Blue Eyed Sun

Blue Eyed Sun - gorgeous greetings cards

BES Blog

  • BambooFriends children's beakers and tableware

    BambooFriends Kids Beakers

    BambooFriends is a children's range of products made from sustainable bamboo fibre.

    Choose from over a dozen different beaker designs, which include sealable, leakproof lids and come with a delightful range of fun and friendly characters.

    Also available are tableware gift sets which include a cup, small bowl (200mm wide) and a larger bowl (100 mm wide). The bowls have seal onto most smooth surfaces to keep the plates steady whilst eating. There are six cute character designs available in the collection.

    With the growing trend to fight single use plastics, more and more parents wanting to do the right thing for their kids, sustainable bamboo products are an important step away from plastics and the toxic chemicals involved in their production.

    Take advantage of this growing trend with these lovely BambooFriends products. Available now.

    Discover the market leading BambooCup by chic.mic

    Look at these beautiful Deluxe Bamboo Lunchboxes

    Check out our unique Bioloco thermal flasks

    BambooFriends by chic.mic

  • New Jade Mosinski Everyday Greeting Card Additions

    Jade Mosinski cards

    Blue Eyed Sun have added a further 24 designs to their new range of everyday greeting cards designed by Jade Mosinski.

    Jade Mosinski has created a beautifully elegant foiled and embossed range exclusively for Blue Eyed Sun. This stunning card range now includes 48 Everyday captions and is also available in Valentines and Mother's Day.

    Sold in sixes the designs are available for trade customers to order through our sales agents, at shows or logging into Blue Eyed Sun's trade only website.

    Our cards are all printed on FSC board from sustainable managed forests. These cards are 160mm square and come in a compostable cellobag with a coloured FSC certified envelope.

    See Jade's cards in person at Spring Fair - Stand 2L12

    To stock these cards in your shop click here. If you'd like to see them in your local shop please tell them and point them in the direction of www.blueeyedsun.co.uk or recommend a shop to us by clicking here. You can also visit our stockists page to find a store near you that may be selling them. To see an overview of Blue Eyed Sun ranges click here.

    Jade Mosinski greeting cards

  • Reflections on the last Year

    Reflections on the last year

    Wow. It’s the end of the second decade of the new millennium and almost 20 years since Blue Eyed Sun launched. It’s also been 100 years since the GCA launched. It’s been a busy year full of new learnings and shifts in perspective. Here are some of them:

    Success and Failure

    Until recently, I used to get very attached to winning or losing. I believed that if you weren’t attached it meant that you weren’t really committed. It’s been a major shift for me to pull attachment and and commitment apart from one another and enjoy being committed without being attached.

    For example, sometimes it’s simply enough to complete the Brighton marathon (as I did in April), rather than worry about my finish-time. For most marathon runners, completing the course is the triumph, the speed at which it is done is less relevant. 

    Having said that, it was incredible to see Eliud Kipchoge become the first to run a marathon in less than two hours this year. To do this, he had to run 100m in 17.08 seconds 422 times in a row at a speed of 13.1 mph. Try and run a single 100m in 17 seconds and you’ll see just how remarkable this achievement really is.

    Instead of being attached, I am now committed to things I’m doing that may move forward and may not. This year, some worked and some didn’t. Some just where what they were. I got that I got and I didn’t get what I didn’t get.

    What Worked

    Our financial year ended with Blue Eyed Sun sales up 30% thanks to our best-selling BambooCup and new eco-gifts. In the current climate this feels like an achievement in itself. The brand has been further boosted further by a recent independent study by Stiftung Warentest that showed BambooCup by chic.mic to be was the number one choice out of twelve popular bamboo cup brands. 

    Our new card range, licensed from Jade Mosinski has been very well received and is selling through nicely. We are also pleased with the response to our Doodle Girl licensed cards. 

    This year we expanded our sales agent force to thirteen agents on the road with only Wales left to cover. It’s a challenging time to find good agents and we are very grateful to have some of the best in the UK doing a great job for us.

    I also took part in Plastic Free July for the first time and spoke about my experience at Autumn Fair. It was a fascinating challenge, which I shared with my followers on social media through a series of videos. Sustainability and taking care of the environment is becoming increasingly important for all of us.

