Greetings Today September October 2023

Natural History. Reinvented.

Editor Naomi MacKay naomi@lemapublishing.co.uk

Advertising Manager Marian McNamara marian@lemapublishing.co.uk 01442 289940

Managing Director Mark Naish mark@lemapublishing.co.uk

Production Director Paul Naish paul@lemapublishing.co.uk

Design Rick Vickers rick@lemapublishing.co.uk

Chairman Malcolm Naish malcolm@lemapublishing.co.uk

Circulation Manager Robert Thomas robert@lemapublishing.co.uk

I’m writing this in the middle of August - supposedly the height of the summer holidays, but since my return from my own vacation abroad a couple of weeks ago, it’s done little but rain! Let’s hope that as we head into autumn - and the start of the season’s shows - that the weather improves.

It would be nice not to drive in the rain up to Autumn Fair, which takes place from September 3 to September 6 at the NEC Birmingham. But whatever is happening outside, there should be plenty to raise the spirits inside, with a plethora of greeting and stationery products, and no less than nine Greeting Card Association (GCA) members making their show debut. Look out for Fox Under The Moon’s founder Stacey McNeill, who features in our Artist Focus on page 57.

Autumn Fair will also be supporting the GCA’s Thinking Of You Week (September 18-24); a special

week that harnesses the emotional power of greeting cards to create a wave of love, caring and happiness. The GCA is also running a national campaign and activity designed to remind UK consumers how much they love sending and receiving cards - and that cards build connections. Find out more about this in GCA News on p12.

Of course, there are also other trade shows to look forward to. Top Drawer A/W opens at Olympia London from September 10-12, where visitors will be able to explore eight sectors: Home, Gift, Greetings & Stationery, Fashion, Craft, Food Emporium, Play, and Wellbeing. The show’s ninth sector, Launchpad, is the perfect place to find unique pieces from new brands before anyone else.

Over in Europe, Insights-X is the place to be for ‘Stationery, Office, Bags and more’. Held at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre from October 11-14, tickets for the show are on sale now. If you need a little inspiration for your own stationery offering before then, take a look at our focus on p52.

One of our most popular features in this issue is Gifts and Cards for Garden Centres. Since the mid-1990s, when I first started working within the UK gardening press, with the Royal Horticultural Society and publishing magazines for a number of garden centresthe idea of the ‘destination’ garden centre has grown exponentially.

No longer do they just sell shrubs and annuals - most have pretty sizable card and gift areas, as well as cafes, restaurants, farm shops and play areas. Many run special attractions throughout the year, from Santa breakfasts at Christmas, to craft workshops and garden talks. Indeed, they are so popular, that coach companies even run trips to the larger centres. So it’s a sector that card publishers and gift makers should not ignore - and if you are a garden centre buyer, we’ve gathered some great cards and gifts that we think are just right for your targeted audience.

We also catch up with our cover story star

Send your views and submissions for the magazine to naomi@lemapublishing.co.uk

Museums & Galleries, to take an in-depth look at its Natural History Museum licensed range - you’ll discover some fascinating and stunning images within it.

And we focus on Verse & Sympathy cards - helping you to get the balance right when your customers want to find the right words for those hard times in people’s lives. Plus, there’s something for the ladies with our Feminine & Mother’s Day focus.

Here’s hoping that by the time you read this the sun has deigned to make an appearance again, before autumn is upon us!

As always, I’m happy to hear from anyone who has news or views, or who would like to take part in our features, retail interviews, shop talk and more.

Email me at naomi@lemapublishing.co.uk, connect on LinkedIn - or say hello when I’m walking the show aisles!

Editor Naomi MacKay

Insights-X tickets on sale now

The brands are back in town – this is the motto under which the international stationery sector will meet up for the eighth Insights-X. The trade fair for ‘Stationery, Office, Bags and more’ is already recording a higher booking rate than for last year.

Well-known brands and innovative startups will ensure that a wide variety of products is on display at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre, from October 11-14 including eXtra-Day. At www.insights-x.com/en/tickets, trade visitors can now register for the event and apply for tickets at a price of €15.

The ticket to Insights-X is valid for all the days of the event. From Wednesday to Friday, exhibitors will be providing the trade with the best possible overview of the market in Halls 10, 11, and 12. On each of these days, Insights-X is open from 9am-6pm (Hall 12 open to 5pm on the Friday). The trade audience has a further opportunity to visit the fair on Saturday’s eXtra-Day, when exhibitors will be offering creative inspiration for range selection from 9am-5pm in Halls 10 and 11.

To assist with networking and efficient preparation for a visit to the fair, several digital tools are also available to the trade. The key source of information is the Insights-X website, which has a new and fresh design for the start of ticket sales. Alongside interactive hall plans, this also provides a compact overview of all participating companies, as well as a networking area: after setting up their own profile, retailers and buyers will have the opportunity to arrange appointments in advance with exhibitors and to chat with other participants.

Another helpful feature is the Insights-X app, through which buyers and retailers will always have all the relevant information on the fair at their fingertips. The networking area automatically synchronises with the website so that chats, appointment requests and contacts can be conveniently called up on multiple devices.

Details at www.insights-x.com/en

Finalists in Henries’ Best Service Awards

More than 1,700 independent greeting card retailers voted for their favourites in the Henries’ Best Service to the Independent Retailer Award.

In the running for the title are:

Abacus Cards; Alljoy Design; Dandelion Stationery; International Cards & Gifts; Noel Tatt; Ohh Deer; Paperlink; Pigment; The Art File; UK Greetings; Woodmansterne Publications, and Words ’n’ Wishes

There are three trophies up for grabs - gold, silver and bronze. The Henries 2023 Awards event takes place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London on Thursday October 5.

Also to be announced on the night, alongside winners in a number of categories, is the Henry Cole Classic Award, which goes to a range that has stood the test of time.

Finalists are…

Boofle from UK Greetings; Norbert & Val from Emotional Rescue; One Lump Or Two from Holy Mackerel; Paper Shakies from James Ellis; Photocaptions from Cath Tate Cards, and Quicksilver from Wendy Jones-Blackett.

Betty goes into books

Tracey Colliston, the owner of Ginger Betty, is introducing her very first children’s book series. The first book of four, ‘Love and HugsWinter,’ is published by Boxer Books, a part of Barnes and Noble.

In 2020, Tracey won the ‘License This’ competition, and won a stand at The Brand Licensing Europe exhibition at Excel, where Tracey’s Owl’s Nest illustrations caught the eye of Boxer Books, who spotted that the forest characters and heartfelt sentiment in the Owl’s Nest cards would work well in childrens’ books.

“It was one of those lucky moments where things just clicked. We began to share ideas and the ‘Love and Hugs’ idea was imagined. We wanted to keep that warm and fuzzy feeling from our greeting cards; friendship, connections, and illustrations that feel like a cosy hug,’’ Tracey said.

The very first book, ‘Love and Hugs, Winter’, is launching this October in both the UK and US. It features Ginger Betty characters, but with some new friends to join the fun.

“Love and Hugs is the perfect book to snuggle up and read with your little ones, and share a story full of those warm, fuzzy connections that make us smile,’’ Tracey said.

www.gingerbetty.co.uk

Rainbow Designs appoints new key account manager

Rainbow Designs is further strengthening its successful sales team with the appointment of Brett Bamberger to the position of key account manager.

Brett brings with him a wealth of experience in the baby and nursery categories. Brett has more than eight years’ experience working with well-established nursery brands including Mamas & Papas and Artsana.

Rainbow Designs has been inspiring kids for more than 50 years, developing and creating high-quality, joyful forever toys for some of the most-loved story book characters such as Peter Rabbit, Paddington Bear, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Brett is delighted to be joining the Rainbow family and excited to be working with these famous brands. “I am really proud to join and be a part of the family here at Rainbow Designs, The home of Classic Characters. With over 50 years of bringing innovative and contemporary soft toys and gifts to babies and young children, I am looking forward to delivering these exciting brands to retailers.”

Expansion plans for Nature’s Diary

Following on from the success of Cherry Orchard’s recent launch of its eco range Nature’s Diary, the company it planning to extend it with Relations and Occasions titles. The range features artwork handpainted by creative director Beverley Fisher (see Artist Focus, p19), which explores nature, habitats and flowers from around the UK.

Managing director Jackie Collins said: “Wherever we can, we are looking at ways of reducing non-recyclable finishes along with reducing the amount of plastic we use going forward. Working closely with Gloucester-based Alpha Colour Printers for over 20 years, we are always keen to be briefed on any new environmental progression within the printing sector. We are extremely proud of our Nature’s Diary range, created in-house by Beverley, and the steps we took to offer a fully recyclable card, along with FSC board and a carbon neutral print.“

info@cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

Area Sales Rep

Swatch this space

Specialist independent Kent-based paper merchant Fenner Paper has produced a new Eco Swatch to showcase its ranges of recycled, upcycled and alternative fibre papers and boards.

These paper ranges include vibrant 100% recycled colours and papers made with waste fibres from the leather, textiles and food manufacturing industries. There are even papers containing grape skins and olives that are by-products from producing champagne and olive oil!

Fenner Paper has been supplying eco papers to the greeting card and design industries since the 90s, when it introduced Alga Carta, a board that contains seaweed dredged from the Venice Lagoon. Recent additions to its range are Paperwise, made from agricultural waste fibres, and Inclusions Coffee, which is 100% recycled and contains coffee processing residues.

Fenner Paper’s boards are used by greeting card publishers and printers of all sizes. Pre-cut and creased card blanks in virtually any size are also available and are perfect for handmade card artists.

To find out more about how Fenner Paper can help you choose the right boards for your cards and to receive a copy of the new Eco Swatch, email papergirl@fennerpaper.co.uk

Royal connections

Tim Reynolds, manager of South Kensington’s Medici Gallery card shop, has enjoyed some right royal celebrations and he and his team have got creative with their famous windows over the summer, but as we head towards autumn, a dark cloud hangs over the shop…

Greetings from South Kensingtonthe centre of the UK for design, dinosaurs, and of course the greeting card universe. This is not just because the Medici Gallery is situated there, but also the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) does have probably the largest collection of greetings cards in the world, thanks to some very generous bequests in the past, and not least for its connection to Henry Cole, sender, it is thought, of the very first Christmas card.

Since I last wrote about our shop - perhaps at least three Prime Ministers and two monarchs ago - we have continued to enjoy good sales. This is not least to do with our Royal connections (placed as we are in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea). But as well as the late Queen’s Jubilee, we of course enjoyed an actual

coronation. And yes, the fly-past did travel right over us, truncated as it was due to the weather on the actual day.

For the above two royal events, Mark Jameson of Special Delivery Cards, kindly allowed us to blow up (not in an explosive way!) each of his representations of HRH The Queen, plus her corgis and also his new depiction of King Charles in all his regalia (but minus Queen Camilla) to near life-size. These cutouts were made possible by our wonderful printer Steve, at our head office. They made for quite an attraction in our window.

The other stars for both events that must be mentioned are the products - an apron, tea towel, ceramics and cards that Victoria Eggs designs. All the stock I ordered at Top Drawer sold out, with re-orders placed. Along with the brilliant designs by Alison Gardiner and the ever-inventive Talking Tables, we had our best ever spring season.

We have also benefited from the continued influx of tourists from all around the world into London and of course many of those were heading to the big museums on our doorstep. When numbers are particularly high arriving via the South Ken Tube station, which sits just below us, the underpass at the museum is closed, for fear of a stampede in the event of an emergency evacuation. When everybody is directed above ground, even more visitors have the chance of seeing our window and being tempted inside.

As I write this, the turf (not real of course) is laying in all its glory for our ‘legendary’ Wimbledon window. Currently Peter Rabbit is playing Jemima Puddleduck (the plush toys from Enesco are holding rackets) and they are surrounded by some great action black and white cards from Holy Mackerel’s Alternative Image range. Even Morecambe and Wise are there in tennis gear! And Little Fingy finger puppets look on from the grandstand. My

colleague Charles’ brilliant idea!

Our next window will be a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh, as not only is it the 50th anniversary of the opening of the museum dedicated to him in Amsterdam, but it was also the theme of this year’s Reta Awards, for which we were nominated once again for the Best Independent Card Shop within the M25 category. We have some fabulous props to include and Pomegranate publishes many great cards of his painting. Flame Tree also makes a superb array of Van Gogh magnetic notebooks; without doubt our bestselling range.

So a very exciting summer and autumn for our Medici team of three full-timers and three part-timers. We open seven days a week and look forward to being in our characterful Victorian building for another 85 years.

However, following the inquiry conducted by Zoe Hill earlier in the year, Transport for London (or landlord) and Native Land (its developers) appealed to the Secretary of State after our local councillors last year unanimously voted out their proposal for development of South Kensington Tube station. If she decides in TfL’s favour then…sting in the tale coming… our building will be demolished.

Tim Reynolds, right, with assistant manager Charlie Wheatley

Holy Mackerel

Discovering new talent

The GCA’s New Creative Talent scheme aims to showcase the work of young designers and encourage them to join the industry.

The first university to sign up is Birmingham City University, which is now a GCA member and is showcasing the work of eight of its graduating students who hope to find work within the greeting card industry (see www.gca.cards/directory/birminghamcity-university).

GCA CEO Amanda Fergusson said: ‘’This is part of the GCA’s work to protect and promote our industry - it is really important to share information about our industry and to offer a route into the greeting card industry for the designers of the future. And of course to share the joy of greeting cards with the card senders of the future too!’’

The scheme is being led by creative consultant Geoff Sanderson, who has spent many years recruiting and developing greeting card designers in businesses such as Tigerprint/M&S, Hallmark and Moonpig.

He recently visited the New Designers graduate event at London’s Business Design Centre, to publicise the initiative.

The GCA has also been working with Tracy Allanson-Smith, visual communication employability coordinator at Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts, who says the benefits of the scheme for card publishers include: an oppportunity to recruit new creative talent; get new ideas and innovation, fresh perspectives, enthusiasm and energy; and find new untapped talent who bring technologically advanced approaches.

