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@papershakeruk
Share Your Smiles In Style
We are excited to announce the launch of our Christmas Campaign!
Share your smiles in style this Christmas with our first ever range of beautiful festive cards. With over 400 designs there is something truly special for everyone. Jump the high street queue and make something as unique as you are this Christmas: http://bit.ly/18Unue4
All wrapped up for Christmas
A year has flown by, and it is startling to find ourselves approaching Christmas at such a pace. For team PaperShaker, we have been in preparation since early September; contacting designers and artists to draw up our first ever range of Christmas & New Year’s cards.
We are now scheduling our last release for this year, with over 400 cards in total to complete our bumper festive ranges. If you haven’t seen them, don’t miss out!
It’s been a while since we updated our blog, so here’s some photos from Instagram on what we’ve been up to. Caroline dressed up as a Zombie Miley Cyrus for Halloween but we don't have any photos of that and it's probably for the best!
Caroline, our uncrowned Great British Bakeoff Queen!
Caroline's cake/burger triumph! Recipe available upon request : o )
Master of Puppets
Monday, 9am at the job centre, raining - London.
Dirty scroll screens of grey; plasticy touch panels yellowed from thumbs, jabbing at jobs, smeared and misty. A sigh of dejection as the one armed bandit spun for the umpteenth time that morning, no-no-no, then suddenly, yes-yes-YES!
Artwork/Studio manager, urgently needed at top London based card company. Craig Kemm hastily scribbled down a number, and hurried into the breaking sun. A 45 minute phone call later, the fog had broken and the rain had stopped. Geoff Sanderson, our King of Cards, had summoned Craig to the studio for a meeting. The search was over; Craig was the man to complete the PaperShaker design trinity.
Within the PaperShaker team lives a lifelong passion for art and design that borders on obsession. Craig was “always” drawing and painting from an early age, with a big interest in music, reading and writing. There were some diversions; a “rebel phase” at A-level got him a grade E in art! But he rebounded and went on to Loughborough college of art and design and gained a distinction. Craig followed this by securing a place at Leeds Metropolitan University on the Graphic arts and Design degree, for which he specialised in printmaking.
After completing his degree, Craig got a ‘summer job’ at Leeds Crown Court, for three long years…(woops) His passion for art and design meant he never stopped striving to find a place where he could express his creativity. A spell at the Henry Moore Foundation led to the prestigious Hallmark, preparing cards for print, to be sold in shops up and down the land including M&S. After Hallmark, Craig spent 10 years at Tailormade Design, where he worked his way up from artworker to studio manager.
Craig is the man (with a fab collection of vinyl figurines, which his girlfriend hates) who gets to push the big red button and release a new range of cards onto PaperShaker.
To be an Artwork/Studio manager one must be logical, a perfectionist and inches from the “Zone” at all times. Caroline, our design manager, formats all of the cards and passes them to Craig who takes the individual elements and forms a moodboard from them. Splitting the pieces into different layers of a colourful, beautiful puzzle, the art shapes and elements are then exported to a toolkit, which forms the easy “drag and drop” part of our design suite. All card designs are set up and meticulously tested which can take AGES, especially if a big release is just around the corner.
This Christmas, Craig, Caroline, and Geoff have a whopping 320 cards planned for release in the UK, France & Germany. From quirky illustrations to contemporary, bold and simple designs - all of this is to go live early next week (fingers crossed). I asked Craig if he had a favourite card or design from our pan European range; hard to choose from such variety, depth, colour and individuality. I still haven’t got my answer….
Christmas cards for early next week, in the mean time check out our birth announcement cards , baby thank you cards , wedding invitations , wedding thank you cards, Save The Date cards , RSVP cards , adult party invitations and last but not least kids party invitations for yourself!
New coloured envelopes and paper options
We are delighted to announce that we now offer beautiful coloured envelopes and new card options to compliment your beautiful PaperShaker cards.
We all love to customise and add a personal touch. That’s why our service is loved by so many of you! We have now taken the next step, to allow you to personalise the very envelopes the cards arrive in, and the paper options for your printed cards.
Blue for a boy, pink for a girl; silver for a wedding; beige to say thank you.
Or turn that on its head and make your own rules! The cards to tell the story, the envelopes to sing the occasion and for you to beam with joy!