    What Didn’t Work

    Despite being runner up for a Gift of the Year award with Origamo cards at Spring Fair, we did not progress with distributing the handmade Italian popup and quilling card brand as the business model did not work for us.

    For different reasons, new interiors products W-Lamp and Canvas Gallery both failed to take with our customer base. I’m glad that we limited our exposure and didn't have large stock holdings on these products. We were able to test and move on from them without it damaging us in any major way.

    For all of us in business, we have to try things and see what works and what doesn’t. Whilst we all want the outcomes to be good, it’s important to be assessing and adjusting regularly to sail through the current choppy climate.

    The other thing that I’ve realised doesn’t work for me is…

    Trying to Look Good

    This year I learned that I used to do a lot of things to ‘look good.’ Trying to look good comes at a cost, as it’s difficult to say no. Which means one can over-commit and not have much free time to oneself.

    Being so busy also means that I don’t always come up smelling of roses, because I inevitably let people down from time to time. For example, I filmed the speakers at the GCA Speed Dating with Dragons event earlier this year and it has taken me many months to edit and load the footage up to YouTube.

    So, I’ve cut back. I recently stepped down as Treasurer of the GCA and, after 15 years of speaking at the Ladder Club, I chose not to attend this November. It was scheduled on my birthday and on a Thursday when I spend time with my son. As much as I love helping others, it felt good to do what I wanted and focus on what’s important to me, rather than how I think others might perceive me. 

    After filming, editing and loading up twenty six videos for the GCA’s YouTube channel, I have decided not to do any more. The association now needs someone to help them with these, so if you know anyone who can film, edit and load onto YouTube then please drop Amanda Ferguson a line.

    We’ve also had a couple of things come to an end this year at Blue Eyed Sun.

    Endings

    A decade after launching, we have now closed our wedding division, Ivy Ellen. During that time, we created 117,251 gorgeous wedding invitations for 2,019 weddings and won several awards whilst building a well loved and recognised brand in another lovely industry. It’s been a blast and now we want to focus on other things.

    After 16 wonderful years our long standing colleague and friend, Lewis Early, is moving to new pastures. During his time with us he worked his way up our business from packing boxes in our warehouse at the tender age of 16 to becoming our invaluable General Manager. He has lived and breathed Blue Eyed Sun with us and we will all miss him greatly and wish him all the best.

    New Beginnings

    Rising Retail was launched this year and the date has been shifted to the 1st June 2020 to allow more retailers to get the most of this TED style networking event, with 14 incredible speakers, designed to share best practice and help businesses to thrive. It’s still being held at the Shard and promises to be an awesome day.

    At Spring Fair we are all being moved into Hall 2. I’m excited about Blue Eyed Sun’s new stand and, after the success of our move at Autumn Fair, am looking forward to similarly strong results with this change. I will also be speaking about Sustainability in Retail on the Inspiring Retail stage at the NEC.

    We’re looking forward to launching our new Bioloco brand of environmentally friendly products. We have some lovely new double walled water bottles that have tested really well. These will be a good compliment to our best-selling BambooCups, lunch boxes, children’s beakers and SlideCups. We are also expanding our greeting cards offering, particularly with our Jade Mosinski license, which will soon be over 100 beautiful designs. 

    The Future

    This year, the EU voted overwhelmingly in favour for a new law to dramatically reduce the 150,000 tonnes of plastic waste tossed into European waters each year. Single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers are to be banned by 2021. Oxo-degradable plastics and food containers and expanded polystyrene cups will be banned. There will also be a more stringent ‘polluter pays’ principle and 90% collection rates for plastic bottles are being targeted by 2029. The legislation stipulates that labelling on the negative environmental impact of littering of single-use plastic cups and other items should be mandatory. Despite Brexit, the UK will undoubtedly follow a similar line regardless of who wins the forthcoming election.

    This is fantastic news for anyone operating in the environmentally conscious space and helping consumers to cut back on their consumer waste by encouraging the use of reusable bags, containers, cups and bottles.

