J.Falkner

All my mother ever wanted on Mother’s Day, she insisted, was a hand-made card from her children. In an extreme case of careful-what-you-wish-for, she now has a son doing nothing but making cards all year ‘round.

Maybe that’s no surprise. Because the unqualified enthusiasm with which my mother greeted my creative endeavours — even that less-promising phase with felt finger puppets when I was 8 — encouraged me to think that there just might be a wider audience out there. And now here we are, all these years later, shipping thousands of cards to stores across the US every month.

Which meant the heat was on to cook up Mother’s Day cards to express full filial gratitude. Balloonists, birds and lucky clovers: these cards are for you, Mom — and mothers the world over.

Sure, the 14th of February is a day for red — red roses, red candies, red-hearted cards. But here at J.Falkner, we also like spinning slightly unexpected color stories in our greetings.

After all, what could be sweeter for a loved one than a card in ice cream colors like pink and peach? We turned to our pantone book and paired a pretty pink and an orange sorbet (above) for a new trio of cards.

In this overly ironic world is there anything more charming and fresh than a genuine blush?

We can’t get enough of zebras (above). To us, they clearly reveal God as a fashion designer-manqué — that crisp black and white pattern is far too attractive for mere camouflage.

A friend often signs off their emails with this expression (above), and we couldn’t resist making it into a card.

Light pink and soft orange are not just for cards. They work just as well with flowers, so we put together this sun-kissed bouquet of roses to brighten your day (above). Happy Valentines!

Today, as we turn our calendar to the month of February, we naturally think of Valentines Day. There are many legends around this event, but one touches us particularly.

The story goes that, back in the days of 270 AD, the priest St. Valentine cut up pieces of parchment in the shape of hearts and circulated these to buck up the spirits of much-persecuted Christians.

Nearly 1800 years later, doesn’t receiving a little heart in the mail have much the same effect, reminding us of our faith in love and friendship? Without, we might add, risking any kind of martyrdom for the sender today. (St. Valentine was less lucky when the Romans caught up with him.)

Two hearts beat as one in this playful interpretation of a Venn diagram (above).

And we wouldn’t be able to call ourselves Palm Beach stationers without featuring at least a couple of flamingos (above) in our Valentine collection.

See all our Valentines cards here, and feel free to order a few now to arrive before the 14th — or find them at retailers across the country (and in Canada, too, where select Indigo stores will be stocking them).

Whether you be in sun, or in snow, may your Christmas be full of good cheer and much warmth.

With the merry month of December just beginning, it’s time to get our dachshund dressed for the holidays. Of course, he’s just porcelain so very amenable to decoration (above).

Because of a previously peripatetic lifestyle it was hard to have a pet, but we’ve always said if we did — it would certainly be a dachshund.

So, in the anticipation of the day we might have one for real, we celebrate him in our cards. For the holiday, we have our dachshund joining in on Reindeer games with his red nose (above). Available in boxes of 8 cards from our online store here.

Or if you’re looking for holiday gifts, we’ve put together a special mixed box set of 8 dachshund cards — birthday, thank you and blank cards (see above). Order them from our online gift shop here, and we even offer gift wrapping.

Even famously cantankerous Picasso was mollified by his dachshund, Lump (above, in photo, and as drawn by Picasso).

Andy Warhol had two dachshunds (Amos and Archie), but the portrait (above) is of a friends pet, Maurice.

But perhaps most fabulous of all dachshund-owners was uberchic clotheshorse Millicent Rogers (1902-1953) — see her above, with two of her seven dachshunds, and one of her three husbands (Arturo Peralta-Ramos). The Standard Oil Heiress was said to go everywhere with her coterie of dachshunds, even when travelling to California to court Clark Cable (a courtship which failed — though whether it was the 7 dogs or the 20 trunks of luggage she brought that he found more oppressively extravagant, who is to say?).

(You can read a great piece about Millicent Rogers from the Wall Street Journal, here.)