Month: January 2021

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Valentine's Day Gift Ideas

Custom illustration cartoon couple portrait

I’ve put together some Valentine’s Day gift ideas to make the 14th February extra special, because right now we all really need something to look forward to! Whether you’re looking for something fun to do with your bae, something to spice things up a bit, something sweet and romantic or even something for your gal pals, read on…

Valentine’s Day gifts ideas for couples

It seems unlikely we’ll be getting out on Valentine’s Day, so this Date Night in a Box is the perfect alternative. And much nicer than eating from an overpriced set menu anyway…

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - Date night in a box gift idea
Date Night in a Box

Or if you’d like some inspiration that lasts the whole year, this Box of Date Night Cards might be just the thing.

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - A Year of Dates in a Box
A Year of Dates

This sexy little coupon book will give them a whole lot of treats to look forward to well beyond Valentine’s Day. Or you can make your own diy coupons!

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - Sexy little coupon book
Sexy little coupon book

If they’re into baking or cooking then this personalised metal spatula is both practical and romantic 😍 You can find lots of personalised gift ideas for other interests too.

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - Personalised metal spatula
Personalised metal spatula

Or everyone wears socks, so why not get them a personalised pair to remind them you’re ‘sole’ mates every time they wear them?! 😁

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - Personalised Sole Mates Photo Socks
Personalised Sole Mates Photo Socks

Galentine gift ideas

Of course buddies are just as important as baes, and these days February celebrations aren’t just for couples anymore. Etsy has a great range of cute ideas to let your bestie know how special she is this Galentine’s Day (usually celebrated on 13th February).
How about a Galentine’s wish bracelet? You can even customise the colour 😃

Galentine's Day Gift Idea - Customisable Galentine's Wish Bracelet
Customisable Galentine’s Wish Bracelet

Got quite a few Galentine’s gifts to send out? You can customise mini bottles of Prosecco or Champagne for your gal pals with these ‘Bubbles for my Babes’ labels. Too cute!

Galentine's Day Bubbles for my Babes Labels
Galentine’s Day Bubbles for my Babes Labels

I also create custom cartoon portraits which work equally well for best friends or couples – but get your order in quickly as I can only create a finite number of these in time for Valentine’s Day!

Valentine's Day Gift Ideas - Couple cartoon portrait
Couple cartoon portrait

I hope these Valentine’s Day gift ideas help make your February as special as possible. Love will keep us going through all the crap that life has to offer, so it’s worth celebrating!

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Valentine's Day Cards Timeline

Rose valentine's day card

Valentine’s Day and giving Valentine’s Day cards are normal for us now at this time of year, but this wasn’t always the case. The earliest celebrations date back to Roman times. The cleansing ritual of Februa and Lupercalia, the pagan festival to ensure fertility and bounty, took place between 13th and 15th February. It wasn’t until later that it became associated with romance and love though. And sending Valentines was still an even longer way off…

fANTastic Valentine's Day card

The first Valentine message (maybe!)

Some believe that the first Valentine message was sent around 278 AD. A St Valentine (there were quite a few over time!) supposedly fell in love with his jailer’s daughter when imprisoned. Legend has it that he wrote her a farewell note signed “from your Valentine” on the day he was executed.

The earliest surviving Valentine

A Frenchman, Charles the Duke of Orléans, is recorded as sending the earliest surviving Valentine note. He was imprisoned (bit of a theme here!) in the Tower of London after being captured in the Battle of Agincourt in 141. While there he wrote a poem to his wife, Bonne of Armagnac, where he spoke of his love for her and referred to her as his Valentine. Unfortunately she died before finding out about her husband’s incarceration 😢. His words are now in the British Library.

The earliest English language Valentine

The earliest example of a valentine in the English language is also in the British library. This is a letter from a Margery Brews to her fiancé John Paston written in February 1477. She refers to him as her “right well beloved Valentine”, while asking him to marry her regardless of being unable to persuade her father to increase her dowry. They did end up getting married!

Early Valentine’s Day cards

By the 1700s Valentine’s Day cards more like what we are used to began to become popular. They were all handmade as pre-printed cards didn’t yet exist. Symbols of love like flowers and love knots were used to decorate the cards and puzzles and poetry were also sometimes included. The cards were usually slipped under a door and anonymously signed “your Valentine”.

What is believed to be the oldest printed Valentine card is held by York Castle Museum. It is still coloured in by hand as full colour printing hadn’t yet been invented.

The sending of Valentines really took off in 1840. Printing had become more affordable and the British Parliament introduced flat rate mail delivery throughout England using the first stamps. These made it much easier and cheaper to purchase and send mail. This combined with the adoption of envelopes to allow privacy encouraged the practice of sending Valentine’s Day cards to flourish.