    It also means that the card industry’s drive to reduce plastic could not have come at a better time. Around 68% of all cards sold in the UK are expected to be naked by next month.  We believe more will follow as the customers of independent retailers begin to reward those that make plastic-free changes.

    How to attend Rising Retail in 2020

    What I learned at the Landmark Forum this year

    What I learned doing the Plastic Free July Challenge this year

    Ivy Ellen - Lewis Early Jeremy Corner and Lewis Early collecting an award for Ivy Ellen, which is now closed.

  • Festive Friday 2019 at Blue Eyed Sun

    Festive Friday 2019

    It's Festive Friday 2019 this week, the day that kick starts UK Christmas card sending and we take time to think of all those we care about and get busy writing and sending them Christmas cards.

    The UK Greeting Card Association launched the Festive Friday campaign six years ago to encourage card publishers and retailers to send their Christmas cards early to help remind everyone to remember to send theirs. There are around 100,000 people working directly and indirectly with the UK card industry. If each of us sends ten Christmas cards to arrive in the first week of December it will have a fantastic ripple effect from those first million gestures. Last year had a fantastic effect on our industry and we hope that this fun initiative will continue for many years to come.

    At Blue Eyed Sun we've been getting into the Christmas spirit early and held a 'christmas card writing hour' for our team to write and send cards to their loved ones to support the Festive Friday 2019 campaign. We sponsored the cards, their time and the postage to support the GCA campaign. All our team had to do was to write as many cards as they wanted to in the hour. We managed over 220 Christmas cards between us, which will be making their way via Royal Mail over the weekend to their lucky recipients.

    Our team had a lot of fun on Festive Friday 2019 with Christmas jumpers and Santa and Elf hats to get us in the spirit. It's a wonderful feeling when we think about all of the love going out into the world from this short amount of time dedicated to card sending and we recommend it to anyone involved in the card industry.

    Even if you are not in the card industry, it is a special time of year to connect with your customers, friends and loved ones. Send them a nice Christmas card with a warm message in it expressing your gratitude and wishing them all the best for the New Year. We hope you enjoy spreading festive cheer around the world.

    Download a Free Toolkit for Festive Friday from the GCA website

    Cards can have valuable emotional impact in your loved ones' lives.

    Find out more about Blue Eyed Sun's Christmas cards for 2019 here. Available at all good card retailers.

    Festive Friday 2019UK last posting dates Christmas 2019

  • Buy a BambooCup for Christmas

    BambooCup ChristmasWinter is coming and the environment is on most of our minds these days. Our market leading BambooCup by chic.mic makes the perfect Christmas present for those wanting to be more mindful about their consumption and help fight the war on single-use plastic waste. They make the perfect stocking filler.

    2.5 billion plastic lined cups are used for less than ten minutes each and then end up in Uk landfills every year. The plastic takes a very to break down and when it does it contaminates our eco system with micro-plastics which affect our soil, our water and our wildlife.

    Be part of the change by buying and using a reusable BambooCup and by stocking them in your store.

    The great thing about bamboo is that it's very sustainable. It grows within four years, is pesticide free and has very little disturbance of the soil when harvested.

    We have loads of great products made from bamboo fibre, including lunch boxes and kid's tableware.

    Click here to order for your store now

    BambooCup Autumn

  • How to reduce plastic on greeting cards

    Au Naturel

    For over thirty years greeting card publishers have been proactive with ensuring the board they use comes from sustainable sources that are, in a sense, farmed crops of trees that are replanted in forests that are managed mindfully. FSC and PEFC accreditation both provide reassurance of this for consumers. 

    With the wide spread consumer backlash against plastic, many publishers and retailers alike have been unsure how best to proceed. As with climate change, some are still in denial about whether a problem even exists or anything needs to be done at all. Plastics and micro-plastics do damage our environment, harm wildlife and pollute the food chain.

    The 90% drop in single-use carrier bags clearly demonstrates that the seven major supermarkets take the majority of consumer single-use plastic and it’s here that the biggest wins can and are being made. With most of nationals going naked with their cards, cello wrapped cards will soon account for less than a third of all UK greeting card sales.

