Twelfth Night – today – means it has been time for cards and other Christmas decorations to come down. A lot of the card fronts will get used for gift labels and most of the rest will be recycled but, before doing that, I took time to lay them all out on the floor and think about what ideas I might want to take into my card design for Christmas 2018. In other words, I’m thinking well ahead!

There were a few Santa Clauses and Snowmen, a number of winter scenes, a hop of robins and a fair few with direct or hinted nativity scenes. I also noted that red, green and white were the dominant colours; few used the purple and ochre I picked for my 2017 design. I think my favourites were quite colourful designs that you could imagine being rendered in stained glass.

Anyway, some notes taken and I’ve got ideas of what to go for next year. It’s also an interesting exercise in its own right. It doesn’t necessarily represent the nation’s taste in card design but at least gives an interesting view on the kind of things our friends have picked out.