In addition to our 4 exciting envelope options, for the first time you are now able to decide upon the quality and type of card you wish to print upon.
3 new levels of luxury to choose; pearlescent, ivory and glossy.
Pearlescent shimmers with a silvery hue and is perfect for special events and days to remember.
Ivory is coloured, offers the greatest texture to touch and is our highest quality card to date.
Glossy is perfect for photos, to make your snaps of family and friends feel vivid, alive; the colours jump out at you, coated in a quality varnish.
We have sourced our new cards and all of our cards to date, from FSC reliable forests. We have ensured that each card option is distinct and special; it’s up to you to decide how to use them!
Take a look at our birth announcement cards , baby thank you cards , wedding invitations , wedding thank you cards, Save The Date cards , RSVP cards , adult party invitations and last but not least kids party invitations now, and get creative!
Dream it, Make it, Shake it!
Babyfood, whats good for your baby?
Ready-made baby foods contain high levels of sugar and are introduced too early to infants, scientists say.
Fierce debate has raged around kid’s cereals and food for decades. Long have sugary breakfast cereals and pure junk food been the subject of parental crusades. But have we neglected if not the earliest stage of life and surely the time when good nutrition is paramount?
What we feed our infants will shape the rest of their lives – a sweet tooth from birth, and a lack of nutrients can lead to slower development and may factor in the epidemic of childhood obesity we see today.
Baby foods made by the biggest name brands on sale in Britain today lack nutrients and are promoted for use from 4 months of age, a time when babies should be on formula milk or breast milk.
A baby would need to eat twice as many of these ready soft pots and meals to get the same vital vitamins and minerals as food cooked at home.
The study conducted by the University of Glasgow found nearly all products that fall outside of strictly home-made, lack in iron, are packed with sugar, are high in calories and less nutrient dense.
Shop-bought foods use fruit sugars to sweeten foods rather than added sugars to make then tastey to our tots. However both probably contribute to tooth decay in equal measure, the experts added.
The Department of Health recommends a gradual transition to solid food starting with cereals, vegetables and fruits, before moving on to proteins
Rosemary Dodds, senior adviser at the National Childbirth Trust says: "Manufacturers have been dragging their feet, lagging behind current thinking and research evidence. Babies don't generally need solid foods before 6 months"
"Its time they stopped labeling foods "from 4 months onwards"
"If babies are spoon-fed pureed fruit and vegetables before this time it can replace the nutrients from milk"
"Many parents find jars of food convenient when they are out and about but babies can eat family foods most of the time. Buying commercial baby food is also much more expensive.
Parents of PaperShaker, what is your experience? Tweet at us @PaperShakerUK , or visit our Facebook
Back to school, out of pocket
Cash strapped parents are paying up to 27% more this year for school essentials and uniform. An extra £47 for each child puts the total at a sky high £2.3 billion for UK mums and dads.
Research via Santander also shows that the day to day costs of term time activities has risen by 13% compared to last year. This means lunch, school trips, bus journeys, and even the cost of morning milk are increasing at an alarming rate.
The only spend that has fallen is that of the school run, because parents are no longer able to ferry the kids around burning valuable petrol. Instead, UK mums and dads have looked to alternative means, sadly in a lot of cases that means to get out and walk!
The demand for iPads, smartphones, and hi-tech learning aids is partly to blame for these huge increases. The explosion of social media usage amongst kids requires expensive laptops and flashy gadgets; if only it was to study more, and message 1Direction less.
Department store John Lewis said children were more likely to want a tablet or e-reader than a geometry set. Oh Dear. Over the recent bank holiday weekend John Lewis expected to sell an iPad every two minutes.
Technology is making its way into the school bag and into the classroom. Have you had to fork out extra this year to get the kids back to school? Let us know in the comments.
Thank you to everyone who has chosen to mark their special occasion with a beautiful PaperShaker card. We are delighted to have reached an important milestone and have created for you an infographic showing just how many cards that is! Next stop, the moon!
This week we’re juggling!
After a long weekend enjoying the Notting Hill carnival we are busier than ever. Caroline is taking part in a cycle ride all the way to Holland (and back) in early September, as part of the annual Moonpig charity event. This means buying a proper bike, no Bromptons allowed, and getting in tip top shape for the trek; plenty of apples.