    Not all retailers want unwrapped cards though, as many worry about damaged stock, which is also wasteful and environmentally unfriendly. For publishers, handling two different sets of wrapped and unwrapped cards is problematic as it essentially doubles stock holdings and ties up cash. The over riding concern, is that people give up on sending cards altogether. 

    The way it was

    Traditionally cards were sold unwrapped with the envelopes sitting separately behind the cards in the card pocket in store racks. You selected your card and grabbed an envelope. If the envelopes were missing, you could borrow one from a nearby pocket. Well merchandised displays meant that cards and envelopes were quickly and easily replaced. You still see this set up in stores like WH Smiths.

    As more specialist cards came into the market and the diversity of retailers grew, wrapping in polypropylene grew in popularity because it’s transparent, protects cards, gives a feeling of ‘newness’ and keeps specialist envelopes with their cards.

    Plastic Alternatives

    Previously seen as signifier of ‘newness’, plastic is now starting to be seen as a signifier of ‘environmental damage’. Many consumers are beginning to demand change. In certain instances, where the cards are intricate and may be damaged if they are not wrapped we are seeing a distinction being made between necessary and unnecessary plastic wrapping. Some publishers have opted for ‘topless’ cello bags that don’t have the extra fold nor the plastic ‘peel and seal’ strips attached to them.

    There are alternatives like oxo-degradable plastics and plant based PLA (polylactic acid). The former, which have been found to break down into environmentally damaging micro-plastics, are set to be eliminated by the end of next year. PLA is growing in popularity as it is biodegradable in the right composting conditions. 

    Compostable materials have a recycling problem though. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle identification and separation, so both PLA and PP are being combusted or going to landfill where the conditions aren’t suitable for composting. Because of the current structure of local government responsibility for waste, long investment time frames for new systems and lack of infrastructure for dealing with either type of film, the general advice is to return to publishing cards without film packaging.

    Pushing the Envelope

    There’s also the issue of envelopes being separated from cards. Not a massive problem when envelopes were mostly the same sort of quality and size. Lately, some publishers have pushed the proverbial to create more special envelopes costing more to produce. It’s not hard to envisage publishers with beautiful envelopes having to merchandise more often than others because theirs get half inched by consumers wanting something nicer. 

    With the need to keep envelopes together with cards and to keep displays looking more tidy, a variety of approaches have been taken so far. Museums and Galleries developed their ecoBand packaging for their BBC Earth licensed range of cards. Caroline Gardner have created an InFold, which is affixed to the envelope and card on the reverse using a plastic-free peelable label. Both companies have patents pending on their systems.

    Woodmansterne have developed their own peelable label system, Smart Seal, with innovative printers, Windles, who have also launched their own commercial version called Kard Klasp. Woodmansterne, who handle greeting card brokerage for John Lewis, have led the charge on committing to the peelable label solution and have supported other publishers needing advice to make the change. Their Director of Operations, Adam Osborne, shared his learnings at our recent GCA AGM and spent a good deal of time helping me with information for this article.

    Not every labelling solution appears to be working ‘snag free’ yet. If any publisher cuts corners by using a poor quality label that damages the consumer’s purchase, then it won’t be long before all labels are viewed with suspicion causing an insidious problem for all card sales over time.

    Labels haven’t been problem free either. There are early reports of a few being ripped by shoppers wanting to see inside the card. Plus, they are printed on silicone coated glassine based rolls of tape that (like baking paper) you cannot recycle at home. Release paper like this can be recycled commercially. Woodmansterne have recently developed a stronger seal and are conducting trials on a new way to apply Smart Seal, allowing the card to be opened.

    Labels

    For those that are making the shift to label clasps, it is very important that the correct adhesive is used. It needs to hold to the board and envelope well enough so it does its job of keeping envelope and card together. It also needs to be easy for consumers to peel off and not damage the product in the process. Ultra low tack options apparently work best. Cards printed on lick coated boards with harder, less waxy inks, UV inks, along with more drying time all work well with the right labels.

    Some adhesives react with the ink or varnish or sealant combination on the board. Some leave traces of adhesive on the board or pull bits of it off. If you imagine just 5 different label types, 5 boards and 5 inks, you have 125 combination variations. With so many different combinations available, the quickest and simplest solution is for publishers to use the tried and tested solutions on offer. These have been extensively tested on a variety of boards, coatings, inks, and so on. It is mind boggling the level of detail they have gone into to create these labels. Age testing, pressure tests and environmental impact are just some examples.

