Halloween

In just a couple of months time, the night's will have drawn in again and Halloween will be on our doorsteps with a trick or treat.

In the UK Halloween is becoming more popular, a good excuse to dress up, have fun, and enjoy some games. It is actually one of my favourite occasions and is a fantastic subject for greeting cards. The look and feel of this season is like no other.

So, here is my first range of card designs for the occasion, needless to say I had a lot of fun inventing these characters.

HW01 - Pumpkin

HW02 - Toffee Apple

HW03 - Bobbing Apples

HW04 - Skeletons

HW05 - Monster and Bride

HW06 - Marshmallows

HW07 - Witches Brew

HW08 - Trick or Treat

These designs are available to license in the UK and internationally. Please contact my agency Advocate Art if you would like to license these designs for greeting cards or other products. Here is an example of how these designs can be transformed to greeting cards.

Spooky Scribbles

Here is my cute bat mummy character designed for the Party Invitations UK Ltd Spooky Scribbles competition.

Adapted from my loveable Halloween characters, I hope this illustration will charm the judges. Link to the competition here, and why not enter your own character designs for the chance to win.

Father's Day 2014

Working in advance as I always do, I have just received the samples of my new Father's Day cards for 2014. This is my first range of cards for this special occasion, so I hope they are well received.

For this range, I was inspired by 50's illustration, especially the cartoon characters of that era with their unusual proportions, and so from this starting point I began sketching and deciding which captions to add to my drawings. I have called the range 'Debonair' as it captures the essence of the 50's gentleman.

DB01 - Chocks Away

DB02 - Coolest

DB03 - Dapper

DB04 - Top Man

DB05 - Old Chap

DB06 - Masterchef

DB07 - Brilliant

DB08 - Champion

DB09 - Great

The set of 9 cards measure 105 x 148mm and are wrapped individually with a heavyweight ivory envelope. They are left blank inside.

The Debonair range.

For more product and price information about this range, please contact Fay at e: mail@faysstudio.com

Fay's Studio and the new BBC 'Dragon'.

Here I was last year, with the new BBC Dragon Kelly Hoppen, being interviewed by MSN about the Prince's Trust Tomorrow Campaign. Together we raised almost £20,000 for the Prince's Trust charity by selling our products together live on QVC.

Henries Finalist 2013!

Lucky me, I returned from a lovely summer break to discover that on Monday 5th August the Henries Finalists were revealed and my 'Sweet Tooth' Valentine's Day range was voted as a finalist along with 5 other publishers in the Best Spring Seasons category. I couldn't believe it!

If you don't know the Henries, these are the prestigious annual awards for the greetings card industry. Henries takes it's name from Sir Henry Cole who introduced the first ever commercially produced Christmas card more than 160 years ago.

Since I began my card company in 2009 I have entered my card ranges into the Henries, it's a must if you are serious about greetings cards and with the categories being judged by a line up of the head buyers from John Lewis, WHSmith, Scribbler, Fenwick, Jarrold, Paperchase, National Trust, Tesco, Asda, Joy, Waterstones, Funky Pigeon (the list goes on), you'd be silly not to.

In fact three years ago, almost to the day, the buyers at Paperchase first contacted me upon discovering my new cards at the day of judging.

So, here I am just a few years on, looking back on all the hard work I have put into new card ranges, and I am over the moon to have been nominated for this award. It's a category with very tough competition from previous winners and other great card companies, but I'm just happy to be in the top six, out of the 230 publishers that sent in ranges this year. It's such an accolade for the business and the products, as the judging is decided on quality of design, quality of print, production and manufacture, appropriateness for the market sector at which it is aimed and value for money.

The black tie event takes place on October 10th in London, so I cannot wait, just need to get a nice frock sorted out now.

Fingers crossed!

Fay x