I mentioned on Friday that I’ve been working with my sister recently for her wonderful Letterpress stationery company, Wolf & Ink.
I somehow completely forgot to mention that we’re running a giveaway, starting this week, to win a box of Christmas cards. And wouldn’t it be nice if one of my lovely readers here was one of the winners?!
Five people will win a box of hand printed Christmas cards, all designed and printed by Julia on Gertrude, her vintage Letterpress machine.
You can enter on any of the Wolf & Ink social media accounts (or all three, if you want to make three entries), by following the account, sharing the comp with someone else and letting us know which cards you’d like to win!
The deadline is midnight on Friday November 27th (aka Black Friday); we’ll select five winners at random the following Monday and ship your cards out poste haste so you’re ready to send them out in December…
If you fancy joining in (and, really, why wouldn’t you, ha ha?) then just head directly to the competition posts here:
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that my sister set up her own Letterpress card business a year or so ago.
She’s super talented (and I don’t say that just because I’m her big sister) and her wedding invitations and cards are always beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that one of her Christmas cards was just featured in Elle Deco magazine. She’s going places that one…
Anyway, it got me thinking how nice it is to receive (and send) really special, unique, original, handmade cards. So I’ve done a little research and come up with five of my favourite Letterpress Christmas cards, and here they are, my lovely readers, just for you.
I’m a big fan of supporting independent makers, so this year I’m doing my best to avoid Amazon and to shop, instead with the likes of Etsy, Folksy, Not on the High Street, et al. And the cards are the perfect place to start, no?!
1. Penguins by Wolf & Ink
Wolf & Ink penguin card
Of course, sis must have number one spot. She’s got a great selection of cards (and wedding invitations if you’re getting hitched and feeling classy!), but this amazing penguin tree is my personal favourite.
I love this gorgeous reflection of a row of trees (oh goodness, I just realised the first three I’ve selected are all some form of tree!) with the stamped forms above and the green shadows below…
It doesn’t get more jolly than red stockings and snowflakes. I’m a sucker for the red-and-white Christmas colour combo (brings out the green of the tree, y’know) so this is close to my ideal card for the mantelpiece.
What’s that, you say? I’m ever predictable? Well, yes, I know, but I just can’t resist a good old vintage image at any time of year and at Christmas those old fashioned pictures just call to me even more strongly. This wonderful Father Christmas is from Rococo Rose made from a vintage engraving.
Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while might remember my hugely talented sister, Letterpress printer extraordinaire and maker of my wedding invitations and business cards.
Like it? Hey, you can buy it!
Well, she’s put me to shame once again for, while I’ve been wittering on about starting a fabric business for more than a year but done sweet FA about it, she’s spent the past six months setting up her own stationery company, Wolf & Ink.
I love the bus on this…Save the dates, RSVPs, and so on…This is a super cute idea: a wrapper for your CD of wedding songs
She makes bespoke wedding invitations (plus save the dates, RSVPs, menus and the whole caboodle, which I believe is more officially referred to as a “suite”) but you can enjoy some of the Letterpress loveliness even if you’re not getting married as she’s also launched a range of cards and notebooks.
Just think of all the lovely notes you could write in herePersonalised note cardsThis is my favourite of the bunch…Taxi notecards
You can find her at her own website: Wolf & Ink and she’s also just started selling an exclusive range for Not On The High Street.
But of course, all this creativity and get-up-and-go doesn’t make me feel even a tiny bit jealous. Honest.
*Retires to sofa to dream of a better life*
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I’m a real fan of Letterpress stationery so, naturally, I’ve got a whole Pinterest board dedicated to it. Check out some more beautiful designs here: Letterpress inspiration.
Just dropping in very quickly this morning to show you a few pictures of these little beauties:
I feel like I’m coming over all American Psycho, but look at that lovely thick card!
What is that heavenly thing of wonder? I hear you ask. Is it the latest exhibit at the Tate? Is it the winner of the Turner prize? Is it a new work by Hockney?
Prepare to be amazed, dear readers. It’s none other than my brand new business card. (Oh. You already saw that from the post title, did you?)
My sister had tied them up with this baker’s twine for me. Heaven! (Then she’d put them in one her dog poo bags, so the initial impression wasn’t quite as good…)
As I was going to the Pinterest party last night, I thought it might be a good idea to have some cards I could hand out to other bloggers.
I’d love to claim any sort of contribution to the beauty of this end result, but sadly (or, perhaps, fortunately) I had no hand in it.
The wonderfully talented Paola Zakimi, who made the amazing wolf girl on my banner, also created this great logo for me. (If you haven’t already, do take a look at Paola’s Etsy shop Holli, she has some gorgeous illustrations for sale.)
The same logo you can see on my About page, this time in printed form
And my sister (the same one whose wedding invitations I showed you before) had a Letterpress plate made up with the design and printed them out for me. (She also takes commissions, so if you want some nice cards yourself, just get in touch and I’ll put you in contact.)
You can just see the indentations of the press if you look closely…
Okay, I confess, I just like looking at these from every angle
Since they didn’t have contact details on, I bought myself a little Dormy printing kit, which had great reviews on Amazon. I thought I could easily print all my contact info onto the back of the cards.
I set up two different options for printing; one with just the website, one with more contact info.
It reminds me of the old cinema signs, where you can replace the film title letter by letter
Then I tried and tried over and over to get a good result with the stamp. Hmmmm. Not so much.
The larger plate with all the info was a complete disaster. But I managed to get a (just about) acceptable result with the website address alone.
A little bit of subliminal messaging going on here…
After all that practicing, the ink didn’t dry in time for me to take them with me, so I ended up only taking the plain cards. (In fact, it’s still not dry this morning…)
But, if it ever sets, the idea is I’ll have a card with a gorgeous front and an informative back. Like this:
Okay, the front is way better than the back, but I think I can just about get away with the shonky printing of the web address. Can’t I?
And how many of these beauteous items did I give out all night?
One.
Business cards: tick. Now to just set up the actual business…
Still, a business card is a step closer to a fully fledged business, isn’t it?
You know how it is around these parts. You wait four months for any sort of fabric dream development, and then two pieces of news come along at once…
(Okay, to fit the bus analogy it really should be three things at once, but heeeeey, steady on there, let’s not get too carried away in a hive of activity, I don’t want to wear myself out before tea time.)
Hot on the heels of my sneak reveal of my first ever fabric design, I’ve now got a thrilling announcement of the expansion to my (as yet hypothetical) fabric business to include printed stationery as well.
Soon the new Wolves in London Etsy shop will not only sell amazing fabrics, but amazing cards like these…
My super talented sister recently bought a Letterpress to make her wedding invitations and we’re joining up together to plan a business of prints for both fabrics and cards.
You’ll be relieved to hear, her love of vintage pics is as strong as mine. These were her incredible wedding invitations:
He’s a glorious camel, isn’t he?
We’re chomping at the bit to get started now and have business strategies and product plans and collection ideas bursting out of our every vein.
Not only is it excellent to broaden out from fabrics to stationery, but my sister is super-talented at design, so I’m really looking forward to working with her on all our new products. There’s going to be more than a thing or two she can teach this dunce…
Everyone would love to receive this cheery elephant card, wouldn’t they?
More developments soon, I hope! We’re planning on getting our Etsy shop up and running asap…