    The aforementioned labels are long horizontal strips that wrap around the front and back of the card. Some, like Louise Tiler and James Ellis, have gone for wider labels with a greater surface area of attachment. Aside from Windles, other label suppliers worth talking to include Wrapid, Loxelys, Olympus Print Group and Label Express.

    How to Apply

    For those switching over to attaching labels, you can either apply them by hand or source a machine to help. Woodmansterne use a bench top ALS 4310 machine which, after being slightly modified by ALS, can label up 1,800 cards per hour. The cost of the machine is £6,000 and operator training time is negligible. It is ideal for embossed cards or those with embellishments as they don’t go through any belt feeders. You can also buy manual labelling dispensers from office Depot for as little as £30 that can label up to 300 cards per hour. Useful if you work with outworkers or don’t have access to capital to finance an ALS machine. Make sure you build a jig or template so that the label goes on straight every time.

    After this publishers can also purchase a paper bander which can band 25 batches of six cards per minute meaning you can ditch your plastic outer bags that group the cards in sixes. Prices start from £3.5k from a cheap Akebono to £5k for a fast, reliable bench-top version from Jenton or ATS Tanner. Alternatively you can apply these by hand.

    With Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion dominating our headlines this year, it’s easy to see that the world is demanding that we take better care of issues affecting our environment. With the law soon to be introducing Extended Producer Responsibility schemes (essentially meaning the polluter pays), now is the time to act. Before it’s too late.

    How we can all help fight the War on Plastic

    What I learned taking part in Plastic Free July

    How to Adapt to the Rise of the Ethical Consumer

    Read more on Cello Bags in this 2014 blog post

  • Blue Eyed Sun launch Bioloco Loop Water Bottles

    Bioloco Loop Stainless steel Water BottlesBlue Eyed Sun are very excited to launch a stunning and unique new water bottle called bioloco loop.

    Available in 5 gorgeous colours, the stylish bioloco loop bottle has a capacity of 500 ml (16.9 oz) and is made of double walled kitchen grade stainless steel 304. The elegant shaped bottle keeps drinks warm for up to 18 hours and cool for up to 12 hours.

    The clean and chic design is complemented by a wooden lid with a silicon looped handle that makes it very distinct from similar water bottles on the market. This eye catching accessory is BPA-free, Phthalate-free and toxin-free. Hand washing is recommended.

    These beautiful water bottles are competitively priced and come packaging free, to reduce waste, in preparation for changes in legislation with Extended Producer Responsibility schemes that will affect both suppliers and retailers.

    Blue Eyed Sun are the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor of Bioloco products created by German supplier chic.mic.

    Click on the image below to watch a short video introducing this beautiful new line.

    bioloco loop double walled water bottles

    Click here to login and order

    Discover our reusable BambooCup

    See more of our eco-friendly gifts

  • A Century of Greeting Cards with the GCA

    A Century Of Cards with the GCA

    This year the Greeting Card Association celebrates its 100th Anniversary, so I thought I’d take a look at the last ten decades of card sending. You can see even more at the GCA AGM this month.

    A brief history

    The custom of sending cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese who sent one another New Year greetings. The early Egyptians exchanged goodwill messages on papyrus. Handmade paper Valentine messages were sent in Europe from the early 15th Century.

    Henry Cole, a founding director of the V&A in London, sent the first Christmas card in 1843. The reform of the Royal Mail in 1940 made postage more accessible after a charge of one penny (roughly £1 in today’s money) was set for carriage and delivery of cards between any two places in the UK irrespective of distance.

    The GCA

    As postal services and the custom of greeting card sending grew, it took another 76 years for the emerging industry to officially form its trade body. The Greeting Card Association (GCA) was created just after the first Word War in 1919 to protect and promote card sending. 

    Here are some examples of cards published in each of the last ten decades since it was formed:

    A Century of Greetings Cards Regent Cat card (1920's), Hallmark Mickey Mouse Card (1930's) and Cowboy Card (1940's).

