Ruby’s customers are the absolute best A lovely repeat customer of ours requested a bit of a customisation, and it turned out fantastically! She requested a customisation of our ‘Love Pigs’ design, featuring the bunny on our ‘Little Bunny’ card. Here’s the finished products – looks brilliant!

These will be available on NOTHS and here later today!

I know Christmas seems like aaaages away but I’ve had this little lovely made up, photographed and awaiting listing since the Spring and I just couldn’t wait any longer.

Personalisation is a wonderful bonus when working with small businesses handmaking products. This special Christmas Card features a handcut candy cane with a gift tag awaiting the name of your recipient. I really think these would be lovely for children to give to ‘Grandma’ or for kids to receive with their own name adorning the candy cane.

So exciting! All the new Christmas goodies are listed here on our shop and on our NOTHS shop, so there’s no excuse to start getting prepared for Christmas!

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to give everyone a little notice concerning order dispatch dates in September. I’ll be away from the studio for a few days but I won’t be closing any of the shops. Cards can be purchased as usual but will be dispatched on my return.

If you have any Birthdays or Anniversaries coming up at the start of September and are planning to order a Ruby Wren Card, now is the time to do so Orders placed on and after Saturday 4th September will be despatched on my return the following weekend.

So, I told you about the cat-themed card I made my Mum last week and I’ve been trying to design a cat card for a little while…

Well…drumroll please!

Here’s the final ready-for-sale kittens! Part of our ‘Love’ range, these Love Kittens will be joining our Love Ducks, Love Pigs, Love Turtles and Love Birds. I LOVE these kittens…so sweet and simple. Well, I do love anything with a kitten on it, afterall!

Currently for sale on NOTHS: Click here but hope to add them to our homepage shop and our Etsy shop soon!

I thought I’d share one of our special new items for Christmas this year. I love that handmade gifting takes advantage of personalisation so here’s some of our lovely personal Reindeers!

These cards are made with Handmade, 100% Recycled Paper, Reindeer Poo and Christmas Tree Seeds. They feature handcut Reindeers (of course!) and can be personalised with adult and baby reindeers to reflect your own family. Choose up to 2 ‘parents’ and up to 4 ‘children’ to recreate your Christmas Family scene. These make great ‘From All Of Us’ cards for those special people in your lives! Perfect for grandparents, family friends and people who you think deserve something a little bit special at Christmas! And, don’t forget – these cards could grow your recipient a little Christmas Tree

They are currently available by clicking here.

Small Single Reindeer Cards are £3 each | Pack of 6 for £15

Large Family Reindeer Cards are £6 and can be customised

This week has been such a weird one…you know the sort where you have lots of random things happening and the week seems to go nowhere? Our family has lots of Birthdays in August, with three of them this week so it’s been a week of making personal cards for family and visiting. I’ve also been suffering from some wrist injuries…I can’t really pinpoint what I did or when, but I suspect it’s all the work I’ve been doing on my laptop recently.

I thought I’d start a weekly update blog to keep me focused in the run-up to Christmas and to keep everyone informed with the progress of our little business

Our Bestseller this week: Mini 3D Butterfly Cards

These are usually quite popular but have been extra popular this week! So much so that I’m very low on purple envelopes and getting low on pink at the moment!

What We’ve Been Doing: Unfortunately, like I mentioned, my poor little wrists have needed some rest this week but I’ve been keeping on top of orders (same day dispatch, yay!) and ordering lots of Christmas Supplies.

Our plans for Next Week: More Reindeers! Our Christmas Reindeers are appearing in the NOTHS Christmas Catalogue so next week we’ll be continuing on our Christmas making!

Shop of the Week: Little Wren Pottery (http://www.littlewrenpottery.co.uk)

Because Victoria’s pottery is lovely and so is she! And, anyone who likes Wrens must have good taste

Have a great weekend everyone!

It was my Mum’s Birthday at the start of the week and in true Ruby Wren fashion, I made her a custom card (and my own wrapping paper too!). Based on our cats, I made a card with one larger cat and one small cat…complete with ginger-tabby stripes and tortie-cat spots! Of course, being both very ginger, the paper inside had to be a bright orange!

Here’s the card and some photos of our kitties!

Oh how I love our Wildflower Seed Cards! Not only are they super eco-friendly, they are more than just a greeting card too…a card and gift in one!

You may remember recently I blogged about planting my Wildflower Scraps? Not to be wasteful, I planted all the ‘middles’ of cards I make…the bits that get cut out when I hand cut the shapes in the cards. Well…unfortunately, having a little bit of a ‘wild’ garden as we like to call it, the wildflower seeds I planted originally got lost under the catmint plant we planted at the same time. I didn’t know catmint grew so quickly and before I knew it, the catmint plant had taken over the whole flowerbed and the wildflower seeds had been smothered underneath!

So, I planted some new scraps…on the patio, in a pot, away from the crazy catmint and everything else that grows so frantically! And the wildflower cards are growing wonderfully! We haven’t had the best weather this summer but it’s looking good! According to my little cat, it tastes good too…I keep spotting her munching the grass-like shoots (you may notice some of the blunt shoots in the photos where she’s been nibbling at at them!). I can’t wait to see if they flower…I’m hoping we’ll have enough sun to allow them to grow fully before the winter!

I shall keep you informed how it grows! It’s amazing to think that these shoots have grown from one of our greeting cards! If you’d like to purchase your own wildflower cards,  just chose the design from the menu in our shop and select ‘wildflower’ as your choice of cardstock. They make fab unusual gifts!

As I blogged last week about preparing for Christmas, I thought I’d keep you updated on what Ruby Wren is doing for Christmas! Even saying the word ‘Christmas’ makes me shudder right now.

I now have paper, big envelopes, small envelopes and enough packing envelopes to last me a long time! I still need to stock up on our lovely eco-friendly biodegradable cellophane for packaging and I want to reach my target of ready to post cards before the first drop of the NOTHS Winter Gift Guide. Can we do it? I certainly hope so! We were very shocked when we heard the sales forecast for the cards featuring in the notonthehighstreet.com catalogue.

How is everyone getting along with their planning for Christmas? Are you buying enough stock to reach your NOTHS forecasted sales, or will you purchase some and see how it goes?

I always like blogging about the evolution of Ruby Wren as a small business, the daily challenges we face and plans we have. August is no exception when it comes to ‘challenges’. For a card business, August is quiet from Father’s Day until the run-up until Christmas, but, we have big plans for this Christmas!

Following the success of the Summer 2010 notonthehighstreet.com catalgoue, I immediately signed up for the Christmas Catalogue. Due to the volume of catalogues which will be distributed this winter, it was an expensive decision, but one I leaped at. At the time, it felt like Christmas was miles away and that I had plenty of time to prepare our Christmas range.

But, oh my, how quickly time has flown! With the first drop of the catalogue due at the very start of October, we only have 1 month left to prepare. It’s a daunting prospect. And, Ruby Wren will be taking a few days off in September, so that’s even less time left to prepare!

Is anyone else preparing for Christmas? How are your plans going?