Cherry Picked For You Goes To The Ladder Club in Southend-on-Sea

At the end of last week I attended the first day of the ladder club which is a brilliant seminar organised by Lynn Tait of Lynn Tait Gallery in Leigh on Sea and her trusty helpers, Trudi and Pauline. The first day is for budding greeting card publishers (like me!). Everyone is so friendly and generous with their help and advice.

Wednesday 19th October I travelled to Southend-on-Sea  to meet up with some of the delegates on the seminar and all the speakers.  We gathered in the Westcliffe Hotel for a three course meal where there was a speaker on each table and we all spent a lovely evening getting to know new people.

Thursday 20th October was the first day of the seminar. After a welcoming cup of coffee and a photo we kicked off with Lynn giving us a potted history of how The Ladder Club started and its aims. Basically, it is to help budding greeting card publishers climb the ladder to success in this inspiring and friendly industry.

Jackie Brown, the Editor of Progressive Greetings and Founder of the Henries Awards (the equivalent of the Oscars in the Greeting Card world) came next. She explained how her magazine is a useful tool for us to get our work known and find out all the current trends in greeting cards. I have read the last three issues and it is packed full of useful information and news.

Next up was Sharon Little, the Chief Executive of the Greeting Card Association. The GCA is a brilliant organisation run on a non-profitable basis for greeting card publishers. Their website is a mine of useful information and Sharon is at the end of the phone to help with any problems and answer any questions. Sharon's talk outlined how the GCA can help new publishers.

Claire and Karen of Paper Salad, who set up their company 6 years ago and have just won a Henries Award spoke of the pitfalls that can occur as you grow your company. They gave a very realistic slant on what it is like to take this exciting journey and some of the mistakes they made.

All this was before our first coffee break.

After coffee, Jeremy Corner owner of an award winning greeting card company, Blue Eyed Sun gave a talk on the nuts and bolts of the industry. Jeremy is known as the guru to new publishers, helping them out with advice and insider knowledge. He certainly did that. Jeremy explained about the many different hats a greeting card publisher has to wear from doing the accounts, boxing up and dispatching cards, creating and designing and what to prioritise.  He also gave some excellent advice on marketing and selling, trade shows, agents and cash flow planning. Phew!

After a delicious lunch we listened to presentations from Bob Short of The Imaging Centre who runs a very successful company specialising in digital printing. Digital is the way to go when you start out as you can do short runs and test out your designs.  However, when you get more successful and established and you need to do bigger print runs of your designs then Litho Printing is a good option. Steve from The Sherwood Press explained all about Litho Printing.

Next we had a very informative talk by paper manufacturers G F Smith. Debbie Wigglesworth and Mark Jessett shared their love of paper and how it is an integral part of the design of greeting cards. Most people work out their designs and then think about what board they will use. Debbie feels it should be the other way round with paper taking the centre stage and working the design round it. It certainly makes sense as paper behaves differently when printed and so can become an integral part of the design process.

What a day! Thank you to everyone for all your help and advice. I am now on my way!!

Nina Green, Director Cherry Picked For You




































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Jan Constantine - Hand Finished Love Cards with Swarovski Crystals

With a design background in fashion, interiors and styling, Jan Constantine has created a unique collection of original, hand-embroidered designs on exquisite textiles and home accessories. Her range of cards depict these images. We are really pleased to be able to offer Jan's famous "Love" Banner card Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals.

Perfect Card to send to the one you love.

Her equally famous "Love" Tatoo card, again Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals:

And her "Romany Heart" card embellished with real Swarovski Crystals:

And finally, Jan's famous "Leopard Jack Print" card, again Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals:

A perfect card to send to the one you love on their birthday.

All these cards can be purchased from us for the very reasonable price of £3.99 with free delivery.

Anniversary and Love Cards by Nina Green

Individually handmade and lovingly put together these original cards by Nina Green are very special. The Love and Anniversary Cards feature a handmade porcelain heart on wire with a bead.

Love Anniversary Card with Porcelain Heart on wire with bead

These cards can be made even more special by adding the date you want to celebrate on a heart on the inside front cover.

simply email the date you would like to celebrate

The Love Cards can be sent at any time but would obviously make wonderful valentine cards.

New Artist to join our website this week is Claire Vine of Elsy & Vine

Claire Vine, of Elsy & Vine, makes beautiful handmade cushions, brooches and lavender bags in top quality lambswool. Each individual handmade piece has been cleverly created to allow layering and  mix matching in response to individual mood or character. So..escape in the pleasure of creating your own colourful world.  Elsy & Vine are ardent supporters of British craft and industry and wherever possible source materials and expertise from as close to home as possible.