Before she goes, she has to get the Christmas cards ready, or at least to a stage where we won’t be late! Each day her inbox is bursting with moodboards from budding hopefuls and new work from all over the UK. Each of our Christmas designs are carefully formatted, to pick out the cream of the crop at every level.
We can’t show you (yet) as it is super top secret, the best elements, art and illustrations are plucked from an array of beautiful drawings. From this, they are built into a new range, so that you can easily add them to your chosen design. Cartoon teddies, mince pies, hand drawn evergreen trees and boxes full of presents are whisked around and put in line for you to choose!
For me and you, its drag and drop; behind the scenes however, there is a verified army of elves (I’ve seen them) tinkering with colours, palettes and crisp thick card to make your cards sing!
If you can think to look past Christmas and into spring (hey it’s still summer right?) we are working on a new exciting range of hero cards.
Forget Superman and Batman, your family pictures are the real heroes: mums, dads, friends, brothers and sisters – our cards are all about the photos and dedicated to all our loyal Photobox customers. We want to compliment not crowd, add not detract, and make sure that our artwork dances around the centre stage; your photos of people you love.
You may have tried creating cards already, you may have yet to enjoy the PaperShaker experience. We see our cards as an exercise in inspiration that give you a flavour of what you could make. Change every element, wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. PaperShaker is the paintbrush, that anyone can wield, to add their personal touch and give birth, to beautiful creation.
Take a look at our birth announcement cards , baby thank you cards , wedding invitations , wedding thank you cards, Save The Date cards , RSVP cards , adult party invitations and kids party invitations for yourself!
The King of Cards
This week we sit down with esteemed yet extremely approachable Geoff Sanderson of Moonpig and PaperShaker. There are few people in the industry who have done more to shape how we view and buy cards than him.
Geoff was born into art and design, his mother an artist who taught him how to paint from an early age. Growing up in Newcastle, he had always been fascinated by drawing, illustrations and comics, becoming the high school cartoonist as well as a developing a keen interest in music. Fast forward a few years and a young and brilliant creative mind had flourished; dabbling in rock, punk and indie bands, looking for a way to apply himself to the fullest of his abilities.
The opportunity arose and at the tender age of 22 he was appointed art director of an agency in London. The creative environment was very different back then and he was consulted purely on his ideas and imaginations for adverts with Saatchi & Saatchi as well as numerous projects with JWT.
Geoffs passion and imagination led him to join Tigerprint as their creative director. Starting with just three people he helped to grow the company to over 100, working on gifts and cards, trend directions and a range of colourful products (including cuddly toys) with Marks & Spencers. Not one who shied from getting his hands dirty, he dove straight in, literally, spending a great deal of time at the factory where the cards were made, scrutinising the processes of letter press and silk screen printing until they were pitch perfect.
Tigerprint was so successful it was bought by card giants Hallmark where Geoff was made group director.
Disney on speed dial and a relationship with almost every high street retailer were part of everyday life. Luckily for us, Geoff chose to share his creative talent with a new young team, becoming but the second employee at PaperShaker when we still in utero, almost 1 year ago! A love and passion can be seen in every one of our cards, that’s Geoff, that’s his creative team of young designers and experts who bring a craftsmanship and brilliance no longer found on the high street.
Geoff is a man of instinct, with a gift for creating beautiful cards that runs in his blood. His filtering process when overseeing new art and design is instant. Passed down to him from his mum, Geoff now has a young family who also show a keen instinct for art.
He spends his weekends at the family home in West Yorkshire. He has two daughters aged 12 and 18, his eldest looking to follow in his footsteps starting with a foundation course in design.
Always looking to pass the torch, at PaperShaker & Moonpig we open our doors to young designers and anyone who has a gift of art they wish to share. A graduate scheme has been put in place to ensure the next generation get their chance to gain valuable experience and learn from a living legend in a real house of cards.
Designs and characters that Geoff penned years ago, live on in the eclectic and vibrant ranges of PaperShaker & Moonpig cards to this day.
Caroline's Corner
Meet Caroline - Our designer & design manager for PaperShaker and the lady behind your wonderful cards!
With a background in screen printing, illustrating and of course - card design, she brings a wealth of expertise and experience that makes our cards the best around. As a former art director she worked with charities such as Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, Greenpeace, Amnesty International and the RSPCA.