    Twenties

    Thanks to Geoff Sanderson, who has helped to create card images dating right back to the first decade of the GCA’s inception. It seems that pre-internet cat selfies still stole the show when it came to cute sentiments. It’s interesting to see the Regent Series branding on the front. The card is embossed around the edges and the colour palette is limited, perhaps due to the printing processes available at the time. 

    Thirties

    Hallmark was Disney’s first licensee and this 1932 Mickey Mouse card shows how quickly the infamous mouse spread across the planet after his creation in 1928. This card also suggested that card shops were becoming a thing. The palette is limited to two colours and it appears that cute and humorous cards crossed over to adults. 

    Forties

    Many of the greeting cards during this period came from America, with American Greetings (est 1906) and Hallmark (est 1910) leading the charge. This cowboy card shows the American style and the evolving colours and techniques like die-cutting. Notice the feather used to create a sense of added value and ‘specialness’. 

    Greeting Cards fro the 1950's Fifties An Engagement card with satin cushion from Kaye (1958) and cute wedding card from Waldorf (1958).

    Fifties

    Danielle, one of our team members at Blue Eyed Sun, unearthed a treasure trove of cards dating back to the fifties in her loft, including her mum and dad’s engagement and wedding cards from 1958. Their engagement card from their parents was published by Kaye and has a satin cushion on the front, with verse inside. There’s also a cute wedding day card from Waldorf, which is foiled and embossed.

    The cards from the fifties are mostly lighterweight papers folded over (refered to as a French fold) to create the feeling of weight. They have foiling, embossing, die-cuts and ‘wordy’ sentiment inside them. Some have ribbon. Brands include Kaye Gibson, Waldorf, A.M. Davis & Co, Envoy, Diplomat, Forget-Me-Not and Sharpe’s Classic. 

    Greeting Cards - 1960 - Sixties 21st card by Kaye (1962), flocked Baby Girl card by Rust craft (1961) and Baby Boy card by Academy (1964).

    Sixties

    Danny’s sixties cards also used die-stamping, flocking and flittering. They’re still mostly paper folded in half, which allowed four colour imagery to appear on the inside of the card with only one side of the overall sheet being printed on.

    Danny’s mum, Pam’s 21st card from her sister Carol, was published by Kaye Gibson. It’s foiled and embossed with lace detailing added to the right hand edge and a die-cut gold key attached to the front with a ribbon. 

    A card by Rustcraft to Pam on Danny’s birth is die-cut and flocked. There’s a nice baby boy card from Academy on the birth of Danny’s brother, Ricky. In addition to previous brands mentioned there were also cards by Image Arts, Gibson and Delightful.

    Greeting Cards - 1970 - Seventies Mother's Day die cut card by Hollie Hobbie for Celebration Arts and Bonie Bonnets card by Raphael Tuck.

    Seventies

    Danny loves cute cards and the birthday cards she chose for her mum feature cartoon hedgehogs, kitten, puppies and cherubs. There’s a nice die-cut, pop-up Mother’s Day card featuring Holly Hobbie from Celebration Arts, plus a cute Bonnie Bonnets card by Raphael Tuck.

    The boards are heavier (280gsm plus) and most of the cards are gloss finished, brighter and more colourful than previous decades. Many are larger in size too. Brands from this decade include Creative Cards, Forget Me Not and Sharpe’s Classic.

    Greeting Cards - 1980 - Eighties Hallmark's Country Companions range, Friends Like Us puppy by Carlton and kitten by Creative Cards

    Eighties

    The cards get even cuter in the eighties, like the cute puppy the Friends like Us range published by Carlton under the Forget Me Not brand. There are a couple of cute Country Companions hedgehog designs (first published under Gordon Fraser and then acquired by Hallmark in the late 80s).

    Other brands include Lucie Attwell, Heron Arts, Riviera (Carlton Cards), Gibson Greetings and early Andrew Brownsword.

    Greeting Cards - 1990 - Nineties Forever Friends Cards and cherub from Cherish the Thoughts range in the Brownsword Collection.

