Blog
Some things won't fit on a product page: the night nobody saw, what to say to exhausted parents, the gift that never reaches the mother, and what each wedding anniversary is called.
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Why give a poster for Christmas? A keepsake that stays and brightens a wall
By St Stephen’s Day the wrapping paper is in the recycling bin and half the presents are already put away. A poster goes on the wall. You see it every day, and every time you think of the person who gave it. Here is why it makes such a good Christmas present, and which one to pick.
By Cornélia Read -
A gift for a dog or cat lover: nine ways to put their pet on the wall
They already have the mug, the soft toy and the engraved tag. What they don’t have is somewhere to hang their pet. Here are nine posters made from a dog’s or cat’s photo, from the tenderest to the daftest, and how to pick the one that suits the person getting it.
By Fred Read -
Your friend is moving away: the gift that won’t end up at the bottom of a box
The boxes are already stacked in the hall, you’re clinking glasses between two piles of books, and someone says, “We’ll see each other all the time, yeah?” Nobody wants a mug that night. Here’s what to give instead: light, tough, and all about the two of you.
By Cornélia Read -
Which moon was shining that night? The poster to give for a date that matters
On Christmas Eve someone tells, for the tenth time, how they met, and nobody remembers the moon. It was there all the same, in one precise shape. Here is how to find it, what the poster shows, and how long you have to order so it arrives before Christmas.
By Fred Read -
The gift for someone who only talks about their dog (or their cat)
Every Sunday dinner goes the same way: the phone comes out before the pudding, and the same face turns up on the screen. Here is how to turn that photo into a gift, what you really get with a watercolour pet portrait, and what to know before ordering.
By Cornélia Read -
At the 30 km mark, holding a sign: what you keep of a race
At the 30 km mark there's a cardboard sign and a runner who passes ten seconds before you're ready. Three weeks on, the medal is in a drawer and the race has slid down the app. Here's how to keep what the finish line leaves behind.
By Fred Read -
“Wasn’t it raining?” The weather on the day that mattered
Everyone knows the date; the weather is still being argued over. Here's how to find the weather on a wedding day, a birth or a first meeting, day by day back to 1984, and give it as a poster.
By Cornélia Read -
The photos on a phone, when the dog isn’t here any more
When a dog or a cat is gone, what remains is photos on a phone and a wish for something to hang up rather than scroll past. Here's how to choose the photo, what to write underneath, and how to give it to someone who has just lost theirs.
By Fred Read -
Nana and Grandad said “don’t get us anything”: here’s what they’ll hang up anyway
Every year, the same line down the phone: “Honestly, don’t buy us anything.” And every year, the same fridge, with the same photo of the kids, taken when they were smaller. This is a present that isn’t for putting away, only for looking at.
By Cornélia Read -
Everyone gets a recap of their year, except the two of you
In December everyone gets a summary of their year: songs played, kilometres run, series swallowed whole. And the year you lived together, the move, the trip, the dog, has no summary at all. Here is one, for the wall.
By Fred Read -
You’ve drawn Bernard from accounts in the Secret Santa: now what?
The folded slip in your hand, Bernard from accounts written on it, a twenty-five-euro limit and no wish to give a third candle. Here is the idea that gets a whole office laughing, and its little sister for the toilets of friends who’ve just moved in.
By Cornélia Read -
The night you met, and nobody wrote down the time
Three years on, nobody can say what time it began. There's a place, two versions of the date, and a night you mostly remember for the cold. Here is how to give that night back, using what you really have left.
By Fred Read -
Printable personalised poster: the gift that arrives tonight
The parcel won’t make it in time, or it won’t make it across the border. The print-ready file will: it’s the same personalised poster, delivered as ten files through a link, ready to print tonight at home or tomorrow at the print shop round the corner. Why you’d choose it, and how to print it without a hitch.
By Fred Read -
The best friend gift that proves you really know her
It’s gone midnight, her birthday is ten days away, and you’re in bed scrolling “best friend gift ideas” with one eye open. Mugs that say Bestie. Plastic friendship bracelets. A candle called something like Cashmere Hug. None of it is wrong. None of it is her.
By Cornélia Read -
The crap calendar: the Secret Santa present the whole office reads out loud (2027 edition)
Every Secret Santa has the moment when someone unwraps a scented candle and says “oh, that’s lovely” in the voice of a person who is lying. And it has the other moment: the one where the whole room leans over a calendar to read what January is called. This is about that one.
By Fred Read -
A star map as a gift: the sky of the night everything changed
Some evenings you remember in full: the noise of the restaurant, the coat you wore, the walk home. Everything except one thing. Nobody looked up. The sky was there all the same, and it is the one picture of that night you can still give.
By Cornélia Read -
How to decorate a newborn baby's room
At first, you picture a colour, a cot and perhaps a name on the wall. Then the baby arrives at three in the morning: can you enter without the ceiling light, reach a clean nappy with one hand and sit down without moving three cushions? The best nursery looks after the whole family.
By Fred Read -
The night they were born
There is always someone who wasn’t there. And the first thing you ask, when you weren’t, is: when? At night? Nobody can quite answer. That night, nobody was looking out of a window.
By Cornélia Read -
What to say to people who have just had a baby
The message has been open for twenty minutes. “Congratulations” has already gone round the group chat three times. And you would like to write something that doesn’t read like everyone else’s.
By Fred Read -
A gift for the mother, not the baby
Three days in, there are seventeen babygros in the room and not one thing for her. Nobody did it on purpose. Presents follow the gaze, and everyone is looking at the baby.
By Cornélia Read -
What you forget about a birth in five years
There is always someone who wasn’t there. And often it is that person who remembers best five years on: they wrote the hour on the corner of something as they hung up, because it was all they had.
By Fred Read -
The moon of that one night: what gift, for which occasion
Everyone wants an "original" gift, and most people end up buying the same scented candle as everyone else. This one has an edge no candle will ever have: the moon wasn't the same the night before or the night after. Here's where that actually matters, answered as the questions people actually ask before ordering.
By Fred Read -
Paper to platinum: what each wedding anniversary is called
Everyone knows silver, gold and diamond. Past those three the traditional list thins out fast, argues with itself, and stops matching the French or German one altogether. Here is the whole thing, and where the seams are.
By Cornélia Read -
What to give for a wedding anniversary
The useful question is not which material belongs to which year. It is who is giving. A husband, the grown-up children organising the lunch, and a guest arriving with a parcel are solving three different problems on three different budgets.
By Fred Read -
Framing a poster yourself, or ordering it framed
A poster that arrives rolled stays rolled. The real question is who frames it and where — and for British buyers there is a sizing trap worth knowing before you order.
By Cornélia Read -
How early should you order before the date?
The real question is never “how fast do you ship”. It is “will it be there by Sunday”. Here is the arithmetic, with no comfort rounding.
By Fred Read -
Keeping a date: two ways, and what each one says
A date fits in eight characters. That is the simplest way, and often the least well chosen — because it says everything, at once, to anyone. There are two others that never write it out, and keep it better.
By Cornélia Read