Universities, colleges and art schools can find out more about the benefits for them and their students at www.gca.cards/connecting-students-with-the-greetingcard-industry.

Last few conference tickets up for grabs!

If you haven’t booked your ticket for the GCA Conference, now’s the time to act - as there’s only a few remaining tickets left. The conference takes place at Leeds’ Royal Armouries Museum on Thursday September 28.

Amanda Fergusson said: ‘’We are thrilled that Adam Dury, chief commercial officer at Card Factory will be joining us. Passionate about the card industry, where he has worked for over 25 years as both publisher and retailer, Adam will be sharing his view of the greeting card market along with some interesting consumer insights. He will also talk about Card Factory, changes they are seeing on the high street, how they work with other publishers, and sharing some

background on Card Factory’s journey, which started out from the back of a van!’’

Talking about sustainability will be Mark Jessett, paper consultant from G.F. Smith. He said: “I am delighted to be asked to speak at the GCA’s Leeds Conference, looking at the good things we are already doing in the card industry to reduce our environmental impact, and sharing the knowledge and experience we have at G.F Smith to consider further changes that can be made.”

Market research company Kantar is back by popular demand - consumer insights director Moneeba Baloch is joining the conference for the first time, along with Ni Wang who presented to last year’s conference in Nottingham.

UK Greetings is hosting a meet-up drink in Leeds city centre at The Lost & Found Leeds Club from 6pm on September 27.

Book tickets at www.gca.cards/2023gca-conference-and-agm-thursday-28thseptember-2023

Thinking of You Week is nearly upon us, running from September 18-24.

The retail kit has been designed by Rebecca Green at Raspberry Blossom and can be downloaded for free at www. thinkingofyouweek.cards/toolkit. You don’t have to be a GCA member to access this.

A number of retail kits have also been printed by The Imaging Centre and sent out to retailers, while Graphite printed packs for a number of card publishers to send to their independent retailers.

There’s also a new Instagram account@thinkingofyouweek_uk.

Get GCA’s Caring at Christmas campaign off to a cracking start

The Greeting Card Association’s Caring at Christmas campaign is encouraging members to bring the joy of Christmas card sending and receiving to care homes.

The idea began with Matt Genower, MD at Five Dollar Shake, who organised sessions at local care homes last year. The idea is to team up with a home in your area and encourage them to have a card writing and sending session planned into their weekly activity schedule.

You can take in a selection of cards - and pens! - and get everyone busy writing, then arrange for them to be franked or posted.

Matt said: “Ultimately the initiative is about two things; firstly, showing the good that Christmas card writing does, and secondly, it’s genuinely a really lovely and rewarding activity to be a part of. Our two visits last year had a really positive impact. Our goal is to spread this right across the country, in as many care homes as possible – There is such an opportunity to spread the good that our industry can do.’’

Postal strikes last year meant many missed out on connecting with friends and family, but this year, there won’t be any strikes, so this campaign aims to start a wave of card sending across the UK, encouraging everyone to post early and share the joy of Christmas cards.

Email adriana@gca.cards to let her know the home(s) you are visiting, or if you know a care home but aren’t able to visit yourself and would like the GCA to find a local publisher who could. Find out more at www.gca.

Make a #Cardmitment

The GCA is working with communication partner Arena PR on a national PR campaign to remind UK consumers that the simple act of sending a card can have a positive, powerful impact on individuals, communities and society.

The aim is to share the joy of cards, and one of the ways they will do this is by amplifying activity from across our industry reminding UK consumers how much they love sending and receiving cards.

To help them produce interesting press releases and campaigns, Andrea Ross and Nick Agarwal (pictured), at Arena PR would love to hear from GCA members with fun and quirky stories of card sending, charity initiatives, customer feedback and more.

You can email them at gca@arena-pr.com.

You can also encourage your customers to tag via the #Cardmitment hashtag – and follow the new GCA Instagram page at @cardmitment.

The GCA is looking to raise funds to maximise the extent of this campaign, and has already received £27,000. You can donate at www.gca.cards/product/donation.

Adam Dury

Mark Jessett

Geoff Sanderson

The Thinking of You Week wall at Harrogate Home & Gift

Christmas goes wild

New from the Eco-friendly Card Co is a small collection of charity Christmas card packs for The Wildlife Trusts featuring artwork by illustrator Ralph Steadman. Best known for his satirical cartoons in the New Statesman and Rolling Stone magazines, the Christmas designs originate from the Gonzovation Trilogy (books written by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy), which tell the stories of the dangers faced by so many creatures today and the work being carried out to help protect them.

The Christmas cards are printed on 100% recycled board and come with 100% recycled envelopes packed in compostable cornstarch bags. Packs contain eight cards of one design (153mm square) and include a charity donation of 55p to the Wildlife Trusts.

The Eco-friendly Card Co 01626 369269 | www.ecofriendly.cards

spotlight

Hearts for all

One of Joe Davies’ new lines is Heartfelt Art, a collection of framed ceramic sentiment plaques. Each plaque has a delicate cream ceramic heart, butterfly, house, angel, and star shape adorned with pretty pastel designs and finished with highlights of metallic gold, mounted on to a grey background and framed in a white frame.

They are available in small or large sizes with a range of sentiment messages for friends, family and home; something for everyone. Not only do they make a timeless gift for a cherished loved one, they make exquisite pieces of art for any home décor.

There are 24 designs of small plaques and 24 large plaques that all fit onto a four-sided spinner that holds 72 small frames and 72 large frames and also comes available with a printed header card.

Hearts are also integral to the Equilibrium Te Amo Collection. The classic heart-shape jewellery always holds a timeless appeal and is often cherished for its sentimental value. The new Equilibrium Te Amo collection from Joe Davies offers a range of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings all with beautiful heart-shaped designs enhanced with sparkling diamantes. ‘Te Amo’ means ‘I love you’ in Spanish so it’s the ideal way to send a message of love to that special person.

This stylish range of jewellery will add a touch of elegance to any outfit, giving the perfect finishing touch.

Joe Davies 0161 975 6300

Gracious evolution

The Grace and Grayson range from Cherry Orchard Publishing has had unprecedented positive feedback from retailers and is going from strength to strength. The range continues to evolve,adding more titles and artwork. The publisher has now launched an attractive offer to retailers featuring the top 28 open birthday designs along with a spinner and free stock!

And the Carnival range from Cherry Orchard Publishing has had a revamp. After listening to retailers who were demanding traditional style artwork, the publisher has developed the collection. The 14 Code 50 open birthday designs have gorgeous artwork along with gold foil detailing and a new die cut edge, and come with an attractive coloured envelope.

Cherry Orchard Publishing 01684 295500

info@cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

Spooky season

There’s been plenty of bumps in the night going on at Décopatch as the popular paper crafting brand is launching a selection of new seasonal mâché shapes and papers to its collection of spooky Halloween-themed products.

In addition to the wide range of creepy pumpkins, cauldrons, ghosts and other fiendish creations, a new terrifying haunted house is available. With a door and series of windows incorporated into the design, you can create an eerie atmosphere by inserting an LED light (not included) through the side hatch.

A mystical witch holding a crystal ball that stands 20cm tall and smaller 12cm model that features a witch taking a flight on her broomstick will also be offered as part of the selection.

A new limited-edition foil paper pack is also being released for Halloween. It contains four co-ordinating 30x40cm sheets with exclusive patterns enhanced with black and golden foil effect highlights. These are just two from the range of more than 40 assorted packs.

ExaClair

01553 696600

lawrences@exaclair.co.uk

www.exaclairlimited.com

Range blossoms into new collection

Rush Design is excited to release a new collection - Florere. The range will initially launch as a collection of 12 female birthday designs along with eight relations/ special friend captions. Designer and owner Lorraine Bradley explains: “I wanted to capture the essence of the original Blossom range, which I created in 2019. Bringing together elements from the original collection while introducing new colour palettes and styles.’’

The cards will be printed on quality 300gsm board and finished with eco glitter and diamantes, and matched with a textured cream envelope to complete the look.

Since it first started in 2014, one of the principal aims at Rush Design is that all cards are always UK produced. Everything is printed in the UK using board made in the UK and matched with envelopes produced in the UK.

Rush Design

01788 521745

info@rushdesign.co.uk

www.rushdesign.co.uk

New tricks for Xmas

At Autumn Fair, The Seed Card Company (TSCC) team has a lot of new tricks up its sleeves. They have added new designs to some of their most popular collections: Continuous, The Doodlings and the fan favourite; Plant Pot People. This year they’ve taken some more great puns, some of their best watercolour illustrations, and a spin on a Christmas classic.

On top of that, TSCC is launching two new greetings card collections. Winter Love is a seasonal take on the popular Summer Love range with all Christmas designs, and Winter Woolies, which is a nod to seasonal Fair Isle design sweaters.

As well as new cards, the TSCC gang have created matching gift tag sets and a whole bunch of new notecard designs focusing on bright bold florals. This year, as a new product range, The Seed Card Company has decided to also offer packs of five notecards and envelopes, as well as the standard 10, so there are now two pack sizes available. The gift tags come in packs of three, with a different design from the chosen collection on each tag.

The Seed Card Company 0207 183 5334

trade@theseedcardcompany.com

Coastal Conkers

Seaside Shanty is Utterly Conkers’ new collection inspired by the wild Cornish coast where founder and artist Emma Harrison has visited family for many years. With 12 watercolour illustrated designs featuring shells and crustaceans, this range offers a bright, stylish take on a coastal theme with gentle humour to conjure a smile whether you live on the coast or just love all things seaside and salty. Covering popular occasions including birthday, good luck, new home and thank you, some designs are available as blanks, size 150 x 150mm, printed on luxury 350gsm FSC certified white board, accompanied by a recycled kraft brown envelope and pre-packaged with a sticker clasp. All cards are blank inside. Utterly

Museum pieces of art

Museums & Galleries has developed a collection of distinctive, targeted fine art ranges from the iconic Natural History Museum

In many ways, the Natural History Museum’s (NHM) collections seem to be a perfect match for greeting cards. Animals of all kinds are a firm favourite with the public, and this love affair extends to organisms of the far distant past – the dinosaurs – through to modern wild fauna and household companions of today. Many people identify with a ‘totem animal’ and human civilisation has always delighted in the wonders of nature. Today, this keen interest in nature has developed into a public desire to conserve wildlife and the natural environment, and enhance the welfare of animals in general, all making faunaand flora- centred card ranges a hit with consumers.

The Natural History Museum is a world-leading science centre and one of the most visited attractions in the UK. A global source of curiosity, inspiration, and joy, with more than 80 million specimens, it is the custodian of one of the world’s most important scientific collections, spanning 4.5 billion years. Its 350 scientists are also finding solutions to the planetary emergency.

In today’s challenging times, the Natural History Museum aims to create advocates for the planet; to inspire individuals to make a positive difference to our shared global future. Also, as an iconic heritage brand, its licensing department develops innovative products that reflect the Museum’s core values and inspire a love of the natural world.

Museums to the high street

Museums & Galleries Ltd (M&G) was founded in the mid-1980s to bring the treasures of the world’s museums to the high street. Today, the company publishes a large range of high-quality greeting cards, gift packaging, social stationery, journals, gift products, calendars and year planners, and works with many national and local museums.

The archives of the NHM hold a huge array of all kinds of representations of flora and fauna from many cultures over centuries, offering a tremendous choice of imagery to select from. From the branded card range’s inception in 2018, Museums & Galleries’ NHM cards have grown in number and developed in style and approach, with the NHM’s licensing team and M&G’s design teams working together to create a coherent, attractive and modern stylistic approach to diverse source material, with an emphasis on finding a unique, commercially

distinctive card range identity.

Iconic animals are paired with decorative vegetative motifs and framed against fresh pastel backgrounds with crisp, enhanced borders. The animals pop, whether it’s a Tyrannosaurus rex, octopus, hedgehog or butterfly. Paired with white envelopes and M&G’s distinctive ecoband packaging with clear NHM brand identification, the range is smart and distinctive on shelf (individual cards SRP £2.85).

M&G’s creative interpretation of NHM imagery is also seen on two quite distinct ages birthday ranges, one more decoratively feminine and the other bold and masculine in feel, although not necessarily exclusively so. Both ranges feature NHM archival imagery arranged around the birthday number (SRP £2.85).

Of course, since the rise of photography in the 20th century, this medium has become a key tool for both academic and public education, and through the artistic and technical skills of the photographer wonderfully enhances emotional impact and realistic immediacy of the subject.

Wildlife photography

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is an international showcase of the very best in nature photography and one of the Natural History Museum’s most successful, long-running exhibitions. Today more than a million visitors visit the touring exhibition across the UK and internationally.

It is the most prestigious wildlife photography contest in the world. The first

“Wildlife Photographer of the Year is a perfect blend of ‘art’ and ‘emotional content’ – which is just what Museums & Galleries customers appreciate’’

Ben Dorney, creative director, Museums & Galleries

competition was held back in 1964, with three categories and around 600 entries. The competition has received entries from 100 countries, and in 2020 the competition received more than 50,000 entries.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year celebrates and amplifies the power of photography, to move hearts and minds, sparking change. Contextualised and empowered by Museum science, the winning images tell remarkable stories that spark emotive reactions that benefit the planet. They are also made more personal through the photographers’ stories.

Maxine Lister, head of licensing at the Natural History Museum, says: “We are delighted to have worked alongside the team at Museums & Galleries to develop such a beautiful collection of greeting cards that showcase some of the incredible photography on offer from the archives of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Not only do the cards highlight the true diversity of nature on our planet, they are also kind to the planet as they come with minimal, paper-based packaging and are fully recyclable.”

Sustainability

M&G is committed to a continuous process of review and change to improve sustainability in all its operations. It was at the forefront of reducing plastic packaging for its cards, developing the ingenious, completely paper-based plastics-free ecoband that neatly ties card and envelope together while at the same time providing the most powerful branding solution.

Ben Dorney, creative director at Museums & Galleries, says: “For us Wildlife Photographer of the Year is a perfect blend of ‘art’ and ‘emotional content’ – which is just what Museums & Galleries customers appreciate. We were honoured to be asked by Maxine at the Natural History Museum to consider working with them on it, and then very quick to confirm our interest once we saw the photographs.

