Bobbetts Blog No 43, Christmas card designing

It's week 43, and we are now thinking of the season to be jolly!!

It's that time of year again and Christmas is not far around the corner.

We wanted to use this blog to create some Christmas card designs,

We had a look good at designs, traditional, vintage, quirky there seems to be a Christmas card for everyone.

Here are a couple of the traditional ones we liked

Vintage style

and quirky.

There are hundred of designs on the market pricing is a mind field.

We wanted to both bring something unique and different to the field

The custom of sending Christmas cards was started in the UK in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. He was a senior civil servant (Government worker) who had helped set-up the new 'Public Record Office' (now called the Post Office), where he was an Assistant Keeper, and wondered how it could be used more by ordinary people.

Sir Henry had the idea of Christmas Cards with his friend John Horsley, who was an artist. They designed the first card and sold them for 1 shilling each. (That is only 5p or 8 cents today(!), but in those days it was worth much much more.) The card had three panels. The outer two panels showed people caring for the poor and in the center panel was a family having a large Christmas dinner! Some people didn't like the card because it showed a child being given a glass of wine! About 1000 (or it might have been less!) were printed and sold. They are now very rare and cost thousands of Pounds or Dollars to buy now! The original cards were advertised with the slogan: "Just published, a Christmas Congratulations Card; or picture emblematical of old English festivity to perpetuate kind recollections between dear friends"!

So our Christmas cards design have a lot to live up to.

I decided to go for a surreal theme, very me, I also thought about what I love at the moment and what for me said Christmas, Magical, that is how I felt about the greatest showman film then I thought, circus animals fantasy fairground oh yes and carousel.

So my theme had begun, magical Christmas carousel animals.

Tonia on the other hand was a bit unsure of her design and started to look at traditional then went to Vintage, The vintage design really did it for me these are great and I told her to go with them.

Tonia and I chose to do 5 designs as a collection and this is how we did it.

We drew out our designs on roughly the size of cards we wanted to print and then chose our medium to work in, I mainly used paints while Tonia used pens.

Tonia' finished vintage Christmas twist

My surreal magical carousel designs, I love a bit of magical drama, to achieve this I used a photo app filter.

Well that’s it from us this week we are currently looking at printers and hopefully will be adding them to the new page Christmas shop.

Have a look at other Christmas gift we have been making.

Including

Beautiful Christmas tree decorations, Christmas eve ideas and much more

follow the link https://www.bestofbritishboutique.com/christmas-shop

We hope you have enjoyed it?

See you next week,

Cas and Tonia (The Bobbetts, Angel and Rose Designs )