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Kids’ Corner

I find the best way to make a card look instantly personal, arty, and damn right adorable, is to get your 4 year old to make it. I gave my son the opportunity to produce thank you/ happy new year cards for all our friends and relatives and he made a fantastic effort. There was sequins, glitter, and stickers galore. I even managed to get him to sign his own name in the end after lots of practice (and patience on my part).
We even managed to find space on the page to add some ‘Happy New Year stamps which gave a ‘professional’ touch. A plastic table cover gave my eager 4 year old ample freedom and margin for error especially whilst using the felt tips and PVC. I have to admit that I had just as much fun as he did and was flattered when he complimented me on my writing. I purchased a lot of my crafty items from Tesco and was surprised that they had so much variety, from coloured card to special squiggly scissors.

I finished off the cute effect by adding a picture of my son, enjoying his toys at Christmas guaranteeing to pull on the heart strings of any recipient.
My friends absolutely loved them and have now requested hand-made fridge pictures. One step at a time.

Easter Card

In about a week Christmas will well and truly be over. It’s a shame that all the preparation that goes into it leads up to just one day but as long as you’ve planned, Christmas should be amazing. The same happens for Easter, which is the next big event that will involve cards and more importantly a break from work!! Last year my friend who makes his own personalised cards spent about two minutes creating a magical Easter card for me which I will keep forever. It was a piece of handmade card which he drew an Easter bunny in an egg shell, put some watercolour paint on it and signed it. It was so simple but so effective and I would recommend making your own cards, i did it this year for a few special relatives and friends and can’t wait to see their faces when they get them on Christmas day.

The thought does count

When people leave their job (under good terms!) there’s always a leaving card that gets passed around for everyone to sign. I have noticed that on every card the gets passed around whether it be birthday, congratulations or leaving cards, most people write exactly the same things over and over again. I always think it’s not really worth signing a card if you’re just going to put ‘best wishes’, ‘happy birthday’ or ‘congratulations’ and sign your name. So it’s my new year’s resolution to write something a little bit personal on cards to people. When I get a card from work people, the people that take the time and put the thought into writing something relevant to me are always appreciated. Take the time when writing your wishes, the thought does count.

Thank you

It is that time of year again when my social calendar just gets ridiculously booked up in the run up to Christmas! Now I want to make it clear, I am not complaining and I really enjoy having lots of fun social events to go to and catching up with friends and relatives.
It gives me a great reason to send a thank you card. With everyone rushing around like headless chickens particularly over the Christmas period, it is a lovely when someone takes the time to show their appreciation by writing a personal thank you message. With the era of the text message, I love receiving thank you cards, as you know whoever sent it went out of their way to make sure you feel that little bit more appreciated.

Loyalty Cards

Looking through my wallet the other day I realised how many ‘loyalty’ cards I had racked up over time.  Many of these from my days as a student, when the student ‘pound’ is seen as something businesses will be falling over themselves to compete for.  Whether I could be classed as a loyal customer to any of them would be debatable as many of these cards are either expired or probably for businesses aren’t close to me anymore.

So this raises the question, are they just a clever marketing ploy, where businesses know the vast majority of people will take them and not use them again, or if they do it will be on a very rare occasion.  Or maybe they want to encourage people to use them, but restrict there use to off-peak business times.  I guess at the end of the day, discounted business is better than no business.

Handmade cards

Sometimes a card from the local shop isn’t enough to give to your loved one. My friend is very much into making her own cards. Basically it does say that you have put in the effort and it is definitely a card that you want to keep for the memory box along after the event. She made me a Birthday card with a picture of myself on, like a caricature and it looked exactly like me. There are loads of sites out there which will give you inspiration to make your own cards, just search for card making on Google. Try making cards with any children in your life, it’ll be a nice touch and you’ll get to play with glitter, sequins and sometimes even dried macaroni! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to regress back to playschool for a few hours!

Wedding cards

So I just received an invite the other day for one of my best friend’s wedding and it got me thinking about how much preparation goes into the planning of the ‘special’ day.  Also the importance of matching stationery is probably lost on a man like myself, and therefore makes it more important that so much planning goes into it.

The card in question received was quite obviously hand-made, but in a good way, as the detail it goes into makes it look quite good.  I guess that when we get to the actual day, we will have tables decorated in a matching theme as I know what the future wife is like.

Anyway on that note my wedding will be ages yet as Im yet to meet the future Mrs ‘Joe’.

Business cards

Creating a business card is something you need to think very carefully about. Depending on the type of business, industry or work you do, you need to think about all aspects of how people will see your cards. There is a message given out by all advertising and business cards are no different. For a builder the card needs to give off a message that you are strong, honest, hardworking and trustworthy. It’s a difficult job. For a Recruitment Consultants your card needs to say that you’re smart, efficient, professional and confident in your ability to find the best people for the job and save your client time. These are different ends of the spectrum and there are all the levels in-between. If you think about it, this card will be what you give to people to remember you by and hopefully encourage them to use your professional services. It needs to be good. My dad bought some business cards for his joinery business that were mint green with a flower in the corner. It’s safe to say I ordered him some others!

Draw a blank

Do you ever spend hours trawling through all of the various greetings cards out there looking for a card that says exactly how you feel about the recipient in some sort of whimsical fashion? Do you always find a part of the jargon that’s not quite right or it’s written in a style that makes you want to cry because it’s so cheesy? I was stood in a card shop in my home town with a friend a couple of months ago and it took her over twenty minutes to pick a card for her mother’s birthday. And the worst part of it was that she ended up picking a blank one because after reading all of the cards available she decided that none of them said what she wanted them to. She wrote ‘Happy Birthday Mum, hope you have a lovely day’ in it. It just shows, all the money that people are paid to write the verses in cards and none of them ever seem to be appropriate. This however only applies to people who care what the card says. I got a Birthday card that said Happy 1st Birthday. He obviously didn’t look at the card properly!

Belated Birthday?

I always find that if you miss someone’s birthday, you feel awful. It’s even worse if it’s your birthday and you don’t get a card from someone who you were expecting one from! I am still waiting on a birthday card and present from my best friend and my birthday was three weeks ago. She did drop by with some flowers but said she had my card and present at home. I am yet to receive them. There is a wide variety of ‘sorry I missed your birthday’, ‘happy belated birthday’ and ‘sorry’ cards available for just such an occasion as I am confident she had forgotten about my birthday and planned to get me something after the event! However considering she said she had bought it already perhaps she’ll just get me a birthday card and pretend it’s been waiting around since before my birthday. Oh the fun you can have with cards.