Now leading a team of 20 brilliant people across the UK they dream up the fabulous cards we rave about. They are responsible for our beautiful range of birth announcement cards , baby thank you cards , wedding invitations , wedding thank you cards, Save The Date cards , RSVP cards , adult party invitations and last but not least kids party invitations
This will be a weekly feature, focused on the design work behind the scenes, the people, the stories, the art, colour, blood, sweat and maybe even a few tears. Welcome, to Caroline’s Corner.
This week we jump straight in!
Caroline is busy preparing our range of Christmas cards that will launch in early September. Did you know that as a nation we prefer our cards very Christmassy, Red/Green/Gold where as in Europe they prefer a more neutral colour scheme? Also on the grapevine, in France they do not send very many Christmas cards and prefer to send New Year’s cards instead! Designs in the pipeline include “Nordic Snowflake” and “Paperpine Forest” We can smell the pinecones and mulled wine already! The designers are briefed and set about creating moodboards, pattern swatches and embellishments they would like to include. All of this is loaded as clipart on a large board where each item can be checked over to see it fits the bill. We want colours that jump out at you (boo!) designs you can find nowhere else, and a feel and texture that is one of a kind.
Over the coming weeks we will look to profile each of the 20 designers who make up the heart of what we do. Stay tuned and check back each Thursday as we dive deeper into the dancing seas of PaperShaker.
5 key Reasons to stay positive even if your grades aren’t quite there
At PaperShaker we love to think positive. It is what makes our company tick. There are people within our organisation from many different backgrounds and who have fought hard to get where they are today.
Can I tell you a secret?
Not all of them went to their Uni of choice and not all of them finished Uni.
1. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." C. S. Lewis
That doesn’t mean abandon ship, it means that your path might be different from others. We are all different and those that don’t fit the mold can often be the special people who find their feet and really hit the road when its time. You are still young; believe us you are, and there are still many options that are education orientated that can get you to where you need to be.
2. “Don’t conform. Both the education world and business world encourage people to conform. But it’s a straitjacket which stops you realising what you’re good at.”
Guess who said that?
It was Dr Charbonnier, German boss at a privatisation agency. And who was he speaking to?
None other than a young Stan Laurent, owner of Photobox, Moongpig, and you guessed it! PaperShaker!
Stan decided upon a career in business after a military service on a submarine in the French navy!
How cool is that; you will look back one day and see that at 18 you have the world at your feet and can spend the next 2-3 years doing something amazing, even if you decide to reapply for uni at a later date.
3. The Apprentice
An apprenticeship can be a great way to get straight into work and gaining what uni graduates will not have one day of.
ACTUAL WORK EXPERIENCE.
An office still runs on basic principles. Making coffee and taking out the trash. It is part of daily life that is present at all companies; just because you have a masters degree in (insert fabulous degree here) doesn’t mean that when your boss wants a top up that its not up to you to play barista and get the espresso fired up.
Climb the ladder and you will be surprised how many have come into an advantageous position above you and throw it all away because they want to jump the queue.
If if one truly applies themselves you earn a wealth of real life experience. You can view apprenticeships in your area here.
Apprenticeships offer a real qualification and take approx 1 -1/2 years to complete. In that time you will have 1 – ½ years work experience and be earning a wage too. If you are under 18 you will earn £3.72 minimum wage; an apprenticeship wage will be £2.68. Both amounts are small in reality. See it as pocket money whilst you bide your time, complete the apprenticeship, gain that qualification and then get taken on in a permanent position.
4. Inspirational people who did not finish Uni.
I’m sure you have heard it before, but there are real business people and people of status all around that did not finish Uni. The brightest minds are ones that can think outside the box and have a gift that simply cannot be taught. Here is a list of famous people who did not finish Uni.
Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson, who is now in charge of “Work & Pensions” and formally the Home Office started his career with no GCSES and getting fired from Tescos. He became a postman at 18 with a wife and two children behind him. He would spend the next 19 years as a postman (Take your time Alan). When he kickstarted his career in politics it was 1993, he was appointed general secretary of a union before stepping into Parliament. A truly unconventional route shows that even in the world of politics, where you would think everyone has a degree, there are people who used to be the village postie.