“We were blown away by the quality and originality of the images which are – literally – award-winning. In addition, the competition’s aims ‘to create advocates for the planet’, and its ownership by the Museum, adds a genuine environmental urgency and potency to the licence.

“For such a complex project involving so many photographers, Maxine and Georgie have made it an incredibly smooth process. We’re thrilled to be launching the range and have already received extremely positive responses from retailers on first sight of it.

“We’re excited to add more amazing pictures to the range as we progress!”

Launched in January 2022, M&G’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year range has grown to almost 40 designs, with more in the pipeline. It’s a brilliant celebration of the best of wildlife photography, with a dazzling array of stunningly original action shots – but always remembering the beauty and awesomeness of nature. Among all the iconic lions, whales, elephants, and hippos, the current bestseller overall is a serene, meditative ‘Lady Lake Fir’ by photographer Adam Gibbs (pictured top, second right).

In its wider stationery, gift packaging, gifts and tabletop ranges, M&G licenses coordinating Natural History Museum images, including journals, writing sets, organic cotton tote bags, zipped pouches and pencil cases, jigsaw puzzles, travel tumblers and drinks bottles.

“ Not only do the cards highlight the true diversity of nature on our planet, they are also kind to the planet as they come with minimal, paperbased packaging and are fully recyclable’’

Maxine Lister, head of licensing at the Natural History Museum

Thriving in the digital age

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a topic of much conversation and news hours, but could it also be an empowering tool for small gift shops and independents to thrive in the digital age?

From personalised customer experiences to streamlined inventory management, AI offers an array of solutions. But can they work for smaller retailers? I asked ChatGPT to tell me how it thought it could help, and then edited its words with my thoughts and views on its solutions.

virtual assistants can engage with customers and answer basic queries. But many a time I’ve found myself asking a chatbot if I can speak to a real person.

Inventory management, with its predictive analytics, can help anticipate demand patterns, ensuring that the right products are stocked in optimal quantities. This not only minimises storage costs and reduces wastage, but also enhances the overall shopping experience by preventing out of stocks and backorders.

Automating your supply chain processes can lead to cost savings and efficiency gains, allowing businesses to allocate resources more strategically. But I still feel like this would need overseeing with a retailer’s instinct.

AI can also help you implement dynamic pricing strategies, allowing you to adjust prices based on real-time factors such as demand, competitor

pricing, and inventory levels. The algorithms optimise pricing decisions, helping you strike the right balance between profitability and attracting customers with competitive pricing.

AI-powered marketing tools can target specific customer segments with tailor-made advertisements. Through social media and online advertising platforms, you can reach your ideal audience, increasing the chances of converting leads into loyal customers.

For all business owners, keeping abreast of developments in AI is key. And in my view, some elements it can offer, such as streamlining more mundane tasks and admin, are definitely worth exploring. However, letting it own the relationship with your customers takes away the strength that smaller businesses and independents do well in terms of genuinely knowing their customers and interacting with them in person.

One aspect of AI you might want to consider lies in its ability to create personalised customer experiences. By analysing customer data, AIpowered systems can gain insights into individual preferences, purchasing behaviour, and trends.

Armed with this knowledge, you can offer targeted product recommendations, discounts, and promotions to entice customers and foster brand loyalty. The devil’s advocate in me would say a good shopkeeper knows these things instinctively already - but do you have the time to do anything about them?

Chatbots are another AI tool that allows businesses to offer 24/7 customer support. These

Sara Allbright is a director and co-founder of Retail100 Consulting, which is a consultancy firm with 100 years of retail experience that helps retailers and brands grow. Prior to Retail10 Consulting, Sara worked in buying roles at John Lewis & Partners for 18 years, predominantly for home and seasonal categories, including eight years leading gift and home fragrance buying. She has specialised in brand relationships and growing small emerging brands into market leaders. Sara is also experienced in own-label sourcing across multiple categories and countries.

Email: hello@retail100consulting.co.uk

Visit: www.retail100consulting.co.uk | www.linkedin.com/company/retail100-consulting

Retail100 Consulting director and co-founder Sara Allbright explains why she believes that some elements that AI can offer are worth exploring

“For all business owners, keeping abreast of developments in AI is key”

A natural artist

Greetings Today talks to Beverley Fisher, creative director at Cherry Orchard, the artist behind its new Nature’s Diary range, about her art and inspiration…

Beverley is an avid wildlife artist. She lives in Canterbury surrounded by woodlands, 10 minutes from the coast and an hour from London, all of which provide a constant source of entertainment and inspiration for her creativity. Tell us a little about the story behind you becoming an artist.

For as long as I can remember I have painted, drawn, sketched and doodled. I knew from a very early age I wanted to make a living within a creative industry.

I studied textile design and left college full of expectations for a life in textiles. With help from the Prince’s Trust I opened a textile agency and for a couple of years began building a business, but it wasn’t what I wanted; what I wanted was to be a designer, an artist, a creator. So I went back to basics, I put my ideas down on paper, painted and sketched and filled my portfolio with artwork, then off to the Spring Fair I went, where I first met John and Jackie Collins of Cherry Orchard …. The rest as they say is history!

Now, 25 years on from that meeting I’m creative director at Cherry Orchard with a beautiful studio nestled in the outskirts of Canterbury, surrounded by countryside, farmland and orchards, working with a team of amazing people.

What inspires you?

Painting and drawing animals and birds is definitely one of my passions. From domestic pets and farmyard favourites to the vast array of wildlife we are lucky enough to share our planet with.

I have always had a keen interest in the natural world and would happily spend hours watching David Attenborough videos… of course now there’s always a box set at your finger tips!

I’m never really without inspiration, I just need to look out the window, for me there is something quite special when you catch a glimpse of a fox in the headlights, see the signs of a hedgehog in your garden, or get a new bird visiting the bird feeder.

All of these things inspire me to create the artwork I love.

What was your first card design?

Not my first card but certainly one that has been in production the longest, a very simple Sympathy card with a painted leaf, it was first published in around 2005 and is still in the Cherry Orchard portfolio today. What’s your favourite subject?

One of my favourite things to draw is feather and fur, I love capturing the delicate layers using just pencil to create depth and movement but these drawings can take hours to complete so these pieces of art tend to be on my desk for weeks, sometimes months at a time and I will work on a few pieces at the same time.

Nature’s Diary is a range that explores the wonders of the UK’s wildlife through months, seasons and habitats, full of beautiful illustrations and sketches taken straight out of my sketchbooks, with interesting facts and observations about the precious wildlife and habitats that so desperately need looking after.

Cherry Orchard has printed these cards on FSC recyclable board using a Carbon Neutral Press. They come with an eco-friendly kraft envelope and no excess packaging. Given the nature of the artwork it was really important that these designs were as eco friendly as possible. The first launch of Month of Cards has been extremely well received and we have just added another 48 designs, covering open, blank, occasions and relations.

This range is definitely taking me on a journey and with possibilities of stationery and licensing, I’m excited to see where we can take it…. Where else might we see your work?

I try to exhibit once a year, selling my original work through local galleries and online.

Tell us about the design process for Nature’s Diary.

My latest project has been Nature’s Diary, a range of UK wildlife-inspired cards for Cherry Orchard. The initial launch of this range was a Month You Were Born Range, so I began by researching each month, watching BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch, looking back in sketchbooks and sifting through all my photos making notes and creating a diary of events, which then made the basis of each design.

Once I had an idea of what each month was to include it was then a case of sketching, drawing and painting, studying each animal, bird and flower I wanted to include. Each element was then scanned so I could produce a clean version of my sketchbooks and notes.

I have pop-ups where I sell prints and homewares and have recently expanded this to include Nature’s Diary, although the cards are exclusively produced for Cherry Orchard. I do the odd pet portrait commission and I love a Wild in Art project; I’ve been lucky enough to do two: Hares about Town for Southend and Ashford Snowdogs, both sculptures pop up around their respective towns and I love seeing them - it’s like seeing old friends!

And finally what do you do in your spare time?

Spare time, what’s that...! We have an allotment, I’m a taxi for a 14-year-old, and when all is done it’s very much gin o’clock!

Caught on camera: One of the more unusual ‘birds’ to visit!

Fair deals

There’s plenty of newness for greetings and stationery buyers at Autumn Fair

Greeting cards and stationery buyers visiting Autumn Fair are in for a treat this September. As an increasingly popular sector, Greetings & Stationery is going to be packed full of the most vibrant and innovative collections of every kind of greetings and stationery products, bringing together creative, fun and colourful greeting cards, wrapping papers, stationery and paper decorations.

Thousands of leading retailers including Card Factory, John Lewis, Coney’s, Walt Disney Co., Marks & Spencer, Wilkies, Artistic Gift Boutique, Fortnum & Mason, and Moonpig have already registered to attend from September 3-6 at NEC Birmingham and will discover nine GCA members debuting at Autumn Fair. Fox Under the Moon, which was recently awarded the Gift Association People’s Choice Award, is joined by Susel & Co, Nicole Elders, Little Giorgo’s Designs, Dixon Does Doodles, Angies Folk Art, Richart Designs, and Coach House Partners.

Visitors will also discover new collections from established favourites including The Art File, Paper Salad, Cardology, Emotional Rescue, The Little Dog Laughed, Five Dollar Shake, Emma

Ball, Louise Tiler, Penguin Ink, and The Seed Card Company.

Joining the line-up for the first time is Manuscript, which distributes its ownbrand calligraphy and pen products across the world, as well as an extensive collection of pens and craft products from leading brands, along with luxury ribbon brand Ribbonly, with its popular range of ribbons for decorating. For cute, sarcastic humour for all occasions, make a beeline for Hazel Bee Cards for its 100% recycled, compostable, FSC and UK-made cards.

What: Autumn Fair

Where: NEC Birmingham

When: 3-56 September

Autumn Fair will once again be supporting the GCA’s Thinking Of You Week, a special week that harnesses the emotional power of greeting cards to create a wave of love, caring and happiness. The GCA is also embarking on a national campaign and activity designed to remind UK consumers how much they love sending and receiving cards and that cards build connections. Visit Autumn Fair to see how you can get involved and support #Cardmitment and drive sending cards to Christmas and beyond.

Web: www.autumnfair.com

Exhibitors share what they love about the show…

Dean Morris at Dean Morris Cards:

What do you enjoy about the show?

I like that the show is local to me - from a purely financial point of view I save cash on accommodation and food and beverages. I bring in my gorgeous homemade sushi lunchboxes every day! It’s a smaller show than the behemoth of Spring so seems a bit more manageable. The judgement is out on Connect yet though, I’d love it to work but I have reservations. Although appointments aren’t necessary for any buyers that haven’t signed up.

Any tips for newbie visitors?

Just work your way methodically round the aisles and make notes of the stands you want to come back and visit.

Any show offers we can tell our readers about?

I offer my spinner deal at every show. Fill a 36-pocket spinner with cards and the spinner is included free of charge. What one product or range should greeting cards buyers check out at the show?

My Fabulous range that has been evolving and growing since 2006 is always a firm favourite with buyers at all shows, so I’ll always show this off first. And of course Christmas for any last-minute seasonal purchases.

Sue Morrish at the Ecofriendly Card Company:

What do you enjoy about the show?

The diversity of visitors is great; from garden centres to specialist card shops, museums to post offices. And it’s a bit more laid back than Spring Fair!

Any tips for newbie visitors?

Bring a water bottle, you’ll be able to fill it up free of charge, which is more eco-friendly and will save you money. It’s good to have a plan of people you definitely want to see, but don’t be too rigid, be open to that wonderful surprise that is just around the corner!

What’s your most memorable story/experience from previous shows?

Our first Autumn Fair was on a stand supported by the Prince’s Youth Business Trust, which had helped establish the business back in 1993. The set-up day coincided with the funeral of Princess Diana and I remember there were big TVs set up in the hall so people could watch it.

Any show offers we can tell our readers about?

To celebrate our 30th anniversary we’re giving away 30 boxes of champagne chocolates for customers who place an order with us at the show – first come first served!

What one product or range should greeting cards shops check out at the show?

Our diverse and distinctive ranges include more than 20 artist-named ranges and wonderful photographic cards, including the recently Henries short-listed range for The Wildlife Trusts.

Citrus Bunn

Hazel Bee Designs

The Seed Card Company

Thoughtful designs

Stand 6 E24

Fox Under The Moon

Fox Under The Moon has some exciting new product lines to share at Autumn Fair this year, including its 2024 calendar, colouring books, affirmation cards and a sneak preview of its new fox plush toy, which will be available later in the autumn alongside a new hard-backed gift book and a desktop calendar.

On show will also be some new greeting card designs, taking the range to 40 cards in total, including four specifically for the festive season. Created to help givers to say the words that are sometimes difficult to find, Fox Under The Moon understands that greeting cards aren’t always for celebrations – sometimes you want to give a card to someone going through a challenging time – sometimes you want something just to say ‘everything is going to be okay’.

The cards in the Fox Under The Moon range are gently illustrated with whimsical designs, and thoughtful conversations between Fox and Moon. The range covers themes such as grief and loss, mental health challenges, self-love, motivation and encouragement, as well as loving messages just

to let someone know you are there, and that their problems are important to you.

Quality is a huge part of everything created at Fox Under The Moon, and the cards are no exception. Printed in Great Britain, on textured, uncoated, recycled, FSC-approved card; and supplied with a recycled-paper envelope, they are not only kind to hearts, but kind to trees, too.

Also at Autumn Fair will be author/illustrator Stacey McNeill’s picture books for all ages; there are two titles in the range; and each full colour, illustrated book features more than 40 pages of comforting artwork and uplifting messages. From ages eight to 88, the heart-warming messages of Fox Under The Moon can be enjoyed by all.

The joy of paper magic

Stand 6 B15

Alljoy Design is delighted to be exhibiting at Autumn Fair, and hopes to mesmerise you with the new collections of Paper Theatre and Little Adventures greeting cards, both nominated for the Henries 2023.

