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