Simon Cowell
Simon left with two GCSE’s and knocked about for abit before starting at the mail room in EMI. Another person who started in a mail room is Johnathan Ross at the BBC, but that’s another story. Simon worked his way up and was soon signing bands such as Five and Westlife. The rest is history.
Julie Burchill
Bristol born novelist Julie Burchill ditched her A-levels shortly after starting them, most of her classmates got work in the local biscuit factory and life seemed bleak. Julie put her efforts into building up a portfolio and began writing for NME. She went on to write for The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Express. Her novel “Sugar Rush“ was made into a Channel 4 drama and won an International Emmy. Lord Alan Sugar
He would tell you himself, he’s a grafter. Growing up in a poor Jewish family in the East end he earned his first few pennies helping the local greengrocer and selling photographic film to his friends.
He left school at 16 to sell car aerials and electrical goods from a van before building up his empire. He founded Amstrad (Alan Michael Sugar Trading) in 1968 at 19 years old by selling home computers made from discounted parts. At its peak Amstrad floated at £1.2 billion. He spent his later years firing and admonishing posh people on TV in the award winning “Apprentice”. Heston Blumenthal
An F in GCSE science would not stop him from cooking up liquid nitrogen as a Michelin starred celebrity chef. Heston summed up his time in education as “could do better” and saying that he was very distracted by the temptations of youth!
Heston claims to be self-taught although it is certain that a long spell working his way up was an education in itself. He now owns three Michelin starred restaurants and is the inventor of snail porridge and bacon ice cream.
5. Talk to your parents, talk to your 6th form, talk to the Uni.
Don’t bury your head in the sand and don’t stop moving. Momentum is direction; life has a way of getting you to your destination, even if it’s not where you thought it would be. I know people who I went to Uni with who have only just finished, lord knows how much debt they are in and they haven’t even begun to consider the 9-5 that most of the world revolves around. A degree at any cost is not worth it, paying back a student loan till you are 40 makes no sense.
As long as you are happy it doesn’t matter where your friends may go, make new friends and explore new environments. Go traveling and find what you really want to be. Some people never discover what they want to be.
Take a year or two to truly find out what kind of being you are. When life gives you lemons, when life throws a curveball at you, turn it into something beautiful.
Too long didn’t read?
Don’t give up; if today is a good day, throw a party!
Photo dump from the weekend!
Not being careless or anything, just wanted to share some stories from our Instagram. From chasing after a Fire engine to get a snap i thought was just fab to creeping up on our designers while they are being arty!
Love the PaperShaker universe? We are inspired by our beautiful cards:
birth announcement cards
baby thank you cards
wedding invitations
wedding thank you cards
Save The Date cards
RSVP cards
party invitations
Clicky Clicky! :o )
He did it!
You may remember our UX architect Paul Salter from a few weeks back, off on an adventure to scale mt Kilimanjaro and raise money for Childreach International
He made it and its great to have him back in one piece; with a cracking tan to boot!
"The summit night consisted of exhaustion, collapsing, delirium and hallucinations, but despite this, i'd do it all over again"
"I did this in aid of Childreach International and it was for kids like James (in the photo, who was truly awesome) I shaved my head and grew a beard, to do it explorer style!"
Making a walking holiday in the Lake District look tame and pedestrian; support people like Paul by donating to Childreach International here
We are delighted to present you with a collection of photos from our new range of Wedding cards. Expanding on our range of wedding invitations and wedding thank you cards we have added both Save The Date cards and RSVP cards !
Here is a newly published photo from our review and giveaway with "Love Me Love My Wedding" Our giveaway is open for two weeks but i would have to agree that you could spend alot longer dreaming about the perfect wedding, with the perfect cards to match : o )
Another happy customer, another fabulous giveaway!
Visit http://bit.ly/16oDbJG to enter with "The Crumby Mummy"
You can win birth announcement cards, baby thank you cards, wedding invitations, wedding thank you cards, Save The Date cards, RSVP cards and cracking party invitations !
Love the attitude in this photo, a young girl at Woodstock 1969.
Got us thinking; as the sun is back, get a party organised pronto! Our cards will be dispatched the same day if ordered before 2pm - perfect for the intermittent weather! Browse our hot new range of kids party invitations and grown-up party invitations.