Perhaps you’ve visited or passed our shop recently….if so, you may have been ‘wowed’ on seeing our fabulous and unique range of ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ cards. The new card range sports a traditional feel, yet is topped off with a contemporary twist, all in one complete Christmas card set! The cards have sold really well, with individuals and packs flying off the shelves both online and in our retail shop in Oswestry.
I als
o think these cards could be sent or given at other times of the year, to our friends and loved ones. As although they portray the well-known Christmas song, ‘the twelve days of Christmas,’ the fun and inventive designs lend themselves to other occasions.
Our Christmas cards were designed alongside our 2024 ‘Lark’ theme. This had characteristic humour and a sense of good cheer, throughout the entire collection. So many of our Members’ creative designs made it onto the final set. I thought it would be great to capture the impact that designing these cards had on our Members;
“I was drawn to draw the drums because I was excited about the whole concept and couldn’t decide which one to pick from the 12 days. I love the Nutcracker Ballet, so this linked in well.‘”
“To have my design featured in our Christmas cards, is pretty epic to be fair, I feel valued and like I have purpose, and it’s so heartwarming to know I’m part of it all, plus I absolutely love Christmas!”
“I chose the Five Gold Rings, as this was plain and sim
ple. It’s been a nice surprise to have my design on the cards. Seeing them together, they look top notch, I feel thankful for being a Member at Designs Mind”
“I chose the Drummer as it was the first thing I thought of, with the 12 days of Christmas. I think all the final designs as one set, look great together. It feels exciting to have my drummer in a set of cards and its great to see them displayed in our shop!“
“I guess I just thought what makes a little hen look french, I thought of putting onions around, her neck, but no it didn’t seem right, so I thought a little beret would be nice’
“We were all asked to design a card for The Twelve Days of Christmas theme. It was pointed out that there had been lots of contributions for the ones featuring birds, it seemed the more figurative ones were being avoided. I just decided to do a funny version for the eight days of Christmas and draw the cows and not the maids. I stuck a bow on their tails and a sprig of holly.”
“I’ve never had much confidence in my drawings ,as I always tell everyone!, so I could not believe my french hen had been chosen as one of 
the twelve days of Christmas , I’m still very excited and amazed I think the final design is brilliant, and all the cards complement each other.
“I chose to draw the partridge because he’s central to the song, so I thought that would be a good place to start. I’m really happy with the final design, it’s simple but effective. It feels amazing to have my design featured on the Christmas card set. Confidence building. Sometimes I feel my work is not quite good enough but the designers have the skill to bring things to life and make everything look so professional. I think the whole set of cards is so beautiful and I’m really pleased to have drawn the partridge.”
“It feels pretty good to have my designs featured on the cards, I was quite shocked they made it on as the nine ladies dancing!”
“I wanted to do something different to what is usually expected for the Lords a Leaping, and since it was suggested that we could design anything that leaps I immediately thought of a frog leaping! This showed humour and cheer, just what our card collection needed.”
“Having my design featured on our cards is rewarding, it’s nice to know I’m putting back something into Designs in Mind. It’s also lovely to have my design sold in the shop, that brings an income back into our group. I’ll look forward to our next shop product project”
Lydia, our Design Lead, shared her process with me: “The cards were a little inspired by our 2024
‘Lark’ theme, in the sense that we wanted to create a fun and playful range of Christmas cards. The main inspiration being the song ‘The 12 days of Christmas’ – this project has been my favourite of the whole year! We printed out inspiration for each day, for example, different diamond rings for ‘five gold rings’. The initial idea is that we would use the format of a postage stamp to showcase our designs, but later in the design stages I decided that the illustrations and collages were strong enough to sit on their own. Members created a range of line drawings and collages for each day of the 12. A really great outcome from this was that members changed some of the imagery. From lords-a-leaping, instead of having humans leaping they chose other leaping things, such as frogs or lambs!! I then selected which I felt represented each day best (the frogs won). I chose a limited colour pallette of around 5 colours, and rigidly stuck to that so the cards would feel like a cohesive collection, but also look good on their own. I think its come together as strong collection of cards, with lots of cheer and humour. This collection showcases how our Members work is so diverse, but together we make a strong and cohesive whole.’
We extend a heartfelt thanks to Lydia for working hard on turning our Members’ work into this year’s successful Christmas card range, and congratulations to our incredible Members for their beautiful design work.
Blog Written & researched by Willow, Member & Social Media Coordinator with contributions from Members and Lydia.