    Nineties

    It’s impossible to talk about cards in the nineties without mentioning Forever Friends and Andrew Brownsword. This brand served to establish cute as a strong adult category (note that these examples are for Mum and Nanna). The inside of the Mum cards reads: “It’s a hug in an envelope.” The cherub card is from Andrew’s Cherish the Thought Range. 

    Interestingly, the Brownsword Collection card states on the back that the cards are made from managed forests that are replenished with new trees. The Friends Like Us range mentioned earlier has a similar message. It’s great to see this environmental message on cards is over 30 years old. 

    For the last two decades I thought I’d talk a little bit about Blue Eyed Sun cards…

    Greeting Cards - 2000 - Noughties Glass Enamels (2001), Suncatchers (2003) and Kaleidoscope (2006) cards by Blue Eyed Sun.

    Noughties

    In 2000, Blue Eyed Sun launched its first range of Glass Enamel cards on the market at Top Drawer (the one in May that became Pulse). They were an instant hit as nobody made anything quite like them. Hugely time consuming to hand fire in hot kilns, they were a niche product that got us noticed and garnered our first Henries awards nomination in 2001. One of the original designs even made its way into the V&A archive collection. 

    In 2003, we added our Suncatchers range, which included pieces of hand-painted resin that you could hang on your Christmas tree or in your window. We won a Gift of the Year award for Best Design-Led Cards that year. A host of other ranges followed, including our hand-glittered Kaleidoscope cards, which still sell internationally. Eventually, we built up enough profit to move away from using generic card blanks onto which we affixed our motifs onto our first litho printed ranges. 

    Danny joined our team from Woolworths in 2008.

    Greeting Cards - 2010 - Teens Vintage (2012), Jingles (2011) and Jade Mosinski (2019) cards by Blue Eyed Sun.

    Teens

    We’ve launched a large number of different ranges over the years. Not all have been successful, but we’ve always managed to keep pushing until we found what worked. In 2011 we had our first cold foiled range, Jingles, which we licensed onto almost 100 gift products. Our biggest range to date has been Vintage, which caught the huge ‘make do and mend’ trend, and still makes up 25% of our sales. Despite numerous look-a-likes I feel they still are the nicest ‘stitched’ designs around and look like real fabric has been attached to the cards.

    The future

    Our 2020 vision includes lots of lovely cards by new designers like Jade Mosinski and more exciting licences, as well as a determined focus to cut single-use plastics and be even more environmentally friendly than we currently already are.

    It’s amazing seeing our lives mapped out through the cards we send one another. Not just those of the people who buy them and receive them, there’s all of the thousands of people involved in creating, publishing, distributing, retailing and mailing them. Who knows where this wonderful tradition of reaching out to one another will be in another hundred years? Hopefully, people will still delight in pulling out their greeting card memories and enjoying them once more.

    Attend the GCA AGM 2019 and hear more about the history of cards

    Click here to see what's new from Blue Eyed Sun

  • Rising Retail Masterclass Speakers Announced

    Rising Retail Masterclass - London 2020

    A fantastic line-up of speakers and topics have been announced for the Rising Retail event supporting the British High Street.

    Rising Retail is an exciting Masterclass for independent gift shop retailers and leading experts to come together to share best practices that they can then take home to improve their businesses and enhance their high streets.

    The event is being held at the Shard at London Bridge on Monday 1st June 2020 from 09:30 - 16:30. Places are limited to just 35 lucky retailers and are only available to those who pre-book. To secure your place before it sells out click here.

    All of the speakers and topics have been carefully selected and curated to help retailers discover golden nuggets that they can implement in their businesses and communities to help them thrive. It's an opportunity to make a difference in your life and for those around you.

    Rising Retail Speakers 2019 Rising Retail Speakers - Marianne Shillingford, Kat Maclennan, Nicole Davidson, Kate Cowie and Karen Kirby.

    Trends - What’s coming and how to take advantage

    Marianne Shillingford, Creative Director of Dulux in the UK and Ireland, discusses 2020 global colour and design trends and how retailers can apply them to keep their customer experience fresh and on trend.

    Visual merchandising - How to create exciting shopping experiences

    Visual merchandising expert, Kat Maclennan, from Dot To Dot shares actionable tips that independents can use to drive footfall and increase sales by creating exciting shopping experiences for their customers. With over 20 years experience with leading brands including adidas, Reebok and Radley London, Kat will help you connect the dots.

