This month, we look at greeting cards and beyond. The sister-and-brother team of Kee-Ka: Gifts That Matter, of New York, N.Y., keeps the focus on fun and family with beguiling handmade cards, wearable-greeting T-shirts, albums and educational watches.
To celebrate the littlest one's arrival, birthday, or first holidays, Wearable Greetings offer pampering grandparents, relatives and friends an easy way to say "I love you." Soft white cotton baby T-shirts, sizes newborn to 24 months, are imprinted with delightful images in the same style as the company's charming greeting cards. Each simple picture bears a short phrase: "my pumpkin," "princessa," "little prince," "sweetpea," "peanut," "precious" (for the holidays there are "little elf," "red nose," "shalom" and "honey bunny"). Each shirt comes packaged in a small brown cardboard parcel, ready for mailing ($1.06 postage in the U.S.). Merchandising these cute things can be fun, too: prepackaged display units shaped as bright-red mailboxes hold 18 Wearable Greeting parcels (with a choice of two images in a variety of sizes).
For big brother or sister, Kee-Ka offers colorful, high-quality watches that help make learning how to tell time a breeze. The water resistant, easy-to-read timepieces come with an educational booklet. For adults chronicling the new life, Kee-Ka's attractive photo albums are covered with hand-woven Balinese batik fabrics and sport a non-glare glass window on the front where one of the company's handmade greeting cards can be inserted. Just pull out the card to write your message. A portion of each Kee-Ka purchase helps support a charity for kids in need. Call 646-234-4128, e-mail info@kee-ka.com, www.kee-ka.com.
Debuting at the National Stationery Show in New York last weekend with a wonderful palette and a number of fresh, creative designs, Iota (as in Every Iota Makes a Difference), based in Basalt, Colo., takes a predominantly simple, clean, colorful aesthetic and runs with it. From "happy" cards (happy birthday, happy anniversary, congratulations, love you, happy Monday, etc.) to "turning number" cards (for those turning one through nine; significant double-digit years soon to come), wave cards and envelopes (bright colors, shaped paper), and variously sized notebooks, clip frames, gift tags and wrapping paper, Iota products are distinctive, exuberant, welcome additions to the stationery scene. Call 866-393-4682, fax 970-927-1233, e-mail skosh@everyiota.com, www.everyiota.com.
Red Horseshoe Paper, another young, lively company, creates imaginative journals and notebooks, note pads, note cards, mailing labels and envelope closures combining eras and continents (in the East, the color red is a symbol of good luck; in the West, a horseshoe represents the same: "red horseshoe" combines to mean "double luck"). Journals come in a range of sizes, with covers inspired by tattoo art, Soviet codebooks, rodeo scenes and French joie de vivre combined with intriguing quotations and exhortations—eclectic but with an overriding sense of style and carpe-diem vitality. Note pads feature unusual images of "Winged Victory" from the Louvre, an Art-Nouveau Paris Metro design, and an Italian woodcut. One vintage-style mailing label sports a very small inscription in the lower-left corner, "leave the burdens of the past behind." Envelope closures—stickers 1.5" to 2.5" long—repeat imagery from other products and introduce new ones, including a proverb in graphic red and black Chinese characters that translates roughly as "good should be the basis for action." Call 650-269-5797, www.redhorseshoe.com.
Tinymonkeycards, of New York City, shows what a little felt and Velcro can do. These greeting cards highlight simple felt images geared to a wide variety of special occasions. Most designs also incorporate a small, camouflaged Velcro flap that opens to reveal a hidden element as well as the inside of the card. For example, on a New Baby card with an egg on the front, the top half of the egg opens to reveal a tiny chick. A blank card bearing a closed barbecue grill unfolds so that the top of the grill opens to show flames—perfect for invitations to a backyard fete. Refreshing and charming. Call 212-343-1536, fax 718-504-7946, e-mail slee@tinymonkey.com, www.tinymonkey.com.
Heavens to Betsy!, in Ridgefield, Conn., specializes in premium stationery products of classic, understated design using images from antique engravings and woodcuts printed on earth-tone paper. Journals, magnetic notepads, note cards and gift enclosures all have great graphic appeal with their lively, sometimes whimsical images and restrained use of color. Available in themed collections of nature and garden, nautical, animal, holiday and special occasion. Call 203-431-6363, fax 203-431-6355, e-mail betsy@heavenstobetsy.net, www.heavenstobetsy.net.
Bhavi Vikas, in Moreno Valley, Calif., stocks a lovely selection of handmade beaded-fabric journals, wedding and photo albums, photo frames and guestbooks. Also available are stationery and paper bags made of gorgeous handmade paper with floral and other accents; albums covered in paper and dried flowers; dried-flower cards packaged in beaded bags; boxed notepads and notecards; lokta diaries, small bound journals and sets of 25 or 50 sheets of decorative paper for scrapbooks. The beaded products are not only very attractive but also very reasonably priced. Call 800-551-6136, fax 909-924-7753.
