style you love. Or maybe you want to combine ideas from your favourite three. The beauty of it all is that it is entirely up to you.

Avrile says the top trends of the moment are laser cut invitations, navy blues and rose golds, glitter, marble and the ever popular (thanks to Pintrest) rustic vintage theme.

Personal Touch

Avrile says one of the best parts about her job is seeing the excitement on the customer’s faces when they see the finished product for the first time. It brings them great joy that they can produce something their clients can be proud of, and something they can look back on with fond memories in years to come.

One of Avrile’s favourite jobs to date was a design that was hand drawn by the customer’s 85 year old Russian grandmother. She had carefully drawn an English rose, the Turkish national flower and Russian national flower and hand written the details in Russian. She bought them into Starfish Lane with the hopes of turning them into her invitations, with specific numbers for one portion to be in Russian, some in English and the rest in Turkish- complete with the matching hand drawn emblems. Avrile was only too happy to oblige, and says the results were so stunning with such a beautiful personal touch.

Servicing all of Australia

Although there is a 14 business day turn around for the production of your order, there is also a quick and easy range you can choose from for last minute orders that can be finished in just three days.

Starfish Lane take orders from all around Australia, including rural areas. With most of their samples, templates and stock available to browse online, they never meet a number of customers face to face. Despite this fact, they are still determined to offer the best service possible, with one of the team member’s even sending step by step photo instructions on how to put everything together to make sure everything turns out perfectly.  

Although their website is extensive, Avrile says there is still nothing like coming into the store and seeing the quality and finer details you just don’t get from looking at a picture online.

Save the Stress

They have also seen on a number of brides-to-be coming to the store in tears after ordering wedding invitations from cheaper sites online, with the results turning out completely differently to what they thought they had ordered. While this a cheaper option, it often means paying twice for something that could have been done right the first time- and saving yourself from a lot of stress!

Avrile says it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete with online stores that are forcing so many of the boutique craft stores to close down all around Perth. Paired with larger chains like spotlight monopolising the market, it is slowly doing away with the unique niche stores we used to have and limiting the diverse range that was once available.

Support the Little Guys

Make sure to support local gems like Starfish Lane, who not only provide a gorgeous and unique finished product, but have the passion and knowledge to provide top quality service and answer any questions which can’t be matched by the larger chains.

Browse the fantastic range on their website, their Etsy store, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram and get inspired!

Visit their store and be amazed at 344 Fitzgerald St, North Perth