Gift Wrapping Guide
A BIG thank you you to Alyson Walsh from That's not my age for the below feature. Be sure to check out her stylish and informative website and Instagram. The full Linked feature can be read here.
Designer and self-proclaimed ‘creative fidget’ Petra Boase is celebrating 25-years in business. Famous for her lovely greetings cards, standout stationery and iron-on patches, a selection of her work has been stocked at Liberty and Not On the High Street, right from the very beginning. ‘ The business keeps organically growing,’ she tells me over the phone from her studio in Norwich, ‘ Just because we’ve been going for 25 years doesn’t mean we’ve reached a point of discovery – we’re still navigating! But I have no desire for the business to be any bigger. There’s always the pressure to go bigger and bigger but there’s nothing wrong with small. Obviously, I need it to be profitable to pay my staff but I don’t want warehouses full of stuff.’
Petra runs the business with her husband Russell an illustrator and designer, and a small dedicated team. The pair moved their family to Norwich from a rural Norfolk market town three years ago, just after Petra turned 50. ‘ It’s so good to be back on a bike, going to gigs and the theatre and being surrounded by young, energetic students! In fact our HQ studio is on the same road as the art university.’ Over the years Russell has become a bigger part of the business. ‘I can’t take credit for all of this, there’s another extraordinary creative human being who is part of it. He’s a real talent, a brilliant art director and he loves being told what to do – it’s great! Basically, we are two creative nutters in it together. ‘
The pair are very hands-on, producing stationery and artwork on two Risograph printers from their studio, ‘It’s fun,’ Petra continues about the printing process, ‘I felt so cold toward the previous digital printers and we soon realised that it wasn’t sustainable to be outsourcing, so we invested in two highly efficient, Japanese Risograph printing machines. Now we just send things off for finishing; we’re not tied to any big print houses and can be more agile.’
Petra Boase is an incredibly modest, creative fidget with oodles of ideas. Here are her five expert tips on gift-wrapping and making Christmas personal:
Selecting ribbons, paper, tape and tags is a simple pleasure. Colour is a big part of what I do, I’ve always loved to mix and match. Keep it light-hearted with clashing patterns and different coloured tissue paper and ribbons – this is also an easy way to make a bunch of supermarket flowers look lovely.
Make use of utilitarian papers – people always love to see the pink Financial Times with our pink checkerboard tape and ribbon. And I always like those old-fashioned, striped paper bags; or brown paper and sparkly ric rac. You can always use a rubber stamp to add pattern to brown paper and make your gift unique. I love a polka dot – and you can stamp them on with the end of a pencil rubber or stamp bigger spots on brown paper with a foam roller.
Adding a beautiful, DIY bow can take your gift to the next level. It’s a simple and cost-effective way to make your presents standout under the tree. ( More details and a downloadable template HERE).
More-is more. Add an extra decoration. Our iron-on patches make great tags, customers often tie one to a parcel, or add a pom-pom or jingly bell from Hobbycraft. This is a great way to personalise or customise your gift.
If you’re going to stay with friends or have multiple gifts, a Christmas sack is good for giving presents in and goes beyond Christmas! People often use them for laundry.