The cards offer a unique and enchanting experience, designed and produced in Ireland; from the award-winning Message in a Bottle pop-up cards, with new autumn-themed designs, to the Miniature World 3D pop-up cards featuring bright and bold ages from 18 to 80, and the beautiful laser-cut everyday cards.

In addition, Alljoy will be exhibiting its Christmas collections, from the snowcovered Message in a Bottle range to the classical 3D pop-up range and lots more. The magic of Christmas is clear in these cards, which offer not only a beautiful greeting card but a gift that will leave a lasting impression.

The new Paper Theatre cards, available as everyday and Christmas, really highlight the ingenuity of the design team, bringing to life the enchanting stories within every card, and allowing the recipient to create their own story with the two moveable characters within the pre-designed theatre setting. Perfect for kids from eight to 88!

Also on show will be the fabulous Lightboxes, available as everyday or Christmas themed. These literally light up every shop and home.

Visit Alljoy Design at Autumn Fair and let the cards inspire you to share meaningful moments and create lasting memories through the art of beautifully crafted greetings.

Art for celebrations

Stand 6 C30-E31 The Art File

0115 850 7490 Ӏ sales@theartfile.com Ӏ www.theartfile.com

The show acts as an important platform for The Art File customers to finalise and place their orders for the festive season ahead. It’s also one of the last opportunities to order its multi award-winning Christmas collection. Off the back of hearing that the Christmas Luxury Box has made the finals in the ‘Best Luxury Box’ category at the Henries Awards for the fifth consecutive time, the show is a fantastic opportunity to see this product in the flesh and see just how ‘luxury’ the cards are. There are more than 20 stunning designs available, including nine amazing Sara Miller London luxury boxed designs.

Alongside the Luxury boxes in The Art File’s comprehensive Christmas collection, are the hugely commercial Christmas Charity Packs; working with four amazing charities; the RSPCA, CLIC Sargent, Dementia UK, and MNDA ( of which 50p per pack sold is donated). These contemporary, plastic-free packs of six cards , complete with an FSDU, will be the cornerstone of any Christmas collection in store this year.

For that extra special Christmas card seller, The Art File introduces its showstopping 3D Christmas card collection. These award-winning cards have been created to be the centrepiece of any Christmas display. With luxurious foil finishing, these cards are printed, and hand folded in the UK. The cards are available either in a box of five cards of one design, or as single cards, each in its own individual cardboard sleeve. All packaging is 100% recyclable. Free display options are available to fully showcase the card, in protective acetate made from 70% recycled material. Alongside Christmas Cards, The Art File has contemporary gift packaging, designed to turn the heads of even the most discerning of shoppers across the festive period. Choose from a wide selection of showstopping designs across a range of gift bags, tissue, gift tags, roll wrap and luxury flat wrap. Make sure those presents really stand out under the Christmas tree this year.

Advent calendars, and Advent cards are also available for the more traditional buyer/sender. Alongside its multi award-winning Christmas collection, The Art File will also have a wide selection of its bestselling everyday greeting card, gift packaging and social stationery collections from 2023 available on the stand to view and order.

The Art File will also be launching its Spring Seasons 2024 collection at the show for the first time. There will be more than 100 new greeting card designs across Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day , Easter and St Patrick’s Day.

More than 25 million Brits give Valentine’s Day cards every year, making it one of the most important occasions for love. This year The Art File is making choosing a card even easier with 80 gorgeous designs in its Valentine’s Day collection. Featuring four stunning new collections, eight bestselling ranges and a series of elegant finishes, this is one of its most comprehensive Valentine’s Day collections yet.

Mother’s Day is the one time of year we celebrate the priceless role that Mums have in our lives. This year The Art File’s beautiful collection of Mother’s Day cards is designed to convey that important message of love, friendship, and gratitude. With 39 designs to choose from, including two new collections and four bestselling ranges, this collection is destined to show Mum just how much she’s cherished.

And with more than 20 million cards being given every year, fathers everywhere feel the important love of their family on their special day. This year The Art File is showcasing a stunning collection of Father’s Day cards, with 46 designs that are full of personality, love, and great humour. Featuring three new collections, and four bestselling ranges, this collection of unique designs features a series of stunning finishes, showing Dads everywhere just how much they’re loved.

Gifts galore

Among the numerous exhibitors at Autumn Fair, Joe Davies stands out as a renowned name in the industry, boasting a vast and diverse range of products that cater to various tastes; from general giftware, including home décor and fashion jewellery and accessories, there is plenty to see.

Equilibrium’s continued status as one of the most coveted fashion jewellery brands in the UK is a testament to its timeless appeal and dedication to delivering exquisite unique designs. With the introduction of some new packaged gift sets, Joe Davies takes the gifting experience to new heights with its beautiful stacking ring sets and stacking bracelets sets of three different bracelets, elegantly packaged and ready to give as a gift. The ring sets are on trend with three contemporary designs, such as bees, different gemstones and classic silver-plated butterflies, hearts and moon and stars.

As Joe Davies showcases its robin-themed collections at its exhibitions and showroom, customers and retailers alike are sure to be captivated by the extensive range of robin gifts on offer. Whether it’s the pebble robin range with its heartfelt message of ‘Robins appear when loved ones are near’ or the vast selection of figurines, mugs, trays, kitchen textiles and jewellery there is something for

everyone to enjoy or remember loved ones.

Sentiment gifts have long held a special place in gift shops and card shops, and Joe Davies’ new range of sentiment Daisy Message Ducks is set to be a delightful addition to this heartwarming category. These charming ducks are adorned with flowers and presented in pretty pastel colours, making them the ideal choice for those looking to express heartfelt messages to their loved ones.

Capture precious moments and treasured memories in the new Silver Elephant Sweet Baby range from Joe Davies. This cream suede-look range with a silver elephant and silver metallic wording is available in a small photo album, large photo album, photo frame to hold a 6x4 photograph and a beautiful baby record book to record all those first memories. They make ideal new baby or christening gifts.

Joe Davies is excited to showcase all the above alongside all its other brands such as Snoozies, Nuzzles, Bridgewater Pens and much more.

Joe Davis has a reputation for great customer service and a vast range of gifts, fashion jewellery and fashion accessories - what’s more all its products are available in its trademark ‘little and often’ quantities with a minimum order value of just £100 and free nationwide delivery.

Keeping it (mostly) clean!

Stand 6 B14

Dean Morris Cards

01902 560247 Ӏ dean@deanmorriscards.co.uk

Dean Morris Cards will be launching new designs in its most popular ranges at Autumn Fair. Look out for new designs in Fabulous and Bubbles. Both ranges use mostly retro imagery from the the 1950s to 1970s, along with punchlines.

Dean has been moving to slightly cleaner humour over the past few years but there’s still a good peppering of wild humour in each collection! ‘‘Shops still need their naughty sections filling for sure,’’ he says.

There’s also several new designs in Dean’s Randoms range, which was launched during lockdown with mostly text-based humour with no specific theme. He adds: ‘‘I like to think of it as an ideas brain dump of lots of different styles that can coexist with lots of shops’ other humour content.’’

‘Making people smile’

Stand 6 A20

Letterbox Love

07908025060

info@letterbox-love.co.uk

Letterbox Love is an award-winning family run business, making people smile one bracelet at a time!

This September, at the Autumn Fair, the team says it is ‘‘ecstatic to bring forth our newest treasures!’’

Having already stolen the hearts of many, Paws For Thought is a paw-fect collection that speaks volumes without saying a word. The range includes a beautiful illustration of the UK’s favourite dog breeds, perfectly capturing each personality. A loveable gift at an affordable price. Letterbox Love is also proud of its ever-expanding Seeded Card & Wish Bracelet range featuring the award winning Sympathy Pet Loss. The Seeded Collection is its most ecofriendly range, providing not just a gift, but an activity and a memory.

Lastly, they’re already hearing the jingle bells over at Letterbox Love with the upcoming festive launch - promising its sparkliest Christmas range yet!

The collection also includes some matching earring sets and much-loved sparkly favourites.

Bringing joy

Stand 6 M26-20A27

Best Kept Secrets

01670 512222 Ӏ sales@bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

www.bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

Best Kept Secrets will be back at Autumn Fair showcasing its occasion-inspired, sustainable, and joyous home fragrance collections. Leading the way will be the new Spirit of Christmas range, with its signature scented candles, each featuring different woodland animals. There are 12 in the range, each using best-selling fragrances and signature sparkle. The Spirit of Christmas candles have all been lovingly hand-poured and created to be as sustainable as possible. The vessels are reusable or recyclable, the trademark sparkles are biodegradable, and they use environmentally friendly print on FSC-registered packaging.

The gifting brand will also be showcasing its Just Because Collection of scented candles, gorgeous gift boxes, and tea lights. All feature its signature colourful and sparkly home fragrances and feature meaningful or fun messages for every occasion. The stunning festive Just Because range has been added, which is proving incredibly popular with consumers, and will be available at Autumn Fair. The collection reflects the brand’s commitment to provide price-sensitive retail and consumer choice.

Managing director Vanessa Curry says: “A key trend we have identified is the ways in which consumers are looking to find new ways to celebrate and mark special moments in a meaningful and affordable way.”

Rainbow style

Marina B cards feature hand-drawn illustrations and her signature rainbow foil… Stand 6B31

Marina B - a greeting card business based in rural Leicestershire - was founded in 2014 by Marina Brook, who completed an art foundation course in Loughborough, then pursued a degree in contemporary textiles for three years in Cardiff. She always had an ambition to start her own business.

Marina B’s journey began with its first trade show at PG Live in 2015, which marked the beginning of its growth into an international business that now supplies stockists in Europe, across America and Canada, and into New Zealand and Australia.

Its focus on quality and the ability to handle orders of varying sizes has enabled the company to establish partnerships with trusted manufacturers within the UK. Strong long-term relationships with suppliers ensure the consistent production of a high-quality range of cards and stationery.

Throughout the years, Marina B’s designs have evolved, but they still maintain her signature style of beautifully hand-drawn illustrations finished with rainbow foil. One of the most popular collections is the Spotty Love range, which features contemporary designs dedicated to animal prints. The endearing illustrations are coloured and outlined with rainbow foil, creating a visually stunning effect, which has led them to become a bestseller.

The Popsie Whopsie collection is new this year, created in memory of Marina’s father, who had a passion for sports and the outdoors. Marina wanted to fill a gap in the market for male cards and decided to honour her father’s memory through this range. The drawings in this collection are simple but unique with the addition of rainbow foil.

One of the highlights for Marina B was when she had the opportunity to design her own stamps for the Isle of Man. Two designs were chosen by the GCA and Marina had the privilege of visiting the Isle of Man to witness the creation of the stamps and even frank her own cards to send.

Marina B cards can be found in independent gift shops, farm shops and garden centres, along with bigger retailers such as John Lewis.

30 years of being green…

The Eco-friendly Card Co celebrates its 30th birthday at Autumn Fair… Stand 6C02

Celebrations will be afoot at Autumn Fair as The Eco-friendly Card Co (Glebe Cottage) celebrates its 30th anniversary.

The publisher was established back in 1993 by Scott Morrish, who was looking for a way of funding a new darkroom in his garden shed, nestled in the garden of the original ‘Glebe Cottage’. Scott was shortly joined in the business by Susanna, who would drive around Devon’s narrow lanes visiting independent retailers to sell their blossoming range of greeting cards. This passion for independent retail remains to this day with the publisher choosing not to supply high-street chains or take part in brokerage.

It was in the early nineties that the eco-publisher’s first environmental commitment was born, a choice to only use recycled envelopes for cards, against a background where the idea of being ‘green was often seen as a bit left-field.

“It was pretty hard to find suppliers to work with then,’’ recalls director Susanna Morrish. “So much has changed in that respect over the past 30 years – just think when we first started out we had to use pay-phones to contact the office, orders that came in by fax were ‘very modern’ and you always needed to have a good stack of change

to pay for parking. I think we even had a range of small floral cards that were 29p!”

The company has a whole host of ‘firsts’ under its belt, from being the first DTR (direct-to-retail) publisher to become FSC certified, to the first to use compostable bags for cards all the way back in 2006.

From winning leading eco-awards and scooping the trophy for best bespoke calendars at the Callies, to publishing the Christmas cards for HRH the Prince of Wales, there’s certainly been a lot of highlights over the past three decades, but it’s not any of these milestones that the publisher is most proud of. “The thing I value the most from over the past three decades is our relationships with our independent retail customers, many of whom have been with us from the start,’’ says Susanna. “It’s their support that’s enabled us to thrive over the past 30 years, and I’m really looking forward to catching up with customers old and new at the Autumn Fair.’’ The

Top notch!

Discover the latest products in greetings, stationery, gifts and more at London’s Top Drawer

London’s premium retail trade show will be returning to Olympia London from September 10-12 for Top Drawer’s Autumn/Winter edition. Easily accessible in the heart of London, Top Drawer is the ultimate destination for product discovery, sourcing, networking and learning, with this season’s show set to once again inspire visitors. Over three days, visitors will be able to explore nine sectors from across the lifestyle spectrum along with a presentation of expert-led content with RetailFest and the trends installation.

Each season Top Drawer is THE place to discover the latest product launches across eight distinctive lifestyle sectors: Home, Gift, Fashion, Craft, Greetings & Stationery, Food Emporium, Play and Wellbeing. These expertly curated sectors are bursting with the best brands from across the UK and beyond. Whether visitors are looking for new talent or established names, they can explore the likes of; ACADEMIE, Aery, A Little Trinket, ALSO Home, Art Wow, Blade & Rose, Branch Jewellery, By Eloise, Cabaia, CAHM, CHALK, Estella Bartlett, Fruu Cosmetics, Hotlips By Solange, Hyggen, Kind Bag, LIGA, My Doris, Musango, Popcorn Kitchen, Pure Fashions, Roka London, S-c Brands, Suck UK, The Bottled Baking Co., The Original Gluggle Jug, Vintage Playing Cards, Zamsoe and many more.

