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18th Birthday Card Cartoon Portrait

18th birthday card with cartoon portrait

Case Study

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen that I posted a while back about a happy customer I’d designed an 18th birthday card with a cartoon portrait for. I thought I’d share a bit more detail about it on here.

The customer had previously found me on Etsy and ordered a custom 21st birthday card for one of her sons. Apparently he loved it so much he decided to frame it. So when her other son was going to turn 18 she came back to me to design an 18th birthday card for him too 😊

She was a lovely customer to work for, as she sent plenty of photos and knew what outfit she’d like. A lot of people don’t give instructions until after I’ve already drawn the portrait then decide they want something different, so it was a joy to work with someone who knew exactly what she wanted.

She asked for him to be wearing a specific top from one of the photos and grey jogging bottoms, and to keep his ‘Movember’ moustache 😁

Here’s the cartoon portrait I came up with…

And if you’d like to see the replay of how I drew it then here you go…

And here’s the final card design. (Although he and his Mum said it was fine to share, I’ve blanked his name out just to be on the safe side…)

His Mum was really pleased with it and said when she gave him his card he loved it as well. She even sent me a photo of him opening his card and both of them were happy for me to share that too, so here it is!

And here’s the lovely review she wrote for me on Etsy…

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside 🥰

I do custom cartoon portrait cards for other birthday milestones as well. Here’s how it works:

When you place your order you can upload a photo and send some instructions at the same time. It helps if you can be specific about what type of clothing you’d like them to wear, whether or not to include their glasses or facial hair or anything else that is relevant. If you’d like to send extra photos then just let me know in the instructions too and I’ll get in touch to help you do that.

I’ll then draw the cartoon portrait, add it to the card design and send you a proof to check. If you have any changes I’ll make those and, once finalised, will print out and post the card to you. It’s an A5 size card and comes with a kraft envelope too.

Here’s where to order your custom cartoon portrait milestone birthday card.

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Children’s Birthday Cards

Children's Birthday Cards - ballet 10th birthday card

Happy New Year! I’m very excited to let you know that I’ve now added children’s birthday cards to my shop. It’s been a big gap in my selection and I’m happy that this is no longer the case 😃

I had sold a few kids’ cards previously but I always felt like the designs didn’t really fit in with the style of the rest of my greeting cards. I’ve now reused some of those illustrations as well as drawn some new ones and come up with brand new designs that I think are more in keeping with my brand.

This is still a work in progress and I’ll be adding more designs along the way. At the moment just the ballet or football cards are activity related, and I’d definitely like to include more sports and hobbies for kids. So if there are any subjects that you’d like me to include in the collection, please get in touch and let me know. I’m always open to your ideas.

Age Birthday Cards

The majority of the children’s birthday cards are available for all ages from 1 to 12. I’ll have to work on some teenage friendly designs in the future 😁 and fill that gap too!

Here are a few examples of the age cards for kids…

unicorn 3rd birthday card
Football 10th birthday card
stegosaurus 1st birthday card

Personalised Cards for Kids

I’ve also added a couple of personalisable options… The Triceratops card is age-less 😁 and the Tractor one is age specific. Kids love to see their own name on a card, so I’ll probably add this option to some other cards too in the future. Here are two examples…

personalised triceratops children's birthday card
Personalised tractor birthday card

You can look at the full range in my shop here: Children’s Birthday Card Collection

And don’t forget to send me a DM on Instagram if you want me to add other sports or subjects to the range!

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Wholesale Greeting Cards

Wholesale greeting cards order being packaged up

Last week I received a couple of wholesale greeting cards orders and decided to record some of the process to share with you here on my blog. I’ve also added a new Wholesale page on my website so it’s easier to get in touch if you’re looking to buy wholesale from me.

Processing Wholesale Orders

Printing the cards

When I get bulk orders I sometimes outsource the printing to a local printer, but also sometimes print them myself if I have enough time and the orders aren’t too big. The card stock quality is exactly the same either way – lovely thick 350 gsm card stock.

Here’s a clip of my printer working on a wholesale order. It’s speeded up so you don’t die of boredom watching it as it can take a while 😁

Folding greeting cards

Whether I print the cards myself or outsource the printing, every card is then hand folded by me using my bone folder tool. Here’s another speeded up clip to show you. If only I could really fold cards this quickly 🤣

By the way, if you like watching these types of process videos, come follow me on Instagram. I often post reels like these showing what goes on behind the scenes.

Packaging the cards

Once all the cards are folded each one needs to be paired with an envelope and put into a display bag.

I only use biodegradable/compostable display bags to keep my packaging as plastic free as possible. And for retailers who prefer not to have any bags at all I can package them in belly bands instead.

They’re then ready to be put into a box and shipped off to the retailer. I find it really exciting to think of my greeting cards finding their way into various shops and online stores that I might never even have seen before 😃

Interested in my wholesale greeting cards?

If you’re interested in stocking my greeting cards in your own shop, you can head to my Wholesale page to find out more or to get in touch.

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Custom Postcards

Custom postcards for Tin Can Camping

Earlier this year I designed some custom postcards in one of my favourite projects so far. I drew custom illustrations to be used on the postcards for an amazing glamping site called Tin Can Camping. They have four Airstream and vintage caravans to stay in in a remote area in South Norfolk and it’s really worth checking out. We’ve now stayed there twice so I was incredibly excited when they asked me to do custom illustrations for a series of postcards featuring their gorgeous trailers.

