Card and Gift Blog

Great British Gifts from Victoria Eggs ...

Today's blog post is a closer look at some great gifts from the collection of award-winning designer Victoria Eggs. Made right here in the UK, and celebrating all things British, the gift range has everything from cushions to mugs, each decorated with iconic British phrases and imagery.

The Sew Heart Felt gift collection is an award-winning range of crocheted toys and felt accessories, skilfully handmade by women across the world, using local traditional crafts handed down over many generations.

In the last few weeks and months I've been getting more and more requests from people who would like to contribute to Card & Gift Blog. So I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about guest bloggers & another new addition coming to the blog very soon.

The Card & Gift Blog Community has grown quite considerably this year with thousands of additional visitors each month, and lots of emails and submissions every day. In order to accommodate this growth I'm hoping to make a few subtle changes to the admin side of things.

For those of you who are interested in writing for Card & Gift Blog please get in touch - mail@cardandgiftblog.com - it's probably obvious but I'm looking for posts about greetings cards, gifts, stationery or any industry-related subjects. If you don't have ideas lined up, don't worry just email me and we'll have a chat!

Another new item coming to the blog is regular mailouts! I've been trying to establish a structured routine for sending emails for ages but the day job has always gotten in the way. Finally the technicalities are coming together and the first new mailouts will be hitting inboxes very soon. You can sign up to the new mailing lists on the right-hand sidebar. There will be three mailouts: Inspiration, Expertise & Community.

INSPIRATION will showcase the best and brightest products & interviews from the blog. Sent monthly.

EXPERTISE will provide tips and resources to promote your card & gift brand online. Sent every two months.

COMMUNITY enables you to be the first to hear about opportunities to feature on the blog. Sent every two months.

Choose as many mailouts as you wish, your email will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. If you've contacted the blog in the past you will be getting a reminder about these mailing lists emailed directly in the next week.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend. Charlotte.

Behind the Design: Stable Cottage Design

Say hello to ...

Fiona Young from Stable Cottage Design

Tell us a little about yourself and your company?
I studied fashion and printed textile design before working as a graphic designer. My husband runs his own architectural practice and we have 3 children. I launched Stable Cottage Design in January 2012.

Boutique greetings card publisher, Studio Seed has recently unveiled 'Mr Seed' a brand new collection of greetings card designs aimed at the male market. Today's post is a look at my personal top ten favourite cards from the collection, which finishes with three sharp Father's Day designs. The cards are styled on a 'modern vintage' look. Using antique typefaces as seen on turn-of-the-century posters and vintage icons sourced from a late 19th century type foundry.

Perfect for Father's Day this personalised token by Spaceform is engraved with the phrase 'I am so glad that you are my dad' and can be combined with a personalised signature. Focusing on quality of craftsmanship, Spaceform's personalised tokens go through 32 individual hand-making processes before the finished design is complete. Creating a unique gift that can be treasured for years. Retailing at £40 personalised tokens are available to purchase from the Spaceform website.

Six Luxury Greetings Cards for Father's Day

Today's pick of Father's Day cards will add a touch of luxury to June 16th. Take a look ...

The first three designs are from Five Dollar Shake's brand new Father's Day collection. The range sees a special selection of Five Dollar Shake's best selling male designs given a stunning makeover with the images and text embossed on to a brushed, silver aluminium effect board. With 'tongue in cheek' humour these are distinguished greetings cards for stylish Dad's everywhere. Retailing at £3.99, Five Dollar Shake's cards are available from high-end retailers nationwide. You can also buy a selection of cards online at the Five Dollar Shake Personalise website. Click here to see the brand showcased on our sister site Piccadilly Lane.

Today's Father's Day selection of cards and gifts have chosen the perfect words for Dad's everywhere. First up in stylish typography based greetings in bright colours by Caroline Gardner; contemporary designs created using traditional printing techniques. Retailing at £2.50, Caroline Gardner cards are available from quality stockists worldwide and online. See the collection showcased on our sister site, Piccadilly Lane and on the Caroline Gardner website.

5 Cute Cards for Father's Day ...

For our first dose of this year's Father's Day greetings cards I'm starting us with previews of five Cute card designs ...

First up is a super cute lions design and a Superdad greetings card from new publisher Imperial and Metric. Retailing at £2.50 the cards are available from design-led boutiques, click here to find out more about Imperial and Metric.

Behind the Design: Polar ...

Say hello to ...

Hannah, who along with her partner Keith runs Polar

Tell us a little about yourself and your company?
Keith is a graphic designer and I’m a knitwear designer, both living and working in Bath, England. We currently run Polar part time as well as working on other projects. Polar is essentially a celebration of collaboration. Initially starting as a chance to produce non commercial (and sometimes a little bit silly) work, Polar has evolved. From stickers to scarves, pencils to posters we sell it all. As long as it’s red and white, anything goes.

In honour of yesterday's blog post looking behind the scenes of how Five Dollar Shake create their trademark luxury greetings cards we have a greetings card giveaway over on our Facebook page! The team at Five Dollar Shake have sent me a bundle of greetings cards to share with one lucky winner. It's a fab selection of ten birthday greetings cards for men, women and kids; beautiful flittered, foiled and embellished designs worth just shy of £40. Click here to enter the giveaway now! The giveaway ends on June 9th when a winner will be chosen at random. There are lots of ways to enter (none are mandatory), which will earn you between 1 and 5 entries. You can even tweet about the giveaway every day between now and June 9th to gain more entries! Take me to the giveaway!

Behind the Scenes of Five Dollar Shake Greetings Cards ...

One of my favourite elements of handmade greetings cards is seeing the craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes into creating each card. Having worked for a greetings card publisher in the past I know that constructing a greetings card can be a huge and complicated task that card designers take very seriously. Today's post is slightly different from the norm as one publisher has been kind enough to take some close up pictures of their card collection so I can show you a different look behind the scenes. Today's images are from one of my all time favourite greetings card publishers, Five Dollar Shake.

Museums & Galleries have recently introduced four new collections of stationery gifts, featuring licensed designs. The gift range consists of large and small magnetic journals, spiral bound journals and memo blocks.

Behind the Design: Deborah Ballinger Illustrations ...

Say hello to ...

Deborah Ballinger from Deborah Ballinger Illustrations

Tell us a little about yourself and your company?
I’m a freelance illustrator, surface and giftware designer based in Brighton & Hove. My company is simply me! All of my illustrations have been used to cover note books, cards, writing sets, tote bags and more.

Now in their 4th year, Canada's Cow and the Moon Paper Co. has recently undergone a long period of re-designing and reinventing their brand to incorporate oodles more personality and a stronger focus on copywriting.