Unique cards for all occasions

Birthdays, Christmas, christenings, engagements, weddings, divorce… there is a card for every occasion these days and this is why the greeting card industry, as of 2015, is worth an estimated £1.7 billion. John-Paul Burton, director of Your Embroidery Services, explains further.

Apart from that amazing figure the report from the Greeting Card Association (GCA) also shows that between January and December 2015 an estimated additional 900 million Christmas cards were sold in boxes and packs worth a further £200 million.

This showed an increase over 2014 sales of over £60 million so I think it’s safe to say that the greeting card industry is huge and getting bigger all the time.

Big trends

One of the big trends over the past few years is the handmade or pseudo handmade card. These will typically have elements that indicate some sort of individual attention to make the card a one-off, something special, and one of the processes that can be used to portray this is embroidery. Yes, we are being serious.

In fact this is not something new. Embroidered cards, albeit postcards, can be seen in the Imperial War Museum dated circa 1878 and were often sent to and from troops. Very often these were embroidered with flags and national symbols and were a treasured and colourful souvenir of dark days. The progression from postcards to greeting cards was natural and so the technique soon established itself as an accepted way of card embellishment. As with most trends though it was not a constant and as fashions changed the technique was used less and less mainly due to the increased cost it created on mass market product.

With the aforementioned move towards the handmade look in vogue once more though embroidery is back on the scene and its popularity is growing again so, is this something you can offer? Well, if you have an embroidery machine, the answer is yes but there are some rules that will apply to this that set it apart from other forms of embroidery.

The pattern

First let’s look at the pattern. Decisions regarding this must be made from the start. It is no good trying to use a design that has been digitised for, let’s say, knitwear. It just won’t work.

When embroidering on card you have to remember that you are putting a needle through something that is easily and permanently damaged so the stitch count must be kept as low as possible and packing stitches should be noticeable by their absence. Failure in this area will result in perforation not embroidery. To avoid excessive stitching and reduce the risk embroidery can be used as an embellishment to the overall design. Someone’s name for instance would be a good example of this. If this is a route you are going down ensure that you pass the information to the pattern digitiser.

The framing

Next we have framing. How do you hold a fairly inflexible material like card on an embroidery machine?

Well there are various ways this can be achieved such as using a clamp frame, or temporary sticky tape. Whichever system you opt for make sure you consider what you want the end result to look like.

Also look at the overall cost. If this is going to be a regular part of your production then investing in clamp frames is probably the way forward. If, on the other hand, it is a one-off order then using standard embroidery frames and temporary sticky tape may be preferable.

Look and finish

Finally we have the overall look and finish. Using embroidery on a greeting card gives you lots of options. The design could be totally embroidered. You could use embroidery to augment a design by adding highlights to a printed pattern. You can even use the design to create the final shape of the card.

By using laser cutting, shaped cutting blades or veneer needles you can finalise the card by cutting it to follow the outline of the embroidered design giving you that unique, handmade finish even though it was all done using your embroidery machine.

Embroidering cards may not have been something that you considered in the past but it is a viable proposition. Putting a needle through a piece of card is just as plausible as putting one though a piece of satin or cotton. It carries the same risks and the same benefits.

Embroidery is one of the oldest forms of decoration. These days we tend to think of it as decoration for garments and furnishings but this form of embellishment can lend itself to a wide variety of products including greeting cards. The market need is already there.

Hopefully this will give to the tools to satisfy that need.