Launchpad

Alongside these names is the Launchpad sector, which is curated in collaboration with the University of the Arts London. This is the perfect sector for those retailers looking for something different, created by the freshest talent just hitting the market. In the Launchpad sector, visitors will be able to explore; Concrete Jungle, Cutout Prints, Dapple & Dot, Happy Trays, Pencil Me In, Piece of the Peach, Printed Weird, Nina Bombina, Skull Noir, the Colour Emporium and countless other brands. Stylish stationery has become a consumer must-have, with every home office needing Instagram-worthy organisers, notepads, calendars and pens to help consumers get through those WFH days. This season visitors will be overwhelmed with choice in the Greetings & Stationery sector as they can discover the likes of: ArtPress, Atelier Auge, Aventure Editions, Cambridge Imprint, Carrie & Co. Ltd, Dani White Design, East End Prints, Joanne De Pace, Kinshipped, Last Lemon Productions, Ohh Deer, Once Upon A Tuesday, PAPERSHEEP, Roger La Borde, Rumble Cards, Studio Boketto, The Pop Out Card Company, The Positive Planner along with loads more. Besides sourcing from thousands of products, visitors can look to the future with the show’s trends installation curated by the show partner The Better Trends Company. Visitors will be inspired to shape their new collections around key trend predictions for 2024 and 2025, making on trend sourcing easy. Those visitors looking for a helping hand with their business can learn from industry experts on the RetailFest stage, with keynote presentations, panel discussions, masterclasses and more covering, the power of pop-up shops, social media video skills, digital marketing tips and more.

What: Top Drawer

When: Sept 10-12

Where: Olympia London

Web: www.topdrawer.co.uk

James Ellis

Dani White Design

Sophie Brabbins

Disney magic!

Ben Whittington, creative director humour, character, and license, at UK Greetings reveals a very special range of Disney cards for the global giant’s 100th birthday year…

UK Greetings’ range of Disney licensed cards has created new and exciting ways of bringing Disney’s magical franchise to life! Our exclusive Disney 100 collection is a wonderful showcase of innovative design and storytelling. Featuring several mini collections within the offer, these highly collectable designs have a Platinum Laser foil as a common thread throughout. These collections include the Cute Celebrations cards, which, for the first time ever, feature multiple characters from different Disney franchises, on the same card! There is also the fantastic Sketch Quote Range, which has been nominated for a Licensing Award this year.

Disney 100

UK Greetings has also created five amazing keepsake pop-up cards, including Disney Princess and Marvel. Among these pop-up cards are a 3D diorama card featuring the iconic Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse scene, an impressive Star Wards design and a ‘Claw Machine’, which we hope you remember from the very first Toy Story movie!

“These collections include the Cute Celebrations cards, which, for the first time ever, feature multiple characters from different Disney franchises, on the same card!’’

UK Greetings

salesandservice@ukgreetings.co.uk

Disney’s 100th anniversary takes place on October 16. A number of events have been planned to mark this special year, including Disney100: The Exhibition, the largest exhibition the Walt Disney Archives has ever created. It continues its european tour at London’s ExCeL, opening in October. The exhibition offers fans ‘the opportunity to immerse themselves and rediscover some of their favourite Disney stories in 10 magnificent and imaginatively themed galleries. With moving stories, historical artefacts, original costumes and unique interactive installations, visitors can take a mesmerising, nostalgic and educational journey through 100 years of The Walt Disney Company.’

Gifts & Cards for Garden Centres

Garden variety

Garden centres are now destinations for a day out - allowing plenty of time for shoppers to browse cards and gifts. Greetings

Today talks to suppliers about the garden centre trade…

With garden centres evolving and offering more cards and gifts, we wondered whether our suppliers were experiencing an increase in demand from this sector.

Sue Morrish, director at The Eco-friendly Card Co, says that eco products are definitely in demand: ‘’The Eco-friendly Card Co has found it’s gained a lot of new garden centre stockists who are looking for environmentally responsible/recycled products for their eco-conscious customers. Anything with a bee on (our precious pollinators!) is especially popular.’’

And card publisher Cherry Orchard has seen a similar rise in popularity, says owner Jackie Collins: ‘’Cherry Orchard Publishing has always been proud to be supplying independent shops nationwide for over 28 years but the team has really seen an insurgence of new customers coming from garden centres and farm shops. Many garden centres upped their proposition during Covid in departments such as greeting cards and giftware and could really see the boom on this retail side of their business.’’

So what ranges do well in garden centres?

At Rush Design, designer Lorraine Bradley says: ‘’While some garden centres are destinations for card buying, it is more usual that cards are a secondary purchase while visiting for other reasons like buying a new plant or going for lunch. As a result, our garden centre customers do extremely well with our bestselling captions and designs.’’

And Sue Morrish adds: ‘’The Wildlife Trusts range of cards and stationery from The Eco-friendly Card Co is perfect for garden and wildlife lovers alike! The Henries shortlisted range features fascinating information about the species depicted, for example how to encourage hedgehogs into your garden or how bees can see UV light. As well as a wide selection of greeting cards available showcasing the very best of British wildlife we also offer notecard stationery, charity Christmas card packs and a stunning 2024 calendar. The FSC

certified, 100% recycled cards come individually wrapped in compostable bags or available with card-clasp labels. A new brochure featuring the whole collection is available on request. (01626 369269 www.ecofriendly.cards)

She adds that if a centre only has room for one thing from its range - ‘’Get a spinner of cards! It has such a small footprint

but can hold over £1,000 worth of product at retail. Popular with garden centres, we offer 64 pocket stands to display our diverse collections of art and photographic cards.’’

Finally, what trends might we see in the sector?

At home fragrance specialist Best Kept Secrets, managing director Vanessa Curry says it’s time to get set for the colder months: ‘’For Autumn/Winter specifically, consumers are always drawn to our slightly heavier, muskier, and warmer scents, so we have developed new scents to meet these seasonal trends. This year we have our new Fireside & Cypress, Black Rose & Amber and White Flowers & Cashmere which also tick the boxes of what customers love at this time of year.”

And Sue Morrish at The Eco-friendly Card Co concludes: ‘’Eco and recycled products are especially popular as are any products featuring bees!’’

‘’Many garden centres upped their proposition during Covid in departments such as greeting cards and giftware and could really see the boom on this retail side of their business’’

Jackie Collins, Cherry Orchard

‘’Eco and recycled products are especially popular as are any products featuring bees!’’ Sue Morrish, The Eco-friendly Card Co

The Eco-Friendly Card Co

Best Kept Secrets Cherry Orchard

Blooming lovely!

A blooming lovely offering for garden centre card shelves are Stormy Knight’s awardwinning BLOOM seedstick cards. Each of the 42 designs are beautifully illustrated with a contemporary Scandi-inspired style by well-renowned illustrator Clare Owen, and are finished with satin gold foil lettering and smooth rounded corners. But there’s even more to these cards, as each one houses a pack of five biodegradable seedsticks neatly inside, along with simple growing instructions that allows the recipient to pop them in the soil, add a little water, then sit back and watch their seeds bloom!

The cards have 16 different seed varieties depending on the design, including bee-friendly wildflowers, mixed herbs, strawberries, lavender, cosmos, mint, tomato and even Christmas trees! As well as the beautiful array of floral designs, there are also designs that feature popular cocktails and include the recipe inside – think refreshing mint mojitos made with your very own homegrown Moroccan mint, or a daiquiri muddled with fresh British strawberries straight from your garden… delicious!

“These cards are perfect for plant-lovers and green fingered garden enthusiasts – but they are also just as easy for novices to use, because of their simplicity,’’ says Sarah Jackson, director of Stormy Knight

“They offer something a little different to other seeded cards because the card itself doesn’t need to be planted - so it can stay on the mantelpiece looking beautiful for as long as the recipient desires.”

It’s easy to see why this collection picked up a prestigious Henries award at last year’s ceremony – and at the time of going to press, Stormy Knight is shortlisted for another in this year’s Mother’s Day category. The whole BLOOM collection comprises 42 designs, spanning Christmas, occasions and birthdays. They are all designed and produced in the UK with environmentally sustainable material and come packaged with a peelable paper label that advertises the seedsticks inside. Stormy

Get in line or go for a spin!

Garden centres are now a significant retailer of greeting cards. While some have taken the decision to use brokerage, many have taken the decision to run their own card department. Just like high street retailers they all evolve differently, and the card sections vary from centre to centre. Rush Design has always been open to supply any quality retailer that is interested in their product.

Since it first started in 2014, the Rush team has consistently seen a keen interest from garden centres to stock their cards. The combination of design, quality and price is the key to supplying any retailer including garden centres. With a wide selection of suitable styles and captions their product is a great choice for garden centres of all shapes and sizes.

Rush Design offers line buying for centres with more traditional style fixtures, or spinners for those that like to present their greeting cards brand by brand. Bestsellers across the main captions are what work best in garden centres for Rush.

Rush Design

01788 521745

info@rushdesign.co.uk

www.rushdesign.co.uk

coordinated

There are many reasons why the gifting range from Rachel Ellen Designs has proven so successful with the many garden centres it supplies. There are 14 main design themes that include all the bestselling lines. This allows for striking coordinated displays that appeal to a wide age range.

Among the products are tabards, aprons, storage tins, umbrellas, water bottles, writing and colouring, stickers and a wide range of stationery, with pick-up lines for kids starting at just £2, plus fabulous treats, presents and essentials for parents and grandparents.

Design themes such as Love our Planet, Little Gardener and Bee Happy are a natural fit for garden centres and sit alongside all the other Rachel Ellen themes seamlessly.

Rachel Ellen Designs

0115 970 0321

sales@rachelellen.co.uk

www.rachelellen.com

Promoting creative play

Now in its 22nd year, The Puppet Company - and its sister company, Wilberry Toys - is a key player in the gift and toy world. This family-run business promotes creative play: the products are about children and adults alike being inspired to tell stories, to ignite their imagination and to make people smile.

The supplier has a number of exciting new products, which it will introduce to buyers at Autumn Fair (Stand: 20 J44-K45), from its new licensed Elmer puppets, to a Christmas range that will delight children and adults alike.

The Elmer products from The Puppet Company encourage speech and language development in young children and inspire them to embrace the wonder of the world we live in. The items have been designed to be especially accessible and affordable.

Suitable from birth, the Elmer My First Puppet is made from soft materials, and has embroidered eyes - all tested to the highest possible standards. The Puppet Company has also created a standalone Finger Puppet Elmer, so you can carry him with you wherever you go - perfect for pockets and adventures!

This is the first licensing deal that The Puppet Company has taken, with more announcements to follow, and the company is thrilled to have started with such a favourite.

Launching at Autumn Fair will be a new range of full-bodied animal puppets, which includes a cockapoo, penguin, and golden retriever. Inspired by consumer demand and retailer feedback, the team at The Puppet Company is keen to see how people respond at the show.

Christmas is an important season for The Puppet Company and Wilberry Toys, and preparation begins in earnest early in the year. There will be two new additions to the festive offering from the company at the Autumn Fair, however, Reindeer and Father Christmas. These puppets will make perfect festive gifts, and will hearten young and old to use their imaginations and engage in creative play on Christmas Day and beyond. The Puppet Company/ Wilberry Toys

01462 446040

katy@thepuppetcompany.com

www.thepuppetcompany.com

Choose bold statements

All set for the upcoming season, Storigraphic has launched a series of statement, sustainably-produced products, including extended homeware ranges, paperware, accessories and of course, Christmas. New festive finery includes recyclable wrapping papers, cards and matching tag designs. The collection features three new series: the Eighties Series, Assembly Series, and an expanded Seventies Series. The Eighties Series features bold graphics and statement colour palettes inspired by the iconic fashion, music, and pop culture of the decade. The Assembly Series is a modern take on traditional Christmas wrapping paper, featuring geometric patterns and abstract designs. The Seventies Series has been expanded to include a new selection of nostalgic and heritage inspired designs.

For its homeware range, Storigraphic has added to its soft furnishings and existing kitchen textiles, with table runners and placemats.

Excitingly, it will soon be launching a range of wallpapers for interior styling that captures contemporary design with vintage influences.

And not forgetting a bold range of shopper tote bags. They have been planned for a few months, and the Storigraphic team is really happy to have launched with eight designs adapted from their bestselling design collections.

All of these products from Storigraphic are sustainably produced in the UK, and 100% plastic-free. Email for a catalogue.

Storigraphic roz@storigraphic.com

Versatile gifts

These versatile small plaques from Ginger Betty can be used as a keepsake gift tag, attached to a purse or bag, or added to a bottle.

For retailers, the stand comes with 108 wooden plaques – three each of the 12 large plaques, and six each of the 12 small plaques.

A personal message can be written on the reverse of the large plaques.

All are made and printed in the UK. Ginger Betty 01706 557285

www.gingerbetty.co.uk

tracey@gingerbetty.co.uk

Gifts for all generations

Rainbow Designs’ beautiful collections of award-winning soft toys offers high-quality gifts and easy pick-up lines for every generation of garden centre visitor. There are bunnies, bears and woodland characters a plenty, including timeless favourites; Peter Rabbit, Paddington Bear, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh, Guess How Much I Love You and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Passionate about creating superior products designed for all ages, Rainbow Designs offers contemporary newborn gifts including comforters, rattles and baby gift sets, through to classic early years wooden toys, as well as premium plush soft toys of classic characters, for fans of all ages.

Everyone loves a cute bunny, and firm favourites are Rainbow’s best-selling Peter Rabbit and Guess How Much I Love You collections, which include an array of adorable plush nursery toys and gifts, as well as a range of beautifully crafted wooden toys such as Pull Alongs, Shape Puzzles and beautifully illustrated Domino Sets.

The love and affection for the nation’s favourite bear, Paddington, just continues to grow, and Rainbow’s Paddington range offers wonderful gifts for all generations. The range includes the best-selling Classic collection of Paddington Bears, as well

as a beautiful refreshed Paddington for Baby collection.

