Making cards

This week I’ve been busy making cards for the Prism exhibition at Hoxton. Just to remind you – this exhibition opens on 1st June. Please see the reminder flyer. Because of being away on my cycle trip (which I wrote about in an earlier post) I didn’t really have time to sort out the printing of greetings cards, so I decided to make my own, using a small piece of embroidery in the same general series as the ‘Cochineal Dream’ pieces that are going on show. These were the tiny bits of embroidery that I was doing in odd moments when I wasn’t cycling or doing something cycling related (like washing knickers and socks in washbasins in French hotels, drinking beer, booking a room in a suitable place for the next day etc). So this week, with the exhibition coming up so rapidly, I had to concentrate on getting ready. I’ve already written about preparing small pieces for sale, but these pieces for the cards are even smaller.

I bought greetings card blanks from Hobbycraft (which is probably known to most of my readers in the UK – not sure what the equivalent is elsewhere), and cellophane sleeves to put the cards in, from the same shop. All the little pieces are slightly different in size, so I had to measure each, cut out a little window in the card, stick the piece down using double sided tape, then cover up the messy back with another piece of card. Then I wrote my website address on the back of the card in pencil, then put them into the cellophane sleeves. Finally, I printed some sticky labels to go on the outside of the cellophane wrapper, showing my name, website address again, with a space for the price. I’m going to write about pricing in a separate post as I have a number of thoughts on the subject that I’d quite like to share with you.

Altogether I made 18 cards, and the photograph shows a selection of them, wrapped and ready to go. I do hope that, if you’re anyway near London in the early part of June, you’ll get to the exhibition. I’m looking forward to seeing it. Exhibitors are asked to go on a rota for stewarding and helping in the shop. I will be there all day on Wednesday 8th June and I would love to meet some readers of this blog if you’re passing. Hoxton isn’t that hard to get to. If you’re not familiar with London, go to the Transport for London website which is brilliant, and which will show you the best way to get there from your starting point elsewhere in London. For me it’s Northern Line to Old Street, then a 55 bus, but you may be able to use the Overground to go to Hoxton station which is right opposite the exhibition.