Valentine's day
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In the Victoria era Valentine’s cards started to become humorous, political and even sometimes outright rude – not dissimilar to what we send today! New technology also allowed for some really ornate designs too – including embossing, cut paper and layered windows.

Modern Valentine’s Day cards

Over 25 million cards are sent for Valentine’s day each year in the UK! It will be interesting to see whether in 2021 the pandemic leads to more or less cards being sent…

Nowadays we don’t just send Valentine’s to our secret crushes and long term partners, we also sometimes send them to friends (often called a Galentine or Palentine card) and family. I love this, as any type of love is worth celebrating 😍. Why should Valentine’s Day only be for couples?

No matter what your interests, outlook or relationship status, you can pretty much find a Valentine card to suit these days. Why not check out my range of Valentine’s Day cards and see if you can find the perfect way to send love to your favourite person/people?

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Rose Valentine's day card

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Sending Cards and Letters

keepsakes - cards and letters

Sending cards and letters seems to be making a bit of a comeback. There’s something really thrilling about getting a card or personal letter through snail mail. Much as we all love email and social media, they’re just not as special…

postbox for sending cards
Photo by Krisztina Papp on Unsplash

Everywhere you look there is advice on how to do a ‘digital detox’ or stop social media from taking over your day. It really has become too much of a good thing (and that’s now a bad thing! 😆) We’re starting to once again prefer physical correspondence over screen time and the art of letter writing and the popularity of greeting cards is growing once again.

Why we love getting & sending cards & letters

What is it about getting a card or letter that’s so exciting? I think part of it is that it is a physical thing that you can actually hold in your hand that proves that someone was thinking about you! You know that the sender deliberated over which card to send or what writing paper to use and then put the effort into writing a personal message to you (there’s no delete or undo button so more thought has to be put into what to say when hand writing something). And then they paid for postage and walked to a postbox to mail the card or letter to you. That’s a lot more effort than quickly typing a “You ok hun?” or pressing a like button!

Most of us have kept special cards or letters that we’ve received and we treat them like treasure. We put them in a special box for keepsakes or tuck them safely away in a drawer so that we can pull them out and enjoy them over and over in the future.

keepsakes - cards and letters
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Cards and letters are just a lot more persona. In an age where everything is so impersonal we need that. And of course since the pandemic started we are craving that personal connection even more than usual… And I wrote in my review of last year that we are once again starting to see the value of greeting cards as a result.

So I say “Yay!” to snail mail making a comeback! Let’s make the effort to remind our favourite people how special they are to us by sending cards and letters, and not just on special occasions either. I’m off to send my bestie a card right now! 😃

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5 a Day Greeting Card Collection

I’m happy to announce that my new 5 a Day greeting card collection is now available. 2020 wasn’t the best year and 2021 isn’t off to a great start either, so I figured we all need a bit of cheering up and that’s what this collection is all about. It’s full of silly puns and the easiest way ever to get your five a day. After all, we’ve got enough to deal with without worrying about new year’s resolutions 😆

Happea Valentine card

Greeting cards to make you smile

We all need a boost right now, and my hope is that these fruit and vegetable themed cards will do just that. I’ve collected loads of daft puns, drawn all sorts of cute and silly fruits and veggies to illustrate them and created a range of greeting cards to make you smile. And when you give them to someone else, they’ll smile too. And we can all be happy bunnies for at least some of the time in these crazy times!

via GIPHY

The 5 a Day collection covers a range of occasions, including Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day as well as the usual birthday, anniversary and other occasion cards. And of course there are some that can be sent just because you want to say thanks, or tell someone you miss them.

Here’s a small sampling of some of the cards, but you can see the full range in my shop, and I’ve been gradually adding them to my Etsy store too.

One in a melon mom - mothers day card
Holy Shiitake birthday card
Bean missing you card

Get 5 of the 5 a Day greeting card collection and save

Perhaps you can’t decide which one you like best. Or you’re the organised type who likes to have a stock available so you can give a greeting card at a moment’s notice. If so, you can save with my bundle deals. Buy three or five A6 cards at once and you’ll pay less.

My VIP subscribers also get special deals every time I launch a new collection. This time they’re getting an extra card when they buy 5 in the bundle deal, as well as a 15% discount. You can still get this deal if you sign up and purchase by Sunday 10th January 2021.

become a vip now

(If you’re too late, it’s still worth signing up as you’ll still get the discount on all future purchases and special deals on all future collections. I treat my VIPs very well! You’ll also get a monthly newsletter with the latest news and a roundup of recent blog posts.)

I hope you love this collection as much as I’ve loved creating it! I’d love to hear what you think so feel free to get in touch on Instagram or by email.

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