Gifts from The Very Hungry Caterpillar range make wonderful treats for little ones, encouraging the fun of gardening and a love for the great outdoors. The bestselling, eye-catching range of soft and wooden developmental toys includes the popular Unfold and Discover Activity Toy, Wooden Pull along and, new for 2023, the Tiny and Very Hungry Caterpillar My First Soft Toy.

Rainbow’s extensive Disney; Winnie the Pooh collections, include the awardwinning Hundred Acre Wood range, featuring the much-loved bear and his adorable friends in an array of trusted plush toys, comforters and ring rattles. The Classic Pooh Always and Forever collection is a deluxe range of Winnie the Pooh heirloom toys that features a bespoke nature-themed print, and is certain to make the perfect addition to any garden centre display.

Rainbow Designs 01329 227300

www.rainbowdesigns.co.uk

Eco designs

Cherry Orchard Publishing is proud to have been supplying independent shops nationwide for over 28 years but the team has really seen an insurgence of new customers coming from garden centres and farm shops. Many garden centres upped their proposition during Covid in departments such as greeting cards and giftware and could really see the boom on this retail side of their business.

Cherry Orchard has added a popular range that it has seen being stocked by these evolving outlets. The newest addition to the portfolio is Nature’s Dairy, which is an eco-friendly range printed on FSC board using a carbon neutral press. The designs fit in beautifully as they feature hand-painted plants, flowers and wildlife that can be found across the UK. As well as Birth Month cards, Cherry Orchard also added Open Birthday with Occasions and Relations coming soon.

If you are a garden centre and would like to receive samples of this range contact the Customer Care Team to find out more.

Cherry Orchard Publishing

01684 295500

info@cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

www.cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

Scents are no secret!

Best Kept Secrets has created broad and widespread appeal with its home fragrance collections. The two most popular collections among garden centres this season are Our Fragrant World and Seriously Scented.

Our Fragrant World has been made in collaboration with artist Nicky Dawson, and the entire collection has been created to be environmentally friendly, while still delivering fabulous fragrances, colour, and sparkle into your home. Each candle has been made from a renewable and sustainable crop using certified coconut and plant-based wax, so you can enjoy beautiful, colourful fragrances, knowing that every step has been taken to be kind to the planet.

The trend that has dominated Best Kept Secrets’ new product development over the past two years is sustainability, and the company is proud of its environmental credentials and considers our impact on the planet in all that it does. Its supply chain is proudly British, and, wherever possible, they work with local suppliers. Some of

the ways in which Best Kept secrets achieves this is by ensuring that its vessels are reusable or recyclable, that the trademark sparkles are biodegradable, and by having environmentally-friendly print on FSC-registered packaging.

Best-selling Seriously Scented candles are beautifully fragranced, full of colour and feature the company’s signature sparkle. Perfect as a gift for you or someone special, these candles offer an impressive 50 hours of burn time. With 45 seriously scented fragrances to choose from, there is a perfect, scented candle for everyone, for every room and for every occasion.

Best Kept Secrets

01670 512222

sales@bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

www.bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

Say it with flowers

Jonny Javelin has gone all flowery with its new range Blossom, which launches in September. Initially there are nine delightful female relation captions, all in a Code 75 price code, RRP £2.39. In a 9in x 6in size with a printed insert and a short four-line verse, Jonny feels certain that these cards offer great value for the consumer.

Designed by in-house artist Yvonne Howard, Blossom is a contemporary and fresh take on an ever-popular floral theme, the next step on from Jonny Javelin’s muchloved Secret Garden range. The Blossom range features the usual Jonny Javelin quality board, with embossing and gold foiling, and the coloured backgrounds give the featured flowers a stunning setting and will brighten up any display for sure.

In the pipeline for release before Christmas will be 12 birthday month titles, all in a smaller Code 60 price code with the same beautiful finishes and insert with a short verse. Following on from them will be an Open birthday collection planned for January 2024.

Signature range just grows and grows

Just released is the latest addition of 13 new designs to this diverse range. These Occasion titles are in a super value Code 45 with an RRP of £1.59. Produced with the same high-quality as all of Jonny Javelin’s products, these cards with bright and fun images, are beautifully finished with a foiled and flittered front and full colour print and greeting on the inside.

Jonny and team have deliberately created these new designs to sit in a lower price bracket this time, to help attract consumers who are looking to spend slightly less during this difficult economic period.

A soft finish

Berni Parker, artist and keen gardener, finds her cards are popular with the garden centre crowd

While Berni Parker Designs has an office in Worcestershire and a fulfilment warehouse in the Midlands, Berni loves the setting and comfort of working in her idyllic rural home studio with her dogs for company.

She always wanted to draw from an early age - designing and making cards for friends and family before going to college to do a degree in graphic design specialising in illustration.

Berni has developed a hand finishing technique using multiple layers of beautiful handmade papers sourced from around the world - the designs have a soft threedimensional texture and quality finish - it’s the perfect medium to create delicate designs for her Ladies Who Love Life Cards, but particularly in the Fairy, Sympathy and Children’s ranges.

For Berni, the process of designing a card starts with lots of thumbnail sketches coming from a mind-full of ideas around the chosen subject, the style and colour of handmade paper is then glued to a backing board and the chosen designs are enlarged and drawn to finished size onto the handmade paper. Watercolours are then used to paint a base onto the paper and then coloured pencils are used to create the depth of colour and shading to produce the finished design, which is then photographed before making into a card file for printing.

Her favourite subject matter to draw is her most successful range Ladies Who Love Life, which has stood the test of time for over 20 years, inspired

by her own experiences with her family - particularly her sister and friends - having fun times in many of life’s situations.

Berni has developed a love for gardening over the past 20 years since moving to a cottage with a large open garden as a blank canvas, and loves visiting plant nurseries and garden centres. She has her own greenhouse where she grows vegetables and some plants from seed.

As her Ladies and Men Who Love Life ranges have developed, the target audience for these cards has aligned with the age group and demographic of the main visitors to today’s modern garden centres, which offer much more than just plants. In these outlets the company has seen a massive increase in demand to become one of the main customers for its greetings cards and products, with the collections of gardening cards for male and female continually proving to be very popular sellers.

Berni Parker Designs

01384 210599

sales@berniparkerdesigns.com

www.berniparkerdesigns.com

3D heaven

Raspberry Blossom has an abundance of outdoorsy and garden-themed greeting cards perfect for Garden Centres.

The 3D greenhouse pop-out card from the Keepsakes collection really is a gardener’s idea of heaven! The greenhouse features an abundance of hand-painted plants and foliage. Step through the door and enter a tropical paradise; with plants from head to toe this intricate and exquisite card highlights details like no other, further enhanced by the luxe die cut and spot UV varnish print finishes.

Leaf encounter

Whether it’s a birthday, a wedding, or a just-saw-this-and-thought-of-you moment… UK Greetings want to make sure consumers’ presents stand out.

Which is why it’s thrilled to showcase some exciting gifting ranges.

For the green-fingered customers, the Kraft Cheese Plant collection is available at a variety of garden centres across the UK. Especially perfect for plant-based gifts, these fully recyclable bags are available with both die-cut and incredible fabric-like paper handles, alongside 2m roll wrap and flat wrap. Their simple yet stylish leaf design completes the look.

Elsewhere, two feminine-themed ranges would be ideal for Mother’s Day and beyond. Painterly Spot is a bold and eye-catching collection that really pops! With a gold foil finish, it consists of large and medium gift bags, 2m roll wrap and a flower bag.

For a more opulent choice, Jasmine Rose is stylish and sophisticated with a stunning gold foil finish. Available in large landscape and medium bags, 2m roll wrap and flat wrap, it’s designed to turn heads!

UK Greetings

salesandservice@ukgreetings.co.uk

The Great Outdoors collection consisting of four cards is completely inspired by owners Mark and Rebecca’s daughter and her love for the outdoors. The cute gold-foiled ladybird card was specifically designed for her.

Filled with succulent fruit and wonderful home-grown produce, the Raspberry Blossom Birthday card featuring a woven wooden gardener’s trug is perfect for those green-fingered recipients. The die-cut shape and gold foil highlights are consistent throughout the Golden Moments collection and add a touch of luxury to the finer design details - who wouldn’t love a golden trowel!

The Wild collection encapsulates the wonders of nature with detailed illustrations using a curated colour palette that highlights small details throughout the designs.

The pattern on the card features wonderful plants associated with an English meadow, as well as a cute bee too! As seen throughout the Wild collection, the card is finished with gold foil details to add that extra touch of luxury.

Raspberry Blossom

01926 257 757 wholesale@raspberryblossom.com

Rush Design

A Year at Rush Design

January started with a move to bigger premises and a bright new workspace for owner and designer Lorraine Bradley. “It makes such a difference to have more space and plenty of light in the office. It was a great time to make the move,’’ she says. Hot on the heels of the move, Spring Fair was the first show of the year for Rush Design and always a very important one. “We have done this show every year since 2015 and to date it has always been a great show and bought lots of new opportunities for Rush Design,’’ adds Lorraine. This year was no exception. More than 50 new everyday designs along with a new Christmas collection (51 designs) were launched.

says: “We love the PG Live show. It’s only two days and we always have a good one. This year was no exception.’’ This show saw the launch of the new feminine Aurora collection for Rush Design. This includes some great trending subjects such as women’s football, yoga and Age designs.

Spring Fair 2023 also saw the launch of a gift collection with Joe Davies giftware. This fabulous new collection was very well received among Rush Design customers who rushed over to Joe Davies to get their orders placed. The collection includes wine glasses, gin glasses, beer tankards, mugs and ceramic coasters.

Designs for the giftware were reimagined from two of Rush Design’s bestselling card collections - Blossom and Domino. The full collection of Rush Design giftware is now in stock and available direct from Joe Davies. Customers are already reporting good sales and there are more product releases in the pipeline for 2024. Lorraine comments: “It has been great to work with Joe Davies on these products and very exciting to see them doing so well with retailers. I look forward to working on the next collections”.

With the Spring Fair done and dusted it was straight back to designing new collections and before you knew it PG Live in London was on the horizon. Lorraine

Life at Rush Design is always on the go. So, when a good customer, Hugs & Kisses (Tettenhall), suggested doing the Cardgains Charity Walk, it was not long before the date was put in the diary and training began. Team Rush Design was set up with husband Ian and the sponsorship campaign began. Thankfully the weather in May and June was very good and meant lots of good training walks could be done. Lorraine says: “It was great to be training for such a great cause and with such nice sunny weather too. One of the training walks we did was from the centre of Birmingham to Warwick along the Grand Central canal. Ian told me it was 20 miles so it was not far off the 25 miles the charity walk was going to be. It turned out that it was actually 25 miles due to a calculation error!” The day of the charity walk on June 29 was in London and turned out to be a huge success. Rush Design raised over £1,600 towards the grand total of over £45,000 for the MNDA (Motor Neurone Disease Association).

Moving on through the summer and it was not long before Christmas was starting to show up on the horizon. Christmas always plays a big part for both publishers and retailers alike. Rush Design brings out a new collection each year to ensure that customers are getting something different. The timing of Christmas designing is always a key element in the annual

planning process. Lorraine says:

“I like to get the following year’s Christmas designed and finalised before we reach December of the current year. That way it is done and dusted before everything starts getting busy in the new year.’’ Rush Design’s Christmas 2023 Collection One More Sleep has been its most successful Christmas range to date. It is still available to order if you are quick. The collection of more than 50 designs consists mainly of Relations and other captions including Both of You, Special Friend and Thinking of You at Christmas.

The full Christmas collection along with all the Everyday designs can be viewed on the Rush Design website, in the catalogue or you can make an appointment with one of their fabulous agents.

A final word from Lorraine: ‘’Please get in touch if we can assist with your greeting card needs in any way. We look forward to speaking with you or seeing you at one of our next trade shows.’’

With every new year comes new possibilities along with new challenges. And at Rush Design 2023 has not been short of exciting goings-on!

Rush Design’s Christmas 2023 Collection One More Sleep has been its most successful Christmas range to date

Reaping rewards…

Comedy Card Company’s Alan Auld says being an awards finalist has been a real boost for the fledgling publisher…

Alan Auld at the Comedy Card Company says he almost keeled over when he heard that his photo caption range had been shortlisted for a Henries Award. He now plans to tell everyone he meets for the foreseeable future . . .

It’s been a real boost for the fledgling publishers. Having specialised in selling humorous cards for 12 years, stocking a wide range of funny cards from lots of different publishers, they took the step of creating their own designs a couple of years ago. To their delight, their own designs sold really well amongst the established players. Alan says “by some miracle, they are now the bestselling range in our shop. All we want now is for other retailers to give them a go.’’

“We had a great time at the PG Live show, met some lovely retailers and got some orders but it can be hard to get people to stop and look at your stand when you are new. (Apparently rugby tackles are a faux pas in such settings.) Being a pretty useless sales person doesn’t help either! We did meet an agent at the PG Live show, which has been great for us. We would love to meet other agents as we really need their help and expertise to branch out.’’

In a previous life, Alan was a landscape

photographer, selling large panoramic photographs in art galleries. He also had a spell taking photos around London, trying to capture the movement and energy of the city. “I had a bunch of panning shots of taxis and Routemaster buses, whizzing around London landmarks.’’ These old photos have given rise to a new (aptly named) Taxi!’ range. “It’s great to put these old photos to work and also to give us a little break from the high cost of licensing images!’’

A little while ago, the Comedy Card Company also created a hot foiled range. They took some of their best selling captions and had them hot foiled onto extra thick board for a posh, luxurious look! These have proved popular, particularly the Flamingo one.

What’s next? “We’re expanding our Christmas range and we’re also working on a brand new range with a completely different look and feel. Watch this space!’’ says Alan.

Comedy Card Company

07885 027381

info@comedycard.co.uk

comedycardtrade.co.uk

Melinda Cooper

Thinking of You, Denby Dale, West Yorkshire

What did you do before you went into retail?

Before opening the shop I was mainly a mum (to two obviously beautiful children!), and did a little bit of office work.

Tell us a little about Thinking of You…

The shop was originally in Skelmanthorpe for 18 years, we moved to Denby Dale six years ago, where we are on the high street directly opposite a car park. Where do you source products and how do you choose them?