Happy Days Cushion in blue/green lambswool

The Happy Days cushion is inspired by family holidays and depicts a large caravan repeat on one side and knitted spots on the reverse. It sports a complementary zipper at the base of the cushion and a 'forgarty' hollowfibre machine washable cushion pad.

The reverse of the Happy Days cushion in blue/green lambswool

Knitted lambswool and marino wool lavender bags, stuffed with locally sourced lavender are handmade using the best quality lambswool.

Cloud Lavender Bags in three designs

 

Adorable caravan brooches.

New Artists to join our website this week is Lara Aldridge Glass

Lara Aldridge Glass is a design partnership of Lara and Jon Oakley. Starting business in 1994 after finishing their studies, they are now located in a new larger studio space in central Brighton. Lara Aldridge Glass specialise in kilnformed glass and metal, their work is instantly recognizable due to the processes involved to produce every piece.

Beautiful wall panel 

Each piece is handmade by themselves, using a combination of metals in the form of sheet, rod, wire and powder which is assembled onto a single piece of glass creating a metal collage, having been originally inspired by Gustv Klimt whose work is also produced using the collaging process.  This process can take a number of days to assemble the finished designs. The final step is for another piece of glass to be added on top of the collage and the whole assembly being fired in the kiln. The kiln fires up to 1000 degrees centrigrade, and dependant on the scale of the piece being fired can be in the kiln for 7 days.

Another beautiful wall panel

These beautiful wall hanging are only some of the products produced by Lara Aldridge Glass.  On our website: www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk you will find sets of glass coasters and beautiful bowls and dishes. So relax with a nice cup of tea and browse their collection.

Beautiful Glass Bowl

New Ceramic Artist this week is Annette Bugansky

Annette Bugansky is a British Ceramic Designer who graduated from Central Saint Martin's in London in 2005 with an MA in Ceramic Design. In 2009 Annette won Best Contribution to the Show at Origin, awarded by Crafts Magazine. 

We are really excited to have Annette on board as we just love her handmade porcelain cups that can also double up as a vase. Freesias or other small flowers look lovely in them. They are available in five patterns, Aran, Cable, Chain, Rope and Twist and they are fired to 1280 degrees centrigrade which makes them totally watertight.

Aran Patterned Cup/Vase by Annette Bugansky

Annette also makes the most gorgeous Porcelain Tea Lights. When lit the Tea Light emits a warm amber glow that highlights the rich surface of the knit textured pattern. Available in two patterns: diamond and rib. The natural matt finish of the porcelain is complimented with a glossy glaze inside.

Diamond Patterned Porcelain Tea Light 

Finally, Annette produces these gorgeous set of three Heart Decorations which make a lovely gift for someone special or as a treat for yourself and your home. Each heart features a slightly different texture pattern and is embellished with a heart shaped jewel making them special and unique.  Made of the finest porelain and glazed on the front they hang on a 3mm red satin ribbon.

Use them to decorate your home all year round. I have my set on some twigs in the kitchen. Especially lovely for Valentine's Day or equally gorgeous hangng from the Christmas Tree.

New Ceramic Artist this week is Kathy Laird

I have been trying to get Kathy to join my illustrious group of artists for ages. In fact, I set up www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk with her in mind! I have been buying her beautiful garden pots and ceramic pictures for a few years and when I had the idea of opening an online showcase for designer led handmade products she was one of the first people I thought of. I didn't realise at the time how difficult it would be to get her to be part of my website. To be fair, Kathy is a very busy person. She is not only a ceramicist but also a landscape garden designer - which is very apparent in her work! Now she happily manages to find the time for both her garden work and the ceramic studio she works out of in Brighton. You can see from her ceramic landscapes the gardening influence.

We now have a lovely range of Landscape pictures by Kathy which would make a great gift for someone special in your life or as a treat for yourself and your home. Simply click under Artists and scroll down the Ceramic Artists to get to Kathy Laird to see the full range of landscape pictures we are able to offer.

Kathy also makes gorgeous pots that are frost free which means they can be left out in the garden, or attached to a garden wall (there are very useful holes in the back to place them on a wall) all year round even when it is icy cold and snowing! She also makes adorable jugs. Both the jugs and the pots are hopefully coming soon. So watch this space....