We know that weddings and Christmas are the biggest sales in stationery but Halloween is a growing opportunity. In 2014 almost 68% of Americans participated in Halloween fun and they spent $7.4 billion. Billion. With a “B”. Why not direct some of that spending your way?

Kids parties and treat bag decorating is a big hit at my kids’ school. If you have a wholesale account on stationeryhq.com you could get 12 stickers for just $1.44. You could get sets of 12 that are personalized or do a much bigger order and pay even less per sheet. These retail for around $5 for a set of 12. And placemats start at 4.25 each and retail for about $10.

And adding invitations to your arsenal is a slam dunk. 5 x 7″ flat cards retail for $50 – $60 for a set of 25. These can be ordered here for $12.75 WITH rounded corners and blank envelopes. Just think what you could do with wraparound address labels, envelope liners and coasters!

The dust is almost settled at our new location. We just moved across town but dismantling presses and 40,000 square feet of machines, supplies and people is no small feat. When the guys found our new location, they said, “It’s a total craphole and it might be haunted, do you want to see it?” All I saw was potential and a place to show off our expertise and our customers’ talent. BTW, it’s not haunted, the boys are just a little easily spooked.

This is the 80s Fab entry before we worked our magic. I’ll do another post so you can see all of the building’s former glory and how we’ve upgraded to a super fun, colorful workspace. Soon as the last of the boxes go away.

And this is what happened when I threw out an invitation to a bunch of creatives. I asked if anyone wanted to work their magic on a canvas, no rules (almost) just whatever inspires them. I got even more enthusiasm than I hoped for but I shouldn’t be surprised because we designers are our own breed. We NEED to create. It’s even better when we get paid for it, but most of us are designing all the time, whether we’re on the clock or not. And we love a challenge, particularly without lots of rules 🙂

I LOVE the messages on both of these. Happy day was designed by Laura Thacker from Carolina Quill.    Quit Slackin’ came from the talented and witty Julie Wylie at Whimsy & Wild.

I want this trailer. Thank you to Kim Arnold of Barefoot Studios for this gem.

This gorgeous water color features a message that is close to my heart, thank you for the reminder Laura at And Everything Nice. And my coffee soulmate, Amy Sturn of Springlake Statonery illustrated this heartfelt message to caffeine-addicts everywhere…

A whole different take on water color came with this zen Welcome canvas, thank you to Lauren Crawford from Crawfitz Designs.

Another inspiring message combined with great type and a fabulous flamingo came from Krista Mullis at Pluma Paper.

This juicy persimmon colored canvas with a great business message comes from Adrien Frayle at MarieDesign.com

The happy floral comes from my very talented partner in crime in my other designer life, Ilene Guy at Simon+Kabuki.

And I LOVE this take on a map by Kim Harrington at greylein.etsy.com. Makes me want to go somewhere…

And the last to be mentioned but first to arrive was this fantastic typography with key industry words by Becky Florence of Pineapple Princess Design Company. She sent it within a day or two and kicked off what turned out to be the most fun design collaboration ever! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me decorate our new digs and especially for confirming what I know about designers: We Rock.

Over the last few years I have had to adapt to the modern way of designing, having been taught the Adobe Creative Suite by my daughter in order to keep up with the times. I now mix Illustrator and Photoshop work together to create my unique range of cards, which I sell online at Decorque Cards, and I quite often delve into my archive to scan or photograph old work to use in new designs.

I am a fine artist and textile designer by trade, having worked all my life using watercolour paints. I don’t think you can beat the feeling of the paintbrush on paper and the amazing effects you can achieve with this versatile media. What I do love to see is some of these artistic methods, making their way into the stationery and greetings card world.

A trend for the 2015 Spring Summer season is Watercolour Painted effects mixed with simple typography to create cards. The Stationery Trends Magazine website has highlighted this as a Fresh Pick for the season entitled Painterly Elements. By scanning in and digitally printing designs on beautiful paper such as Savoy Cotton or Felt paper, you can still achieve texture and subtlety of the paint and modernise with bold and simple typography overlaid on top. All using a CMYK printing process.

The idea of mixing watercolour techniques with wedding stationery became popular last year, with a lot of blogs such as The Promise featuring it as a hot trend. It appears that with a lot of graphic and more simple designs appearing, people want to hark back to more traditional and unique methods. Bespoke designers such as Gemma Milly, and businesses such as Paper Bark and Arbee Cards are all offering watercolour wedding stationery as an option, to then be personalised for a couple’s big day. Their designs are a lot more decorative and floral, catering perfectly to the wedding market. They use delicate colour palettes that work across the broad range of elements required.

The joy of watercolour painting can come from it’s simplicity and opportunity to layer colour in a vibrant way too. What I like about the designs that Matrick and Eve create are that they are not using a watercolour painted, cliché scene, or something that they have designed specifically in mind to take typography. They are using a design purely as a colourful, decorative background in order to allow and take a large, simple typography message.

They are also using colour in a bold way. That is what makes their designs cool and modern and not too pretty and feminine. It also makes them versatile, working not only on notebooks, but also gift tags and wine bottle tags (to name but a few). These designs particularly appeal to me, so I thought why not dig out some of my old textile watercolour designs and give this concept a go myself?

Below are a collection of my watercolour designs, au naturel, straight from the archives. As you can see my style mixes the floral and decorative with the bold and colourful, so I’m a real mix of some of the designs I’ve showcased above!

To create my first two cards, I’ve scanned in a couple of the more traditional types of florals and created two options. They are similar to that of the wedding stationery, and some of the designs I’ve seen on the Ivy and Ellen website. They are more classic, using swirly fonts and have a feminine look to them in tone and style.

In contrast to that, I’ve created a more contemporary collection by turning one design into a set of cards, by altering the hues in Photoshop, layering on an of-the-moment modern typeface in Indesign and picking a design that is more abstract. These cards are made striking by the vivid colours, graphic font, white border and black envelopes. In my opinion they would not look out of place alongside some more quirky and graphic cards on sites such as Oh Deer or Society 6.

This method has not only brought life to old designs, but has given them a new purpose. They have gone from textile designs to card designs. I’m thinking of including these in my collection, and maybe embellishing a few of the more traditional ones with gems and maybe some delicate silver paint. I like the idea of painting back on top of the original watercolour design…..ooh I can feel another experiment coming on!

About:

Written by: Lesley Stevens – owner of Decorque Cards. I design and sell a selection of handmade and digitally printed cards and tags online, all made in the UK. My passion for design, pattern and colour stems directly from my love of nature; whether drawn, hand-painted, photographed or drawn in Illustrator, when brought together in Photoshop, my design comes alive and even more so when printed.