Sweet Peas in April?

Some of the ‘official’ Birth Month flowers have really surprised me!

They don’t seem to be in quite the right months - at least not for part of the UK, where I live. But the one that has really made me wonder who decided each month's flowers, and where they live, is the Sweet Pea – one of the April Birth Month flowers.

Customizable April Birthday Card, Sweet Peas by helikettle
   

I love Sweet Peas! 

They are one of my favourite flowers. They represent everything I love about flowers: the fragrance, the colours and the diaphanous, almost ethereal look of their petals!

To me they seem as if they were designed especially for painting in watercolours and my Sweet Pea greeting cards and gifts have been very popular.

Sweet Pea Bookplate Round Stickers by helikettle

But April is far too early in the year for Sweet Peas in my garden. According to the seed packets, April is the month for sowing them outdoors. 

In the past I have sown them outdoors in the Autumn, just like the Broad Beans, and that has produced slightly earlier blooms. But the past couple of years I’ve been so busy in the run-up to Christmas that sowing the Sweet Peas was the last thing on my mind!

This year, I experimented with sowing them indoors (in March) in biodegradable egg boxes and toilet roll tubes to make planting out easier and less of a shock to their systems. 

And it seems to be working well. They look as if they’ll be ready to plant outside by the end of the month, ready to flower in July.

While I think that watercolour is generally the best medium for painting Sweet Peas, back in the 1980s I screenprinted a Sweet Pea pattern in a slightly Art Nouveau style and made a roller blind for my kitchen door to the garden.

Later I painted the design in gouache and used it for a bookmark in my Zazzle store. 

Sweet Pea Bookmark Business Card Templates by helikettle
 

An American bride-to-be with a particular liking for blue Sweet Peas came across it when she searched online for blue Sweet Peas for her Wedding Invitations. Apparently mine was the only design with a Blue Sweet Pea! Together, by email, we worked out the layout for her invitations, which I felt was a tremendous honour and a reminder of how thankful I am for the wonders of modern technology!

An alternative Birth Month Flower for April is the humble Daisy. 

And when I gave my lawn its first haircut of the year, back in March, there were already daisies amongst the grass  - and other weeds. So watch out for my new pattern for April – Daisies! 

In the meantime, you might like to take a look at some more of my many 'Sweet Pea' greeting cards and gifts: here's the link -

Sweet Pea Greeting Cards and Gifts

'Sweet Peas' Budget Tote Bag by helikettle
 

Wedding Invitations

Click here

for a selection of

Wedding Stationery

Wedding Congratulations Card by helikettle
See other Wedding Cards

Increasing Online Sales

I'm wondering how far to go in order to increase my sales through the online stores.

A newsletter from Zazzle this week listed the following 'Top Searches':

- Personal Business Cards
- Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers
- Bridal Shower invitations
- Wedding Postage
- Wedding Announcements
- Graduation Invitations
- Birthday Cards
- Bachelor Party Invitations
- Funny Posters
- Geek T-shirts

And the top sales through GCU were:

- 4th July cards
- Weddings
- Graduation

Of all those listed, the only categories my designs would fit into are the birthday cards and perhaps the wedding announcements, though I haven't made a lot of those - and even this one was not my idea, but came from a customer who found my sweet pea bookmark and asked me to make it into invitations for her wedding and I adapted it later for GCU -

.

Just as I find it hard to create Christmas Card designs in the summer, I don't find it easy to design for something to which I can't relate and if I try to, I think it comes through in my work. Unfortunately, the subjects of most of the top searches and sales are outside of my experience - for instance, we don't have 'bridal showers' in the UK, as far as I know, nor do we celebrate 'graduation' in quite the same way as in the US. We do have 'Stag Nights' which I presume are what are meant by 'Bachelor Party Invitations' but they are generally very informal affairs and formal invitations would hardly be in keeping with the spirit of the occasion. As for the 'Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers', I'd never have known that there was any demand for such a thing!

So - unless I can somehow get my head around these, to me, quite alien concepts, I'll have to continue with my birthday cards and perhaps take advantage of all the flowers coming out in my garden to make more Wedding Invitations.

There are plenty of roses for inspiration -

- and my first autumn-sown sweet peas are beginning to flower -

And maybe I can make something of the mock orange?

Or these love-in-a-mist might make a pretty design?

But with the flowers in my garden coming out thick and fast at the moment, it's difficult to keep up with them all!

I've just checked on Zazzle and there are a few floral business cards - so maybe that's something to be thinking about, if I can put myself in the shoes of a florist or garden centre owner? I often find that I have my best ideas when I'm not trying to think of something. My son is coming down from York to stay with me next and I expect we'll be out and about in the mountains, weather permitting. So perhaps something will come to me while I'm trying to keep up with him on one of our hikes!