    Lessons from the top - Tips from majors that indies can benefit from

    Freelance fashion buying consultant, Nicole Davidson, shares tips and tricks independents can learn from major retailers. For over 15 years Nicole has worked with a range of retail brands including Topshop, Next and New Look.

    Staff - Recruiting, motivating, and retaining great retail teams

    Kate Cowie Co-Director of Utility, a group of independent gift stores in the North West,  and HR Expert, Karen Kirby, discuss how to create winning teams within retail. Karen from Greenshoot HR has over thirty years of experience in Human Resources. 

    Rising Retail 2019 - Speakers Rising Retail Speakers: David Robertson, Livvy Drake, Frances Jardine, Louise Welsby and Tim Hughes

    Making Mistakes  - Classic mistakes Indie Retailers can learn from

    Independent retailer David Robertson from JP Pozzi shares mistakes he’s learned from over 30 years of working in retail. An inspiring speaker, columnist and retail consultant, David’s sharing will help you to avoid classic mistakes yourself.

    Going Green - How retailers can reduce their environmental impact

    Livvy Drake, from Sustainable Sidekicks, is a sustainability and behaviour change consultant and co-presenter on the podcast: Woke and Confused. Learn how you can reduce single-use waste in store and through your supply chain to help your business benefit from the consumer drive towards environmental change.

    Instagram - Retailer tips for growing sales through social media

    Frances Doran, Co-owner The Bottom Drawer Portadown, and social media expert, Louise Welsby from Buy From, discuss how Frances uses her Instagram account to grow sales and drive footfall to her store.

    Social Selling - How using online groups can boost sales

    CEO of Digital Leadership Associates, @Tim_Hughes1 literally wrote the book on Social Selling and is ranked Number 1 by Onalytica as the most influential social selling person in the world. Learn how to boost your retail sales and footfall using groups on social media and simple social selling techniques.

    Rising Retail 2019 - Speakers Rising Retail Speakers: Ed Goodman, Marriott Lusengo, Frances Andy Adamson and Jenny Spivey.

    Google My Business - How to boost footfall to your store

    Marriott Lusengo, CEO of the London School of Digital Marketing, shares the benefits of using Google My Business to create and manage online listings that boost footfall and sales for your retail business.

    How to build an engaged community for £50

    Digital Marketing expert, Ed Goodman from Social B, explores how to build an eco system of people and businesses online (and on a budget) that can impact engagement within your local community and encourage your high street to thrive. 

    Negotiating - how to cut costs and save money as an independent

    Independent retailer and co-owner of Calliope Gifts, Andy Adamson, who used to be the head of supply chain at Borders will be discussing negotiating with retail expert, Jenny Spivey, ex-buyer of John Lewis. Learn how to save money with your landlord and suppliers.

    Secure your place at this Retailer Masterclass

    Read more about why this event was created

  • New Jade Mosinski Everyday greeting card range

    Jade Mosinski birthday cards by Blue Eyed Sun

    Blue Eyed Sun are launching a brand new range of everyday greeting cards designed by Jade Mosinski.

    Jade Mosinski has created a beautifully elegant range exclusively for Blue Eyed Sun with more designs to follow in the coming months. Each card is embossed and foiled. This stunning card range includes 24 Everyday captions and is also available in Valentines and Mother's Day. They are 160mm square and come bagged with a coloured envelope.

    Sold in sixes the designs are available for trade customers to order through our sales agents, at shows or logging into Blue Eyed Sun's trade only website. They are available for delivery from 15th September and will feature in our 2020 Catalogue out in January.

    Our cards are all printed on FSC board from sustainable managed forests. Similarly, all of our envelopes are also FSC certified.

    See Jade's cards in person at Top Drawer Autumn - Stand P31

    To stock these cards in your shop click here. If you'd like to see them in your local shop please tell them and point them in the direction of www.blueeyedsun.co.uk or recommend a shop to us by clicking here. You can also visit our stockists page to find a store near you that may be selling them. To see an overview of Blue Eyed Sun ranges click here.

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