I go to Spring and Autumn Fairs and Harrogate Home & Gift. Many of the agents and reps I know will always bring new products to show me.

If I like it, many others will, I’m not unique. I find it very difficult to buy items I don’t really like!

How has business been?

This year has been difficult, especially with hikes in energy prices and minimum wage. We still sell lots of cards, but the gift/jewellery section has reduced. Tell us about your customers. They range between kids spending their pocket money on parents etc. and youngish adults buying gifts for friends and family - but mainly I would say it’s middle-aged women.

How do you promote the shop?

We use Facebook regularly, occasionally Instagram. We have been trading for over 24 years so are well known in the local area. We have a huge selection of cards (much to the staff’s dismay!) so customers always know we will have something to suit. We also have a list of customer emails and let them know when we have special days and so on.

How have you dealt with price rises?

The majority of things have gone up. l have had no choice but to follow suit with my prices.

You were a finalist at the Retas (Best Independent Greeting Card Retailer – North East England). What makes your shop stand out?

I’m thrilled to have been nominated, it makes me proud. I do try to find something a little bit different. There will always be some lines that are sold in many places that we couldn’t do without, but I’m always on the lookout for something new. We have a lot of handmade cards, and we try to have unusual titles in cards too, i.e. relatives with ages.

We have lovely staff here who always help customers (without being pushy) as well as the usual meet and greet. We also give away gift bags or wrap if the cost of the gift/s exceeds £25. This is something I have done since opening,

Shop Talk

although the figure has had to increase over the years!

And we are a happy shop! We give customers a good welcome and a chat. I’ve been in so many shops where you are ignored and I hate it, it’s so impolite! We also don’t just stand still. We have a discount day in November and sometimes at other times during the year. This entails offering 20% off everything in the shop, plus we have various offers through the year too.

Do your customers ask for eco-friendly cards?

Eco-friendly is something that has increased over the past few years, but is still not a major consideration in most cases. We do stock as many eco-friendly items as possible, such as plastic-free, foiled and glitter-free cards and wrap. Also I’m finding that more suppliers are using more eco-friendly packaging.

What challenges have you faced?

The main challenges have been the increase in overheads and also that people are just being more careful, so turnover has reduced. Longer term, basically we’ll just keep plodding along and keep looking for that special something!

What kind of card do you like to receive?

I love a handmade card. Handcrafted Cards, White Cotton, Katie Phythian, to name a few. My husband prefers to send verse ones.

What sells well?

Handmade cards. We also sell a lot of Paperlink, Paper Rose, Pigment, Paper Salad. I could go on - we do sell a lot of cards!

Anything you’d like to add?

I’m very grateful to staff and customers alike; they have been very supportive and customers really do try to support local businesses.

‘’We are a happy shop! We give customers a good welcome and a chat. I’ve been in so many shops where you are ignored and I hate it, it’s so impolite!’’

Let’s hear it for the girls!

Mother’s Day is a big day in the greeting card calendar - and there are plenty of other opportunities for buyers to appreciate the women and girls in their lives…

Alljoy Design

Alljoy Design is delighted to introduce its 2024 Mother’s Day Card: A Blossoming Delight. Inspired by the captivating beauty of nature’s flowers, these card collections are a stunning tribute to the essence of motherhood. Printed on high-quality 350g texture board, each card showcases intricately designed blooms that come to life with vibrant colours and intricate details. Golden foil accents add a touch of elegance, reflecting the radiant allure of a blooming garden. Express your love and appreciation for the extraordinary mothers in your life with these heartfelt cards.

info@alljoydesign.com

www.alljoydesign.com

UK Greetings

From wives to mums, from sisters to daughters – it’s time to celebrate the women who matter the most. Which is why UK Greetings is delighted to present its Female Line refresh for 2024!

The Gibson brand offers a mix of stylish and traditional looks alongside heartfelt and meaningful sentiment – including best-selling editorial directions such as this What Is a Daughter? card and the Word Portraits range.

There are also some more contemporary options such as this Mum vase design featuring a beautiful and heartfelt thank you message. This is a classic example of taking a bestselling cards and giving it an exciting refresh for 2024.

UK Greetings understands the importance of the women who mean the most to their consumers, which is why it tries to offer something for every taste, every budget and every connection.

salesandservice@ukgreetings.co.uk

Joe Davies

Mother’s Day is a time when most people are celebrating the strong, nurturing figures in our lives, Mums, Nans, Grandmas, and Aunties. Joe Davies has launched a charming range of gifts to give as tokens of our appreciation; this pretty floral range with a wood-look finish and delicate pink flower blossoms makes a lovely statement gift or is ideal as a home décor purchase. The range consists of photo frames, hanging hearts, standing heart table plaques and beautiful butterfly shaped plaques. Each one has a heartfelt sentiment message, covering family and friends, but especially for those important women in our lives.

0161 975 6300

sales@joedavies.co.uk

www.joedavies.co.uk

Best Kept Secrets

Created to give you the perfect gift for any occasion, the Just Because Collection of scented candles, gorgeous gift boxes and tea lights, features Best Kept Secrets’ signature colourful and sparkly home fragrances, and come in a vessel containing meaningful or fun messages for every occasion. The rebrand and expansion of this stunning home fragrance range reflects the brand’s commitment to provide price-sensitive retail and consumer choice, an ethos that has seen the brand grow year on year to become the nationally loved brand it is today.

This collection has proved particularly popular for retailers looking for the perfect, cost-effective gift for Mother’s Day. Choose from sentiments such as Happy Mother’s Day, I Love You To The Moon And Back, Thank You, To A Lovely Mum, and For a Gin Queen.

01670 512222

sales@bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

www.bestkeptsecrets.co.uk

Raspberry Blossom

Raspberry Blossom has recently launched three new feminine themed collections with more additions soon to be added for Mother’s Day 2024.

Big Love celebrates colour, florals and psychedelic and funky patterns! A collection of 12 cards that is full to the brim with fun and vibrant infused colour palettes with messaging that is bound to put a smile on the face of the special lady in your life.

Happiness mixes colour blocking and modern contrasting patterns blended meticulously with a beautifully curated colour palette and playful bold type. Born from the stationery line of the same name, Raspberry Blossom customers loved the stationery aesthetic and were keen to see it translated onto greeting cards.

Canvas Creations was given a new licence earlier this year with bold new colours and more free-flowing design direction. This collection encapsulates the joy of painting and features hand painted bright and evocative abstract designs finished with gold foil message.

01926 257 757

wholesale@raspberryblossom.com

Rachel Ellen Designs

While probably best known for its children’s designs, there’s so much more to see at Rachel Ellen Designs, including Mika. The fresh, contemporary look is achieved with playful florals, a gorgeous colour palette and handdrawn typography. Deep embossing and touches of gold foil complete the look. With a selection of occasions as well as open birthdays and milestone ages, this beautiful feminine range is guaranteed to appeal. A lovely soft pink envelope complements the cards perfectly.

0115 970 0321

sales@rachelellen.co.uk

www.rachelellen.com

Michelle Fielder Design

Michelle Fiedler has a lovely selection of female relations and Mother’s Day cards throughout her bestselling collections. Choose from a range of design styles, from pretty bright florals to stunning simplistic typographic designs in beautiful blush and gold hot foil finish. Also featuring a few neon ink options for the Mums who love a pop of pink! All cards are 150mm square, digitally printed on FSC 300gsm luxury soft white matte card and supplied with a recycled kraft envelope.

07941 932515 Ӏ design@michellefiedler.com

www.michellefiedler.com

Write on…

Make work or study more fun with cute notebooks, decent pens, journals and more. Easy add-on sales for card retailers and nice extras for the stationers among you

Meeting of minds

Featuring dual-tone products expressing two facets of emotion, Jumble & Co acknowledges the daily wrestle with our inner minds and the need to balance our emotions, with its new collection In Two Minds. Included in the new range are dual notebooks with split ruled and dotted pages, mindfulness and gratitude journals, undated diaries and other lifestyle products for everyday life, each in vibrant colours and stylish designs. The perfect evolution of the Jumble & Co brand from Collins, which celebrates all of life’s emotions.

Jumble & Co

0141 300 8500

enquiries@jumbleandco.co.uk

www.jumbleandco.com

Pack it in

The Eco-friendly Card Co offers a wide variety of notecard packs using artwork from its bestselling art and photographic collections. Notecard Wallets contain eight cards, two each of four different images, with wallets printed on a 100% recycled board sealed with a home-compostable gloss laminate, and also packs printed on a 100% recycled textured water-colour style paper –reflecting the tactile feel of the original artwork. The publisher also offers mini-notecard boxes. About the size of a pack of playing cards, these sliding boxes each contain eight mini-notecards, four each of two designs. Like the wallets they are also printed on 100% recycled board and come with 100% recycled envelopes.

The Eco-friendly Card Co

01626 369269 | www.ecofriendly.cards

The write stuff

In the digital age, where keyboards and touchscreens dominate, there is a certain charm and significance to the timeless art of penmanship. A thoughtfully chosen pen from Joe Davies’ new brand Bridgewater Pen Company will make the perfect gift for professionals, students or anyone who appreciates a nice pen.

What sets these pens apart is not just their elegant designs but the assurance of quality they carry; they have a lifetime mechanical guarantee, covering the writing instrument against mechanical defect. The pens also come supplied and ready to operate with a black refill.

With an array of 40 exquisite designs to choose from, there is a pen to match every personality and occasion. From sleek and minimalist to ornate and detailed, these pens are meticulously crafted to make a statement and elevate the writing experience. The range consists of ball pens, roller balls and mechanical pencils, and each pen comes with its own stunning gift box.

To make an eye-catching display of the collection there is a counter display unit available that can hold nine different designs and three pens per design.

Joe Davies

0161 975 6300

sales@joedavies.co.uk

www.joedavies.co.uk

Make cute notes

These adorable notebooks were launched at Harrogate Home & Gift in July, and Ginger Betty owner Tracey Colliston says they were ‘’really well received. Customers were pleased with the quality and design.’’

There are nine designs, sized at A6, each with 96 lined pages, printed on FSC board and made in the UK.

The notebooks can be bought in packs of six, or as a complete CDU with six each of the nine designs and a free stand. The stands are ready made up when they are sent out to retailers.

Ginger Betty

01706 557285 | www.gingerbetty.co.uk

tracey@gingerbetty.co.uk

Functionally fantastic

Who doesn’t love beautiful stationery? The team at Rachel Ellen design products that are functional, fashionable and, they say, frankly fantastic! From mindfulness and well-being journals to promote self-care, to useful products including address books, list pads, organisers and pens, to a wide range of notebooks across many different sizes and formats that will always come in handy and be well received, Rachel Ellen has a wide choice of beautiful gifts for anyone who loves lovely things.

Rachel Ellen Designs

0115 970 0321 | sales@rachelellen.co.uk

www.rachelellen.com

Sing-along stationery

Introducing the Song-a-day Notebook from Say It With Songs. Scan the unique QR code featured on each page with a smartphone’s camera to instantly stream your notebook’s song of the day.

There are six notebooks to choose from: Don’t Worry Be Happy has the cheeriest songs from Pharell Williams, Queen and more - it couldn’t be sunnier. All You Need Is Love features the likes of Elvis, Taylor Swift, and Whitney Houston - there isn’t a more loved-up notebook out there.

Daddy Cool offers upbeat ‘Dad’ songs from ELO, Jamiroquai, Fleetwood Mac, Bowie. A notebook only for cool dads who can throw cool dad moves.

Festive fans will love I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, with daily Christmas classic songs from Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney, Wham! and more. For disco and karaoke lovers there’s Dancing Queen, offering feel-good tunes from Abba, Take That and Madonna to name a few. And get set for a great day with Don’t Stop Believin’ and songs from Lizzo, Gwen Stefani, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake etc.

Notebooks measure 130mm x 210mm, each have 192 pages of lined paper and a soft touch cover.

Say It With Songs

www.sayitwithsongs.com

Thinking of you

Sympathy cards are purchased at a very sensitive time in people’s lives. The fact that this category is one of the single highest-selling captions in greeting cards goes to show just how important it is for people to send the right message of support when it is most needed.

Rush Design offers an extensive collection of Sympathy and Thinking of You captions. With more than 30 designs in this category there are plenty to choose from when expressing love and support when it is most needed.

There’s a good mix of designs within the Rush Design collection that offer both masculine and feminine styles suitable for all age groups.

Following several requests from customers, Rush Design introduced Sympathy ‘relations’ a couple of years ago. These have now become a core part of the offer. In addition, there are captions such as Hope You’re Feeling Brighter Today, In Our Thoughts & Prayers, and Just to Say.

Designer and owner Lorraine Bradley says: “We are often complimented on our range of Sympathy and Thoughts cards. It means a lot to know that our cards are there for people during the difficult times, too.’’

Rush Design

Find the right words

Made for men

Whispers in the Wind is a best-selling male sentiments range from Cherry Orchard Publishing that features ‘beautiful words for those special men in our lives’. The designs have stunning watercolour artwork and heartfelt verses and come in 10 popular Male titles. This style of card is still proving popular in shops so Cherry Orchard also added a stunning floral female relations sentiments range into its main portfolio.

Cherry Orchard has also always had an extensive range of sympathy cards, which includes the hard-to-find titles that independent shops struggle to source. The portfolio has modern, traditional, artistic, photographic and wordy designs at various price points - the publisher still continues to hold back from any price increases despite the rising costs, supporting independents as much as it possibly can.

Cherry Orchard Publishing

01684 295500 | info@cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

www.cherryorchardpublishing.co.uk

Keeping it simple

The Eco-friendly Card Co publishes a lovely collection of simple Sympathy and Thinking of You cards using images from the 20 artists that contribute to its blank collections as well as beautiful peaceful imagery by photographer Scott Morrish. Combining tranquil images of nature with a few chosen words, these cards offer a simple, and yet very flexible option, to customers who want to find the right card for a difficult situation.

