Hi everyone! We’ve had a request from a journalist at the Sunday Express’s colour supplement, S Magazine, who is writing an article about the history of Christmas cards and how Christmas card-giving habits have changed over the years.
What she wants to know is which designs are most popular year after year - do your customers tend to go for traditional or modern, and has that changed? If you sell Christmas cards or have done in the past, what’s your experience? Could she quote you (and credit you and your Folksy shop)?
The article will appear in one of the December issues but there’s no confirmed date yet.
I sell cards inspired by the Roman festival of Saturnalia (which was kind of a precursor to Christmas - a winter festival where everyone took the week off and had a party, basically). They’re kind of ‘out there’ compared to traditional cards and I expected them to be quite niche as not everyone has heard of Saturnalia - but people really like them!
This is the third year I’ve sold the design, and I think it’s popular because although less people are religious and less people seem to send Christmas cards than they used to, everyone has a similar experience of letting go and frequently overindulging at Christmas time. That’s kind of a universal thing to laugh about, it isn’t specifically religious or specifically secular.
I have made and sold Christmas cards in the past and prefer ones in monochrome with a touch of red or ones with robins (as they are popular)
I personally don’t like the DIckensian style ones. I found that a lot of people like cute puppies with hats on etc and I once sold quite a few of cartoon Westies in Christmas hats…
I agree that religious ones are no longer popular.
I now don’t make and sell Christmas cards as they are ridiculously cheap in the shops and a lot of people now are cutting back on posting Christmas cards because of the cost of postage stamps.
People will pay a couple of £’s for a birthday or greetings card, but put a piece of holly on the SAME card and they won’t pay the same price…crazy world we live in…lol
However what I WILL do is draw a custom cartoon Style Christmas card to order and people will pay for those.
I certainly like the idea of Saturnalia.
Last year I sold loads of so called Xmas cards featuring hares.
Lots of people seem to like the idea of a celebration at winter time and also prefer natural themes, like scandi styles etc.
So probably will be doing it again!
I sell a range of ‘Christmas’ cards , all hand-made , mostly hand-stamped and often incorporating ( public domain !!) vintage images . I veer toward traditional designs, retro designs and Scandi designs , and quite often with just a Winter / Seasonal theme as opposed to religious one , as they remain the most popular .
I have to agree with Brenda though , people seem to be sending / mailing less and less , and want to pay less and less!!
I guess if you do have a lot of people to send / give to, then you’re likely to opt for the mass-produced . If you only send to handful of ‘special’ people , you are more likely to look for something a bit different / unique . ( I hope to attract some of those every year !!) but I still feel I have to price them lower than I really want to !! :// ;tis the nature of the beast , sadly !!
Some of my cards are winter themed. Holly Man card has always been popular year after year. Sometimes I sell it as part of a Spirits of Nature set that includes Jack Frost.: Here’s Holly Man:
My Star Goddess card is also really liked at this time of year:
