Self Published Greetings Cards

I decided to bite the bullet and have four of my original designs printed as A6 greetings cards.  I am really pleased with how they have turned out.  I chose a good quality 300gsm watercolour style paper and white envelopes, so they look very classy.  They are available from my etsy shop, website, Cambridge Contemporary Crafts and I will have them at my Open Studios next month.

Whenever possible I'd prefer to licence my designs for other people to produce into products.  The main reasons for this is that it's a big financial outlay, much time has to be spent on researching the right manufacturer, getting quotes and samples.  Also space has to be found for storage and time has to be spent on packaging, promotion and distribution.  However there are also benefits; being able to specify the product to my own taste and having a product I'm really proud of is a great feeling.

Birthday Calendar

This was a really lovely project commissioned by Phoenix Trading.  It was also a very quick turnaround.  I received the brief mid April, the artwork was completed by the end of April and the finished product was available from 1st June.

The brief was to create a perpetual calendar suitable for writing dates of birthdays and anniversaries.  I was given the dimensions (190mm x 340mm) and that it should have a header image with a smaller matching strip below.  I also included little icons on each month, my favourite being the little bird on May.

The images had to be previous designs of mine that Phoenix have published over the last ten years I've been designing for them. They all relate to the appropriate month.  For example, there are strawberries in June.  It was quite tricky as most of my original artwork was square and therefore had to be re-designed to fit the rectangular header.


I am really pleased with the finished product.

Sweden

During half term, 23rd May - 30th May, we went to Sweden.  Firstly to Gothenburg to visit friends and then travelled up the east coast for a few days.  We then drove the 300 miles across to Stockholm on the west coast, where we spent two more days.  We stayed in Gamla Stan, which is the oldest part of the city and central for all the major sights, ideal if you haven't got much time there.  I'd recommend the open top bus and boat tours for exploring the city which is built on several linked islands.

I've never been to Scandinavia before and really loved it.  It's a beautiful clean country mainly consisting of lakes, trees and rocks.  They seem to favour wooden clad houses painted an ox-blood red colour. It wasn't too expensive as the pound is quite strong at the moment against the Swedish kroner.

I'd like to show you some of arty places we visited and would recommend to you, should you ever visit.

 Tony Cragg sculpture, Marstrand

 Strandverket Art Museum, Marstrand

Nordiska Akvarellmuseet (top photo from their website).  We had an excellent meal in their restaurant with the most amazing views out across the water.  There are little studios that artists can rent.

 Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

This is the ceiling of the foyer.  I'm not sure if it's an installation or if it's always like this?  Again there was an amazing café, stylish, with great food....and you could make your own waffles for dessert!

And for some kitsch nostalgia, the Abba Museum in Stockholm is a must!

Pencils Collection

I haven't had time to post much in the last few weeks as I've been really busy, working on Christmas projects and designing new tea towels.

So I'm just catching up with posting about this rather jolly set of products published by Phoenix Trading earlier this year.  The postcards came out in January and the wrapping paper and bookmark were published in May.