01626 369269

www.ecofriendly.cards

Encouraging positivity

Cards aren’t just for celebrations - sometimes you want one that says everything is going to be okay. Fox Under The Moon encourages positivity and self love through heart-warming messages and pictures.

There are 40 designs in this range of greeting cards, created to help givers to say the words that are sometimes difficult to find.

Greeting cards aren’t always for celebrations –sometimes you want to give a card to someone going through a challenging time – sometimes you want something just to say ‘everything is going to be okay’.

The cards in the Fox Under The Moon range are gently illustrated with whimsical designs, and thoughtful conversations between Fox and Moon. The range covers themes such as grief and loss, mental health challenges, self-love, motivation and encouragement, as well as loving messages just to let someone know you are there, and that their problems are important to you.

Imagined and created with love, Fox Under The Moon is the work of Stacey McNeill, who says: “I am passionate about the natural world, and as you’ll see from my illustrations; wildlife, woodlands and magical night skies inspire everything I create. My artwork is for all ages - it is inspired by the simplicity of everyday life, and the complicated emotions that go with it. I hope the little conversations between Fox, Moon and their friends, can bring some encouragement and comfort to you, and those you love.”

Quality is a huge part of everything created at Fox Under The Moon, and the cards are no exception.

Printed in Great Britain, on textured, uncoated, recycled, FSC-approved card; and supplied with a recycled-paper envelope, they are not only kind to hearts, but kind to trees too.

Fox Under The Moon

07979 600 587

mcneillcreativeuk@gmail.com

www.foxunderthemoon.co.uk

Heartfelt messages

Some cards can be more difficult to choose than others, including those for sensitive subjects such as bereavement.

Blue Skies from Rachel Ellen Designs covers most of life’s occasions and as the name suggests, this sweet hand-drawn painted artwork runs throughout the range, offering a lovely way to send heartfelt messages, including those of sympathy. Emboss enhances the artwork on the high-quality textured board and each card is lovingly hand-finished with a jewel to make it extra special, supplied with a bespoke cloudpatterned envelope to complete the look.

Rachel Ellen Designs

0115 970 0321 |

Bringing comfort

When people have slost loved ones, it can be a challenge for consumers to find the right words to offer condolences to friends and family.

This is where UK Greetings’ sympathy line can help. Its range of editorially-led cards offers heartfelt and comforting statements of sympathy, which don’t feel too intrusive or flippant. In particular, The Fifth Season Gibson piece resonated so much with card buyers that they asked for it by name. In response, UK Greetings gave it a fresh look and reintroduced it into the line.

To contrast with these more traditional designs, simple and contemporary looks have also been added. Cards such as this Carlton Code 50 provide support and understanding but in a more authentic tone of voice.

Karen Skipper, brand manager, says: ‘’UK Greetings hopes that these cards bring comfort to those who need them and help consumers find the words when sometimes it feels like there are none.’’

UK Greetings

salesandservice@ukgreetings.co.uk

Karen Skipper, brand manager, says: ‘’UK Greetings hopes that these cards bring comfort to those who need them and help consumers find the words when sometimes it feels like there are none.’’

The joy of ‘Emotions’

Kingfisher Cards MD Paul Urban was so impressed by Swedish greeting card poet Siv Andersson, after meeting her at Spring Fair, that he was compelled to introduce a range featuring her work…

Kingfisher Cards has teamed up with well-known Swedish greeting card poet Siv Andersson to produce the beautiful Emotions range of sentiments cards.

On a high-quality hammered textured board, these threefold greetings cards with deckled edges cover a range of sentiment titles.

“I met Siv at the Spring Fair in Birmingham earlier in the year and was impressed by her emotional attachment to the verses she had written,” recalls managing director Paul Urban. “I chose around 18 to kick off the range, covering obvious titles such as relations but then adding more sentimental ones such as; To My Love, A Grandchild, Take Care of Yourself, Have Courage, and Healing Light. Because Siv was so passionate about her verses we thought Emotions was a fitting name for the range.”

The artwork has a lovely pastel finish, which gives a subtle background to the verses, and once again Kingfisher Cards believes it is offering superb value on a quality product with an RRP of £1.95.

The cards can be ordered individually or on a spinner deal, which gives a compact 24-pocket spinner with all 18 titles and 6 code 50 open birthday that complement the range.

Kingfisher Cards

01803 431515

sales@kingfishercards.co.uk www.kingfishercards.co.uk

‘’I was impressed by Siv’s emotional attachment to the verses she had written’’

Words and whimsy

Award-winning Stacey McNeill, author and illustrator at Fox Under The Moon, talks about her designs, what inspires her - and why foxes play a key role in her work!

Tell us a little about the story behind you becoming an artist.

I’m the author and illustrator of Fox Under The Moon – a range of cards, books and gifts that encourage positivity and self-love. I run our small business alongside my husband and business partner Jamie.

Fox Under The Moon started as a project for me while I was out of work during the 2021 winter lockdown. I wanted to put some hope and positivity out into the world, and so I began sharing my whimsical illustrations and uplifting messages on social media.

Following our own challenges with stress and mental wellbeing, my husband and I sold our house in 2018 and left our teaching jobs in search of a simpler way of life. When I began creating art, my studio was a 23ft, retro touring caravan that we lived in full time - working minimum-wage jobs while we ‘reset’ our minds and gave ourselves the breathing space to work out what we wanted to do next.

This was the humble beginning of Fox Under The Moon.

Nowadays we work from our small home office, and when we’re not touring in our caravan, you’ll find us gazing at stars, getting lost in the woods or taking meandering walks with our border collie - Pixie - on the blustery beaches of wild Northumberland.

What inspires you?

I am passionate about the natural world, and as you’ll see from my little illustrations; wildlife, woodlands and magical night skies inspire everything I create. I’m a real nature-lover, and a bit of a tree-hugger at heart!

Where do you get inspiration for the words?

The words on my cards and in the books and gifts I create are what have made them so popular, I think. My Fox Under The Moon artwork series is for all ages - it is inspired by the simplicity of everyday life, and the complicated emotions that go with it. Through my artwork you meet an anxious, but inquisitive fox, and the wise old moon. The two become friends, and it is hoped that their warm and whimsical world can bring some encouragement and love to those that need it most.

I have drawn from personal experiences, as well as those of people close to me to get inspiration for the themes that Fox and Moon talk about – and of course, now that my social media following has grown to be almost 150,000 people, I am privileged to have many messages every day from people sharing their own struggles and challenges, which I can draw upon for ideas and inspiration.

What’s your favourite subject to draw/design and why?

As my style has developed, it has become really clear to me that it is the whimsical, naïve, innocent style of art that I am most drawn to. I love to use sketchy, messy style pencils and brushes, and I build up multiple layers of texture in my work to add depth and detail.

I still find it funny that I’m described as an ‘artist’ now – although I’ve always been creative, I’m not someone that has drawn and painted all my life - I actually taught myself to draw back in 2021 – starting out with night skies and moons because that was all I could do! I’ve absolutely loved developing my style over the past couple of years, and I quickly took to illustrating digitally for my designs. My best kept secret – until now – is that I often use my dog Pixie to pose for photographs to get the proportions right for my fox characters.

People often ask me why I chose a fox as my main animal character – there are a few reasons for this. The simple one is that when I’d mastered illustrating skies, stars and moons, having a nocturnal animal to add to the pictures seemed like a logical step. I have also always had an affinity to foxes – they’re intelligent animals that are often wrongly persecuted. Finally – as ‘woo woo’ as it sounds, foxes always seem to appear to us at important times in our lives. When we made the life-changing decision to sell our house and leave our careers behind, on our final night in our house we’d left the French doors in our lounge open as it was a hot summer night – a cheeky fox actually found its way into our living room! When I posted my first Fox Under The Moon picture on social media (a very old style now, painted with watercolour and Acrylic) I saw a fox the same day in the fields near to where we were staying. There are so many stories like this I could recount – so, foxes are just special to me, really, and it seems to be the case for many others too!

Congratulations on your award! What do you think attributed to your success?

I can’t tell you how delighted we were to win the People’s Choice Award! Of all of the awards up for grabs in the Gift Of The Year competition, for me personally, this one is the most important to win. I say that because I know that our success is down to the incredible army of supporters and followers (friends, I call them!) that Fox Under The Moon has on social media. People who understand the struggles and challenges of mental health, appreciate the encouraging messages we put out into the world, and who came forward without hesitation, voted for us, and helped us share the

uplifting messages of Fox Under The Moon far and wide.

In my opinion, anything that aims to support mental health and wellbeing in today’s climate should be celebrated, so our win is simply a step in the direction that I think the card and gift industry are already making. I’m hoping to see a mental health and wellbeing category in next year’s awards too!

What do you do in your spare time?

After our experiences with work-related stress when teaching, Jamie and I are both huge on taking time for ourselves. We love nothing more than a long walk in nature or a trip away wild camping.

Is there a famous person or celebrity who you would love to design a card for - or send one of your existing cards to - and why?

I’m not really someone who idolises celebrities and famous people – some of my best mentors and pieces of motivational and inspiring advice have come from those around me, and close to me. I do, however, have huge respect and admiration for Sara Davies from Dragon’s Den – I was fortunate enough to meet her briefly at the 2023 Gift Awards, and I gave her one of my books – she was even more warm and lovely in person too.

Upholding a reputation

Ipurchased the business in Somerton in July 2018.

It was an established stationery and card shop, having traded for over 30 years.

Before that I had worked for WHSmith in various store management roles for 40 years, and retired in 2018. However, I had always wanted to have my own business and the opportunity came up in Somerton at the right time.

Stationery House is a traditional stationers. We offer photocopying, laminating, binding and printed stationery services. Besides this we stock a wide

Bestselling brands

• Bug Art – Jane Crowther

• Pigment - Humour

• Whistlefish

• Noel Tatt - Relation and Occasion

• Museums and Galleries - Lucy Grossmith

• Eco-Friendly Cards - Janine Partington

Across the whole range Great British Cards have by far the largest sales.

range of stationery and pens, jigsaws, traditional toys, gifts and books.

However, our reputation as a trusted greeting card retailer has been my main focus since taking on the business.

because of the unique nature of the town, we have shoppers from elsewhere in the county and beyond. The demographic makeup of Somerton is affluent - both retired and younger.

As I said, we have built a very good reputation for our greeting card department, with shoppers making us their preferred choice when stocking up. We source our card ranges from trade shows, company samples and reps. All of our purchases are direct from suppliers. Relation and occasion cards are ticket controlled. Everyday cards are either ticket controlled or wild.

The shop is just over 2,000 sq ft. It’s situated in the Market Square, next to our remaining bank and pretty much in the hub of the town. I have a free car park right outside the shop, which is very convenient.

Somerton is a small, very historic town in the county of Somerset, with a population of less than 5,000. The resident population are very loyal to all the local businesses in the town and especially so since Covid. Because the area is very rural we have a large catchment area of villages, too.

During the holiday season we do see a number of tourists visiting, but throughout the year,

The selection of the cards we purchase has to reflect our customer profile but also with a point of difference for all age groups. The quality of the card is also a consideration. Myself, and my card assistant Lynne do the buying together. This works well as we both have strengths in different genres. Lynne is brilliant on humour cards.

Our most popular brands are: Pigment, Bugart, Noel Tatt, Great British Cards, Paperlink, Peartree Heybridge, Ling, Museums and Galleries, West Country Designs England, Eco-friendly Card Co and Whistlefish.

As for sustainable cards, at PG Live we did view an eco card range, which we may well buy in the future as it would add another dimension to our card offering. We have just started selling some lovely seed cards from Mosney Mill and have received a

‘’Our reputation as a trusted greeting card retailer has been my main focus since taking on the business’’

Malcolm Adams owner of Retas finalist Stationery House, in Somerton and Clevedon in Somerset, is keen to keep the stores’ reputation as a trusted card retailer, alongside its stationery business. He explains more...

good early reaction. And as I said, we do sell cards from the Eco-friendly Card Co in Newton Abbot too.

Considering the economic climate, trading is good, with constant year-on-year growth each week. The first quarter from January to March was very strong, with double-digit growth.

Last year we saw large price increases when purchasing across the overall product mix. Card and paper prices just kept increasing. However, certainly since Christmas prices have stabilised and even reduced in places. We have minimised the price increases as much as possible as we always want to give our customers value for money.

While there were challenges over Covid, we have been very lucky with sales across the shop and greeting cards remain strong with good sales growth. Sales in late December did see a dip due to the postal strike but I do still feel positive about Christmas 2023. There is some super stock arriving.

We promote the shop on social media through Facebook and Instagram. However, customer word of mouth has still to be the best promotion of our business. The fact that Stationery House is respected and established is a big win for us.

We were so thrilled to receive our Retas nomination for the best Independent Card retailer in the South West 2023. We feel that our shop stands out because of its display and merchandising, which are very easy to navigate and present the cards

to best effect, plus we have an extensive crosssection of suppliers, both large and small. I also feel that my team gives exceptional customer service.

In November 2021 we opened another shop in Clevedon. Stationery House Limited - which is run by my middle son Daniel - started from scratch, the unit previously having been a New Look store. Again, considering the economic climate and greater competition (namely Card Factory and WHSmith), the store sales on cards have exceeded expectations. The shop has a large Noel Tatt planned display. It also has an online shop SHSHOP, but the only representation of greeting cards on the site so far are: Bug Art and Hype to test the water. Clevedon was also included in our Retas nomination with Somerton.

Stationery choices

We asked Malcolm (with his stationer’s hat on) what stationery he would suggest to a card retailer who wanted to introduce a few products to their in-store offering… He said: ‘’Our bestselling brands that would sit well alongside cards are:

• Pilot Pens

• Vent for Change Stationery

• Busy B Diaries and notebooks

• Peter Pauper Press Notelets and Journals

• Great British Cards Stationery & Gift

• Pigment Stationery lines

• Museums & Galleries journals and notecards

• Pens and journals and notelets are a good link sale to greeting cards.’’

‘’If I were to choose a card to be sent to me it would have to be a traditional card with a message for Christmas and for a birthday a card with a caption to bring back a memory or make me smile. It is likely I would keep the card on display long after the event’’