It turned out that the owners really liked a thank you card I’d made for them the first time we stayed, so decided to ask me to work on the postcard designs for them. Here’s a screenshot of when they posted it on their Instagram account

The four caravans on the custom postcards

These are the four postcard designs I created together with photos of the original caravans.

This little one is the Bubble and is the first Airstream we stayed in – the same one pictured in the thank you card. It couldn’t be any cuter, could it?! That visit it rained a LOT (like torrentially) but we still had a great time snuggled up inside this cosy little trailer.

The next time we stayed we chose the Caravanner. The weather was kinder to us this time so we got to take advantage of the BBQ and fire pit more often. It was also fabulous!

This is the largest Airstream on the site, the Sovereign. I can’t even imagine towing something this size around, but I suppose roads are a bit roomier in the US!

And this is the Jewel, an aptly named vintage caravan that really stands out amongst the silver Airstreams.

Which one is your favourite? I honestly can’t decide…

It was such a fun project to work on. I love drawing, I love camping and I love these Airstreams. So I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to bring them all together to create these postcards.

If you have a custom illustration project you’d like me to work on, please get in touch 😃

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Highs & lows of running a greeting card business

Rollercoaster - the highs and lows of running a greeting card business

I love running a greeting card business! There are so many different aspects to it, from drawing and creating the card designs to learning about SEO and marketing, and from managing a website and other selling platforms to getting the orders from each printed, packed and posted off as quickly as possible.

It’s not all fun and games though, so I thought I’d share a bit about the highs and lows of running a greeting card business, particularly a one man band business like mine.

The good, the bad and the ugly of running a greeting card business

The Good

It’s terrific to be able to do something creative and have other people like my creations enough to buy them. Coming up with new ideas, drawing the illustrations and then making them into card designs really is fun. I get to draw whatever I like, come up with silly puns to match and then see my cards in physical form when they’re printed.

And every single time I get an order I still feel that little buzz of excitement. Also, (insider info alert) both the WooCommerce and Etsy apps make a little cha-ching sound every time an order comes in – how fun is that?! It’s great when I’m sitting at the pub, out for a run or watching telly (not even working) and I hear that sound 😁

Another good thing is all the stationery, gadgets and tools I can justify buying for my business 🤣. Lovely card stock and sticker paper to drool over, my iPad and Apple pencil and my shipping label printer are just a few of the things I’ve been able to buy. They all make my business better and/or more efficient so I don’t have to feel guilty for splurging on them!

I also love it when I get great feedback from customers, whether it’s for existing cards or for custom cartoon designs. I often get to hear the back story when I’m creating cartoon portraits – who the card is for and why. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that that so many people out there love each other enough to go to the trouble of ordering such a personal card or gift 🥰

And one of the best things about my greeting card business is the lovely people I’ve met through it. I have some very lovely loyal customers who come back again and again (you guys are the best!) And I’m also part of a group of greeting card businesses owners. We cheer each other on, celebrate each other’s successes and help each other through the tougher times. I’ve never met any of them face to face but now think of some of them as very real friends. After all, friendship is knowing that you’ll be there for each other through both good times and bad…

The Bad

Although most of it is fun, there are still some aspects to running my greeting card business that aren’t. There are some very monotonous tasks involved in getting my products listed on my website, Etsy or wholesale platforms.

Bored Over It GIF by CBC - Find & Share on GIPHY

Trying to come up with an original description for each product (which has to be different on different platforms too), creating mockups of the card designs and uploading those, and filling in all the info for each card – ugh! These would be the first tasks I’d outsource if my business grew too big for me to manage on my own. But though these aren’t my favourite tasks, they’re a small price to pay for loving what I do overall!

It’s also hard not to take it personally when I go through a quiet patch. Greeting card sales can be quite seasonal and it’s easy to get paranoid when sales slow down during the summer. I sometimes think that it’s all falling apart 😆. But then Christmas comes along. And then Valentine’s Day. And I remember that as the business is growing overall there’s no point agonising over individual months being quieter. So I try to use these times to get ahead on stuff I won’t have time for when it gets busy.

And the Ugly…

There’s only one truly awful part of running a small business. It’s when you do everything you can to make a customer happy and they still assume you’re out to scam them… This week I had a bad review from someone in the US. They didn’t realise I was shipping from the UK and thought I was a scammer when the card didn’t arrive within a few days. And I’ve had a bad review from someone who was disappointed in the size of the card. This was despite the dimensions being listed in the item description and in the photos. There was also being a video of me holding the card (though perhaps they thought I had enormous hands 🤣).

I do sometimes make mistakes. But whether it’s my fault or not I’ll always do everything I can to sort things out and make my customer happy. So it is hard when people leave a bad review without getting in touch first to see if I’ll make things right. Especially when it was something out of my control or a mistake on their part! But I’m learning to just have a good cry and move on…

Sad Ice Cream GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Luckily these customers are very few and far between. The overwhelming majority of my customers are really wonderful and their lovely feedback makes everything worthwhile 😇.

Running a greeting card business is 99.99% wonderful

So although there are a few lows to what I do, the highs are very much in the majority. I love running a greeting card business and feel very lucky to be able to do it. I’m so grateful to both my terrific customers and my ‘Cardies’ group for helping me get to where I am. I can’t wait to see where we’re headed in the future. Love you all!!!

[Roller Coaster Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash]