Paper Salad

Brand new notebooks just arrived ..

2012-03-15T13:05:00.000Z

We have just taken delivery of our new notebooks and are incredibly excited as they look fab!!

The finish is fantastic, amazing quality for the price, they retail at £2.75.

We have just had four designs printed to start with and we will hopefully add more designs if they sell well.

One of the designs matches our best selling London themed wrap, which is double sided with lovely red polka dots on the reverse!

New Gift wrap collection for Glick ...

2012-03-13T15:28:00.000Z

We are just completing our Christmas range and have set aside a few weeks to work on the new Gift Wrap ands Gift Bag collection we are designing for Glick, to be launched at Harrogate Home and Gift in July.

We have made a start on our sweet jars Gift Wrap, will post more as we go along!!

Sherbet Lemon Children's range, proving to be a hit!

2012-03-12T13:31:00.001Z

We have been really pleased with the response to our new Children's range,

What makes them extra special is the embossing and super shiny spot varnish that really helps to lift the design, they are also supplied with bespoke patterned envelopes ...

139 boxes of cards off to Waitrose, only 70 more to go!

2012-03-07T16:38:00.000Z

We have been so busy the last few weeks with the huge order we received from Waitrose, here are just a few of the designs they have chosen to be in a store near you soon!

We have had lots of students in helping to hand finish and pack the orders,

Boxes waiting for the courier to collect.

Our cards will be in the New Re-plan from 19th March, fingers crossed they sell through well!

Mothers day gifts ..

2012-03-06T14:23:00.000Z

Our little shop is stocked with lots of Mother's Day treats ..

Lovely goodies from Juicy Lucy..

Lovely mugs for mothers day and fathers day from Really Good!

Beautiful scented candles from St Eval, all handmade in Cornwall

and lots of Mother's day cards to choose from .... by Guess Who??

New Designs being created ..

2012-03-01T11:37:00.001Z

This week we have made a start on our Christmas designs for 2012 ...

we always start off by doodling lots of Christmas icons ..

then adding some colour and texture, we now need to get all of the images into some sort of order before scanning then and working on them some more on the computer.

Brand New Paper Salad Notebooks ....

2012-02-28T14:07:00.000Z

We have sent off the artwork to the printers for our new notebooks and here are the final four designs...

The finished notebooks will be finished with a spot UV varnish, and will be ready to order in 2 weeks time, we can't wait to see them!

Running short on space ..

2012-02-24T14:41:00.000Z

Paper Salad Studios is busting at the seams, all of our existing storage is full and there are boxes all over the floor.

We have no option but to build more shelving ..

It will mean that our studio space will be screened off from the rest of the space. It is a shame that we will lose the open airy feel, but at least it will give us a bit of privacy.

The new shelving was completed this morning and is already filling up with boxes!!

Happily Ever After ....

2012-02-22T15:36:00.000Z

We managed to finish our small wedding, anniversary range which we started last week, we were on a four day deadline so it was very rushed...

Eight designs altogether, will be ready to order very soon!!

Paper Salad by Glick stand at Spring Fair

2012-02-20T16:19:00.000Z

The Glick stand looked great at the Spring Fair

Our santa bags for christmas 2012

Bauble Wrap for Christmas 2012

Gorgeous girly bags, ideal for Mother's day!

A selection of our new wrap designs.

Design time ..

2012-02-17T13:01:00.000Z

We have found time to design this week, and have made a start on our wedding/engagement/anniversary range....

Starting off by having a play around ..

Not sure where we are going yet!! Still very much in the design process, will start putting it all together next week...

More mother's day cards ...

2012-02-16T15:52:00.000Z

Just a few more designs from our mother's day collection ...

If you are one of our trade customers there is still time to order in time for mother's day on 18th March.

A great selection of mothers day cards..

2012-02-15T13:49:00.000Z

Now that Valentine's day is over the next big sending occasion is Mother's day, here is a selection of what we have to offer...

Mother's day breakfast ..

More designs to follow tomorrow ..

Happy Valentines Day! xx

2012-02-14T11:46:00.000Z

Happy Valentines Day everybody!!

Just a selection of our valentines cards.

Back from The Spring Fair

2012-02-13T13:55:00.000Z

It is our first day back in work following a very busy Spring Fair,

We arrived early on the saturday morning to set up, and made a start painting the walls. we had meant to have a blackboard wall that we could chalk on, but the paint had been left at home. This meant we had to change our plans.

Six hours later the stand was complete. We were pleased with the results and had lots of nice compliments about our stand, everybody loved the lovely cakes we had on our sweet trolley, in particular....

...the marshmallow sheep!!

More new designs just in time for Spring Fair..

2012-02-02T13:06:00.000Z

Sorry we didn't get to post yesterday, we were on a time limit to get everything finished.

We now have nine new designs. Here are the designs we haven't yet posted.

The above four designs are all new captions for us, but have been requested from our customers.

A new well done on passing your driving test card, always a popular caption.

That is all we have had time to do for now. We are now getting everything packed up once again, ready for our courier to transport everything to the NEC in Birmingham for The Spring Fair which starts on Sunday. Any one who is visiting can see us on Stand GG111 in Hall 4.

New designs added to the Jelly Pops range

2012-01-31T18:15:00.000Z

Today we have been finishing the designs we are adding to our Jelly Pops range,

Two new First day at School cards..

A new Thank You Teacher card ..

and a new Mum to be card,

we have more designs which we will post tomorrow.

All of our new designs will be on show this Sunday at The Spring Fair, we are in Hall 4, Stand GG111, if you are visiting please pop by and say Hello!.

Cheerful, fun, easter cards

2012-01-30T14:29:00.000Z

We have been sending out Easter Cards since we arrived back to work after Christmas.

They really help to brighten the place up! Spring is just around the corner.

Cards spotted in Melbourne Australia ..

2012-01-27T13:02:00.000Z

Anna from Rosanna Rossi took these pictures whilst she was visiting Australia late last year, and she very kindly sent them to us, so thanks Anna.

It is always nice to see where our cards end up!!

Love is in the air ...

2012-01-26T11:13:00.000Z

Just a small selection of our valentines cards that are in the shops now

Only 10 more days until the start of Spring Fair, still so much to do ...

If you are visiting come and see us, we are on stand GG111.

More note book designs ...

2012-01-25T13:57:00.000Z

We have been asked to submit some designs for a client, hopefully they will be selected ...

We are constantly being asked if we do note books, when we started publishing greeting cards nearly seven years ago we were keen to do some but were never able to get the pricing right, we have now found a good supplier who can produce quality books at a good price, so watch this space.

New designs being added to Jelly Pops range ..

2012-01-24T15:30:00.000Z

We didn't get time to finish off our new occasions range before we went to Top Drawer, so this week we are designing some new cards to complete the collection ...

Top of the list is Thank you Teacher and first day at school cards ....

Just look at the state of my desk, believe it or not I tidied up yesterday morning !!

New note book designs we have been working on.

Will do another post on these when they have all been completed.

New Card Range Jelly Pops ....

2012-01-23T11:14:00.000Z

Our third new card range of 2012 is Jelly Pops.

An all occasion range featuring a unique 'Jelly' style badge and a bespoke printed envelope. In a new format of 138 mmx 170 mm.

Fantastic Social Stationery ....

2012-01-20T19:40:00.001Z

We have lots of social stationery designs for every occasion, they are extremely popular, here are some of our favourites ...

Fairy Party Invites ...

Fairy Thank You Cards .....

Cupcakes party invites ...

there are eight cards in a pack and come supplied in a header bag, trade price is £1.50 with a RRP of £3.60, which is great value.

Our New Birthday Range, great success at Top Drawer

2012-01-19T11:53:00.000Z

We launched three new ranges at Top Drawer, one of them being a birthday range called Deeley Boppers!!

All are hand finished with a super sparkly heart or star with a RRP of £2.35

We are back from Top Drawer, now getting ready for Spring Fair..

2012-01-18T14:50:00.000Z

We arrived back late last night after a busy Top Drawer. We were absolutely exhausted and are still gathering our thoughts. We have a pile of orders to get through, emails to write and brochures to send out (we underestimated how many we would need and completely ran out on the second day),

Saturday morning en route to London.

Arriving at our stand, to our relief all of our show stuff had been delivered ahead safely.

Making a start, we gave ourselves a 3 hour timescale to finish .....

We could have sold our sweet trolley a hundred times over ..

Six hours later, we finally felt happy with how our stand looked. We did the best we could with the space we had, a lot smaller than our usual stands. It did get crowded at times!!

Claire takes time out to read the Paper Salad Times!!

Our new children's designs.

Rose Lane our relations range, still proving to be very popular.

Now we have to get focused, we have new designs to add to our Jelly Pops range in time for the Spring Fair which is just over two weeks away.

If you are visiting we will be on Stand GG111, come and say hi and enjoy a cake off our sweet trolley.

Brand New Children's Range

2012-01-12T13:27:00.000Z

We took delivery of our new children's range this morning.

The range is called Sherbet Lemon. All cards have a deep emboss and super shiny finish which you can't see on these photographs.

All of our new cards will be on display this weekend at Top Drawer, stand AA5.

All of our show stuff is packed up and ready for the courier to collect, fingers crossed it all gets there safely.

New Brochure has arrived ..

2012-01-11T12:28:00.000Z

This week is exciting, as not only have we got Top Drawer at the weekend to look forward to, but all of our finished product is beginning to arrive daily, yesterday we received our brand new brochure ..

...then this morning we took delivery of our bespoke printed envelopes which compliment our new card ranges...

Tomorrow we take delivery of our new childrens' and occasions ranges, typical Paper Salad style, we always leave everything until the last minute. We were still making adjustments to designs this morning!!!

More pics of our stand design ...

2012-01-10T16:01:00.001Z

We have nearly finished getting our stand ready for this weekend ....

The sweet stand has had its second coat of paint and awning added.

We think it is looking okay so far!! Still got to fix all the card strips to the 'Dressers', and finish off getting all of our bits and pieces together, ready for the courier to pick up on Thursday.

Don't forget Top Drawer this Sunday 15th, we are on Stand AA5.

Stand Design for Top Drawer 2012

2012-01-09T18:59:00.000Z

This week we are painting, sticking, cutting and getting everything ready for this weekends show - Top Drawer at Earls Court. It is the first time we have exhibited at this particular show so are very much looking forward to it. We like to change our stand design yearly to keep everything fresh, we have decided to go for a sweet shop theme this time as it reflects what we are doing at the moment in our cards and wrap.

We have had an old fashioned style sweet trolley made and are in the process of painting it. When it is finished we have a pink and white striped awning to fit!

We have hand drawn some 'dresser' tops to display our cards.

If we have time we will try and post more pics on our progress tomorrow! If you are visiting the show please come and say hello, we are on Stand AA5.

Hope to see you there!!!

New Designs, hot of the Press ...

2012-01-04T16:09:00.000Z

Happy New Everyone!

We arrived back at work yesterday to a mountain of work, in the next week we have to design one more new range and get it to the printers, finish off the props for Top Drawer which starts on the 15th January, design and finish a range of wedding stationery, design and print our new brochure, organise the transportation of all our trade show stuff and finally order all the bits and bobs for our special treat which we are taking to the trade show, oh and also organise a press pack!! Phew thats all!!

We got the proofs of our new Children's range from the printers between Christmas and New Year!

The black overlay is where the finish is to be applied, it's a finish we have not used before, so fingers crossed it will look good!

We are off to pass on press in Nottingham tomorrow morning.

Merry Christmas Everybody ...

2011-12-20T19:55:00.000Z

We found some time last week to take a break and spend the afternoon drinking cocktails and enjoying a nice meal at Michael Caines Restaurant Abode in Manchester..

We enjoyed some lovely cocktails...

....and a trip around Manchester. We had a lovely time and we feel, a well deserved break!

It is now 19.50 and we are still at work desperately trying to finish off our designs so that we can send them to the printers tonight and check the proofs before everyone finishes for Christmas.

We won't be blogging now until we start back at work in January so we would both like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !

Karen and Claire xx

News .....

2011-12-16T13:45:00.000Z

Hi, another busy, busy week, still on the last minute trying to get our designs done in time for Top Drawer, we have taken delivery of one new range which we are really pleased with, and are well on the way to finishing our new children's range which is to be called 'Sherbet Lemon'. We have to have all the designs completed by Tuesday if we stand any chance of having them printed on time.

A lot of our time recently has been taken up with an idea we had in the Summer of producing a newsletter/marketing tabloid newspaper, and we are proud to say it has now been printed and we have taken delivery of the finished article today.

It is a tongue in cheek look at the world of Paper Salad,

4,700 copies have been delivered to Progressive Greetings today, as it is going in the January Issue as an insert, targeting existing and potential customers.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Karen and Claire xx

Christmas 2012 Gift Bags....

2011-12-07T16:14:00.000Z

Today has been spent mocking up the Christmas designs we did a couple of weeks ago into gift bags, so that Glick can photograph them and take them to their annual sales meeting next week.

Lots of new designs being created....

2011-12-06T19:04:00.000Z

First of all we must apologise for not blogging for a while, but we have just been so busy this past week. Just when we think we are getting on top of things something else comes along with a deadline as usual and everything has to be pushed back! We are now worrying about getting all of our new designs ready in time but we will find a way of making it happen.

Last Saturday we took up our spot at the annual 'Winter Wonderland' in Marple Bridge in Cheshire. The weather was truly awful, we had to set up in a torrential downpour, and trying to get everything put out and arranged beautifully with people sheltering under our gazebo was very challenging.

We finally got our stand sorted and everything was okay for a while, although the gazebo took a battering with the heavy rain and the sudden gusts of wind that nearly saw it taking flight on several occasions, it took three of us to hold it down.

Claire and Jess keeping warm with mulled wine and a mince pie.

Father Christmas arrived on horse and carriage.

We are doing another Christmas fair this saturday at Greave School and thank goodness it is indoors.

New Designs for Christmas 2012

2011-11-29T17:59:00.000Z

Just when we thought we had a free week to really crack on with our new designs in time for Top Drawer in January we have both been side tracked by other design jobs, we aren't complaining as it is good that we are busy, but we are running out of time now to get everything done in time, the weeks are flying past and we have so much to do....

We have been asked to do some Gift Bag designs to accompany the Christmas 'Santas' roll wrap designs we have just completed for Glick. The deadline is this Thursday as they have to get them printed in time for The Spring Fair at the beginning of February.

Here is what we have completed so far .....

We have also been working on some lovely Wedding Stationery, we will post about this at a later date!

Two New Rose Lane Relation Cards

2011-11-25T14:07:00.000Z

We have always found that the relation cards that we do sell really well, our last range called Sweet Talk has sold out now, leaving us with a few gaps in the range! We have added these two new cards to our popular Rose Lane Relations range.....

There are now 22 designs in this range!

The new range, called Deeley Boppers is on its way to the printers today, we can't wait to see how they look!

Working on new card designs ready for the New Year

2011-11-23T16:43:00.000Z

We have been busy, busy, busy and have nearly completed one card range, when we get them back from the printers we will let you take a look!

We have now made a start with our new children's range, it is still in the very early stages where we just have a play and see what we can come up, sometimes we spend all day and come up with nothing worth taking any further and today seems one of those days ......

We will carry on tomorrow and hopefully we will come up with something we are happy with.

We have treated ourselves to brand new Macbook airs ......

so no excuses for not blogging!!!

New Personalised Christmas Signs

2011-11-18T11:05:00.000Z

As promised here are the new personalised christmas gift ideas that we have been working on!

We revealed them at our open evening last night and they were an instant hit! They are unique signs and we think they are a brilliant addition to your festive decorations or a very original gift idea at a very reasonable £12.99. They can be bought here!

We also have new personalised christmas banners available, featuring santa and rudolph!

They can be purchased on Not on the High Street here!

Christmas Wrap ....

2011-11-17T11:05:00.000Z

We posted a few weeks ago on some designs we were working on for next Christmas which are to be launched at the Spring Fair in February..

The backgrounds are now in place and they are ready to go into production ..

We are having our Christmas shopping event in our shop tonight, so will post lots of photos tomorrow.

Newly designed door plaques!

2011-11-16T19:52:00.000Z

Due to the popularity of our personalised door plaques we have released more designs....

We also have more plans underway for lovely Christmas gifts. Watch this space!!

Don't forget that we are holding an open studio event tomorrow, 3pm til 8pm. Hope to see you there!

Paper Salad Personalised Cards now available on Salt&Paper website

2011-11-14T17:00:00.001Z

Our cards are now available to personalise and buy online via this

Link

Over the last few weeks we have been working with the web designers to make it possible, we provided them with a selection of alphabets for them to work with so that the cards still retain the paper salad style of font, and we are very pleased with the results.

Our personalised New Year Banner is also available to buy from Not on the High Street

As are our very popular personalised birthday banners.

New ranges being developed ready for the new year launch.

2011-11-11T14:15:00.000Z

We are well on the way to completing one of our new ranges which will be launched at Top Drawer in January, it has been a long process, mainly as we keep getting interrupted dealing with everything else that running a small business involves.......

I have been drawing and painting and Claire has been taking the original drawings and adapting them to print format.

We will post the new designs as soon as they are ready.

In the meantime our shop is looking good, ready for our Christmas shopping events next week

Hope everyone has a good weekend, see you back here on Monday!!

More personalised products

2011-11-10T16:36:00.001Z

We have been working with another company to produce personalised products, we will sell these on our new website that is being developed at the moment, but in the meantime you can order them by email or on Not on The High Street Here they have been selling really well, especially on the run up to Christmas as they make great gifts.

Totally unique door plaques, with a bespoke design for each one ordered. Can be personalised with any name, words or numbers!

Made from clear acrylic with adhesive foam pads on the back to stick wherever you choose.

150 mm wide x 80 mm height x 7 mm depth.

Our Trophy for our award winning designs ...

2011-11-09T14:58:00.000Z

We received our copy of Progressive Greetings yesterday and a picture of our trophy was in there

Alongside some other pics from the night

There was also an article about our talk at the ladder club!

This will certainly be an edition that we will be keeping!

Christmas cards now available on Not on The High Street

2011-11-08T16:57:00.000Z

Christmas packs of 12 different designs are now available to buy Here

All of our cards are printed on FSC high quality 300 gsm board and are supplied with specially designed printed envelopes.

Paper Salad on Card and Gift Blog

2011-11-07T13:07:00.000Z

We were really pleased to be mentioned on the popular Card and Gift Blog last night. Charlotte picked us as her Sunday Blog Spot post. Click here to read her review of our blog!

Paper Salad HQ!

Here are some pictures of Chadkirk County Park where our studio is located. We are really lucky to be surrounded by so much countryside, you wouldn't believe that we are less than 10 miles from Manchester city centre!

Christmas has arrived at Paper Salad

2011-11-04T14:41:00.000Z

We now have all of our Christmas Stock out in the shop ..

Christmas decorations galore..

If you live locally come along to our Christmas shopping events on 17th November 3 till 8 pm or Saturday 19th November 10 til 4pm and enjoy mulled cider and minced pies.

and all of our trade customers we still have limited stocks of Christmas so it is not too late to order.

Getting our shop ready for Christmas ...

2011-11-03T15:41:00.000Z

Everything is feeling festive at our studio/gift shop as we have been busy putting out all of our new stock for Christmas. We ordered a fantastic tree from John Lewis and it looks great, we will post photos as soon as we find our USB lead for our camera which got misplaced when we had a massive tidy up on Monday to get ready for a photo shoot we had yesterday.

We were taking product shots for our new website and brochure which will both be ready soon. Can anyone see Claire hiding in this picture??

Great minds think alike! Does anyone else wear odd socks when you have boots on? It wasn't until we took our boots off when we were displaying our products out on the floor that we realised!!

We had a laugh about it, but our photographers think we are mad!!!

Happy Halloween .....

2011-10-31T15:50:00.000Z

..........to all of our followers...

Exclusive christmas shopping events ...

2011-10-28T14:30:00.002+01:00

What a productive week we have had design wise! First of all we have designed a flyer for the Christmas shopping events at our gift shop .....

If you live locally please feel free to join us, we have lots of lovely new stock that will be ideal stocking fillers.

We have also been busy in the studio designing our new ranges, we have also completed two new Christmas Gift Wraps for 2012, I know it seems early but they have to be ready for the trade shows at the beginning of the year.

The first completed design is Christmas baubles, which we think is for flat wrap, maybe printed on brown craft paper with foiling.

and a santa design, this is for roll wrap and will have three different backgrounds, yet to be decided. They will be scanned and the backgrounds added on the computer.

We have finally got the 'official' photo from The Henries!!

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Our Top 10 Best Selling Spring Seasons greeting cards.....

2011-10-27T11:13:00.000+01:00

So far these are our top selling cards in our spring seasons range.

No.10

No. 9

No. 8

No.7

No.6

No.5

No.4

No.3

No.2

.......and finally our best selling card in our Spring Seasons 2012 is

No. 1

If you are a trade customer and would be interested in stocking our range please get in touch.

Paper Salad Money Boxes now in Stock ....

2011-10-26T14:12:00.000+01:00

We have finally got the photos of the money boxes we designed for Smiling Faces ...

They are now available to buy in our gift shop, retailing at £11.99 each.

We LOVE them !!!!!!!!

Christmas cards now available in our shop .....

2011-10-25T14:35:00.001+01:00

All of our Christmas Cards are now available to buy in our shop either singly or in packs, also packs of gift tags available.

Photos from last weeks greeting card seminar....

2011-10-24T14:56:00.000+01:00

We are back in work today after what seems like ages, what with The Henries, then The Manchester Gift Show, followed by three days down on the South East coast at The Ladder Club Seminar. We are back in creative mode working on our next designs, as well as trying to complete two designs for Christmas Gift Wrap for Christmas 2012.

It took us the whole day to get to the venue, the first leg was 2 hours on the train from Stockport to London Euston. Ryan Thomas (Aka Jason Grimshaw from Corrie) was on our train, we held him up struggling to get our bags in the luggage compartment and he was very pleasant indeed.

On our way through London we spotted a Taxi, that reminded us of our new gift wrap!!

Two tube rides from Euston to Fenchurch Street Station, stopping for lunch in between.

Then finally a 50 minute train ride to Westcliff On Sea .....

After arriving at our hotel and dumping our bags, it was a quick change before meeting up with Sharon from the GCA and Tracy from Progressive Greetings...

Industry experts spoke about all aspects of the Greeting Card Market, and included founder of the Ladder Club Lynn Tait of The Lynn Tait Gallery, Jakki Brown from Progressive Greetings and The Henries Awards, Debbie and Mark from G.F.Smith Paper Merchants, Bob from the Imaging Centre, Steve and Nicky from The Sherwood Press, Sharon Little from The Greeting Card Association, Jeremy Corner from Blue Eyed Sun and of course yours truly.

Around 100 delegates came to the 2 day seminar and went away with a wealth of knowledge. This event is key for new publishers, and also to existing publishers as it helps to keep the industry fresh, and the UK on top of a very creative industry.

Our role was to talk about our story, and the highs and lows of being a greeting card Publisher, so that delegates get a good idea of the industry and what they can expect, we also spoke about licensing and branding.

All in all it was a great two days, we all had positive feedback and we met some lovely people who we hope will become very successful in our fantastic industry.

Back to designing .......

Off to talk at the Ladder Club Tomorrow ....

2011-10-18T16:55:00.002+01:00

Yesterday we met Janet from GF Smith for lunch to celebrate our Henries win, before taking a look at the New Manchester Gift Show......and came back to the office to these lovely flowers sent to congratulate our win, Thanks to Nigel and everyone at Hallidays and Marjorie and Jason.

The show was held at the Trafford Centre and we were keen to take a look as it is so close to where we live. We were met by these two on arrival.

There were a few card companies there, the biggest card stand was taken by North West agent Neil Greenwood, where he took space to represent the companies he carries. Including Laura Darrington, Velvet Olive, Brainbox Candy, Urban Graphic, and Pango amongst others.

Our honest opinion of the show was that as it is very regional it probably wouldn't be worth doing, having said that it is very cheap at only £125 per metre.

The dreaded time has come around for us to talk at the Ladder Club, so we won't be around for the next few days. The Ladder Club is great, we just hate talking to so many people and get so nervous, we have spent all day writing what we are going to say but it will all go to pot when we stand up to talk, wish us luck!!

We won at The Henries .....

2011-10-17T11:35:00.001+01:00

Hooray!! We are both still in shock but we won a 'Henrie" at last weeks prestigious greeting card awards which were held at The Lancaster Hotel in London.

We were nominated in the Best Giftwrappings Collection with our designs which we licensed to Glick and they entered under the Paper Salad Brand.

We were up against stiff competition and really didn't expect to win! Other finalists were Gorgeous and Girlie from Marks and Spencers and Orla Kiely Paper Collection.

The Henries greeting card awards were launched by Progressive Greetings Worldwide magazine in 1997 to recognise and award the excellence in the UK greeting card design and execution, with awards covering the whole spectrum. The Henries are so called after Sir Henry Cole who was an eminent Victorian, whose 'claims to faim' include the UK's famous Great Exhibition of 1851, being the first director of the Victoria and Albert museum, a leading light in the establishment of the Penny Post - and most importantly he introduced the first ever commerical Christmas card! The awards are judged by 30 of the UK's top greeting card buyers including Paperchase, Waitrose, John Lewis and WH Smith.

We haven't as yet seen the official photos of us receiving the award but here are a few photos of the night ....

Before the award ceremony began

Laura Darrington and one of 'The Bearded Ladies' Aka Mark from Brainbox Candy.

Mark and Ben from Brainbox Candy, the night had a Circus theme, hence the fancy dress.

Karen with one of the girls from Stop The Clock Design.

Gavin and Anna from The Little Dog who were up for nomination in three categories with their fantastic cards.

The view from our room at The Lancaster Hotel over a lovely Autumn day over London and Hyde Park.

Karen celebrating with Ian Hylands from Noel Tatt.

Award founders and editors of Progressive greetings Jakki Brown and Warren Lomax.

More pics to follow....

Top Drawer Spring 2012.

2011-10-12T14:09:00.001+01:00

We have finally booked Top Drawer Spring. Despite Paper Salad being in its seventh year of trading we have never participated at this show before, we have done every other show going . The reason is that we always do Spring Fair at the NEC and the thought of doing two shows almost back to back is daunting to say the least. As we are based in Manchester we always have to stay over at shows which also adds to the cost of exhibiting, plus it means we have to get all of our new ranges ready earlier. We are starting to talk about what our shows in the new year will look like and are busy at the moment throwing ideas around. Here are a few pics from last years Spring Fair.

Our Stand when we first arrived.

Starting to take shape, decorating with Gift Wrap not recommended.

Our finished stand. The whole process takes about 6 hours.

Finished Brit Wrap ..

2011-10-11T14:37:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago we posted on a design we were working on to celebrate next years Olympics in London and also the Queens Diamond Jubilee.

This is the finished design and we are really pleased with the results ....

It is going to be produced as a double sided wrap, but we think it would also look great as a tea towel as well.

The Henries and Greetings today ...

2011-10-10T14:53:00.001+01:00

This is an exciting week for us, as 'The Henries' are on Thursday night at the Lancaster Hotel in London. This years compere is actor Greg Davies who plays Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners. Glick are nominated in the best gift wrappings category with the designs that we have licensed to them so fingers crossed they win. We are sharing a table with a fab bunch of industry friends including the boys from Brainbox Candy, Laura Darrington, Kathryn and the girls from Holy Mackerel. We will be the noisy table probably placed at the back of the room.

This years theme is The Circus, roll up, roll up.

We received Greetings Today on Friday and were pleased to see that Glick had placed an advert featuring our latest designs ....

They also wrote a piece about how successful the collaboration has been ....

More Paper Salad Gift Shop Goodies .........

2011-10-07T10:08:00.000+01:00

Here are a few more pics of new stock

Cute magnetic pegs

Girly gifts and stocking fillers

Yet more hearts.

New gifts for shop ...

2011-10-06T11:08:00.001+01:00

When we visited Harrogate Home and Gift in the Summer we did lots of buying for our gift shop. We bought with Christmas in mind, and this week it has been arriving ....

As usual we seemed to have overdosed on hearts, but all of our customers seem to love them as much as we do. More pictures of our new gifts to follow tomorrow.

First anniversary of opening our shop .....

2011-09-30T14:59:00.001+01:00

We can't believe that it will be a year tomorrow since we opened our little gift shop and to celebrate we are giving away a goodie bag filled with some of our lovely products. All you have to do is start to follow our blog and leave a comment on what you would like us to blog about and we will pick a winner at random, so good luck and start following!!! .....

Indian Summer.....

2011-09-29T16:34:00.002+01:00

These photos show the view from our studio window, needless to say not much work has been done today. We have been trying to design our new ranges, but have been easily distracted with the lovely sunshine outside and with shopping online for dresses for The Henries (The prestigious greeting card awards) which are in 2 weeks time. We have been nominated in the Gift Wrap category via Glick so are very excited. We can't believe we are having this glorious weather so late in the year, lets hope it last a bit longer.

Personalised Birthday Banners ...

2011-09-28T15:01:00.000+01:00

Our completely unique personalised banners are now available to buy on Notonthehighstreet.com.

Any wording is available, the banners measure 120 cm long x 25 cm wide and come in a set of three. Christening, wedding, birth announcements, 1st birthday and any occasions can be specially designed for you. Please contact us for more details.

Paperchase Delivery

2011-09-27T17:00:00.000+01:00

This week has been very busy, we have been packing up our second order for Paperchase as well as keeping up with our christmas orders.

All hands on deck helping to pack up as we do all of our own warehousing, packing and distribution on our premises, to make sure that everything gets out on time.

Rhys, our courier loading the huge order onto the truck.

We have also been sending out our christmas orders to our customers.

Camper Van and Union Flag Gift wrap and Bags

2011-09-26T16:53:00.001+01:00

Our very popular camper van and Union Flag designs have been brilliantly transformed into fantastic quality gift bags by Glick, we have recently completed lots more designs and are looking forward to seeing the finished results.

Life is just a bowl of Cherries.......

2011-09-23T13:59:00.000+01:00

......on that note, have a nice weekend!!! xxxxx

Photo Shoot for New Paper Salad Website ...

2011-09-22T14:57:00.002+01:00

Last week we styled our own photo shoot for all of the products we have chosen to be featured on our new website that is being constructed at the moment. It took all day and we still haven't finished.
We didn't realise how much stuff we have got, personalised banners, invitations, cards, gift wrap and bags bespoke canvases and prints and now new money boxes, each product was styled and photographed separately. We haven't got everything back from the photographers but here is a preview of what we have seen so far ......

We got to eat all the lovely cakes at the end of the day ...

Thanks to Lee and Andy from Manchester Print Services for all the photography.

We would love to hear everybody's comments.

The Ladder Club & London 2012 Design

2011-09-21T16:13:00.002+01:00

Next month will be our third year talking at The Ladder Club, a crash course in greeting card publishing, run by Lynn Tait, of the Lynn Tait Gallery. Held once a year to help people trying to break into the greeting card market, it is full of essential information that would otherwise take years to find out! We attended when were thinking of making the leap from designer to publisher in 2004 and it helped us enormously. We were honoured when Lynn asked us to speak as we felt we had learnt so much over the years and had lots to give back to new publishers. The only problem is that we are not natural public speakers and standing up to talk in front of a room filled with over 100 people is nerve-racking, especially as some people struggle to understand our Northern accents!

The London 2012 design is going to be used as an example to show how different print finishes like flitter and foil can effect a design. More posts on The Ladder Club to follow!!

Personalised greeting cards.....

2011-09-20T13:46:00.000+01:00

Today we have been working on creating alphabets for a liaison with a new print on demand online greeting card company.

We have hand drawn fonts in various styles to match our card designs, this means that when the cards are personalised they will look cohesive.

Our designs are due to go live on the website later this month so we will post the link when we get the go ahead. We are looking forward to seeing how it all works ourselves.

Paper Salad's Card and Gift Shop

2011-09-19T15:33:00.000+01:00

Just a few pics taken in our own shop.....

We now do personalised birthday banners.....

We have new stock arriving at the end of the month, ready for our (dare we say the word!!) Christmas

Shopping events.

Stockports 1st Film Festival

2011-09-16T13:34:00.000+01:00

We are sponsoring the animation category at this event which is happening this weekend.

New Spring Seasons Designs....

2011-09-16T10:09:00.000+01:00

Samples packed up and ready to go to our agents and distributors.

A couple of our new designs. Our first sample set went out yesterday and there was an order waiting for us this morning.

Our new spring seasons brochure is ready for all of our trade customers. Please contact us if you would like one.

A day in the studio at Paper Salad

2011-09-15T15:16:00.000+01:00

Our job really is a dream come true, we both enjoy, drawing, colouring, sticking and making something appear that we have created and can share with other like minded people.

Today we are designing a new gift wrap which we will licence to Glick. They already licence a large selection of our designs for gift wrap, gift bags and roll wrap and they are proving to be very popular.

Look out for the finished artwork in a later post.

Brand new blog!

2011-09-15T11:47:00.001+01:00

Hello and welcome to the colourful world of Paper Salad!