Featured Maker // Pippa & Paper
Emily Eason
Pippa & Paper
Emily, the maker behind ‘Pippa & Paper’ creates beautiful watercolour paintings inspired by wild animals, often adorned in flower crowns and more. Emily translates each design into a fun greetings card, postcard, item of stationery for your home office and unique prints to brighten up your interior space.
Emily started designing greetings cards in 2017 after finishing a degree in textile design at Manchester Metropolitan University. After travelling around South Africa and seeing the wild safari animals in their natural habitat and visiting the wild flowers blooming in the South, Emily began to focus on beginning and launching her own business.
Emily finished her degree in Textile designs and moved straight into a print design internship and from there, she held various design roles. However, she wanted to have more creative freedom. Emily loved the idea of being able to paint and draw everyday and she decided to make the big jump from employed to self-employed by starting Pippa & Paper.
Here, Emily tells us a little more about her creative journey and the favourite elements of her creative process.
Can you explain where your business name comes from?
My business name Pippa & Paper, is from my middle name Philippa. However, there is a little more to it than that. As children me and my sister would talk and pretend to make our own creative businesses, most of the time fashion, and we would call it Pippa & Olivia; both our middles names. So I decided to use mine. Paper purely comes from the fact most of my products (so far) are paper based.
Is there a particular season you find most inspiring?
Spring is definitely my favourite time of year, it’s not too warm, but not too cold; you can still wear a nice knitted jumper. This is also when the pretty Spring flowers start to come out and I always feel the most inspired at this time of year. My favourite quote for Spring time is from the film, The Devil Wears Prada. “Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.” But for me it’s amazing because I love adding flower designs into my collections.
What the hardest thing about running a business on your own?
For me, I have found the hardest part of running a business on my own is knowing when to give myself a break. I have to keep reminding myself to be a good boss and switch off in an evening, or take the weekend off. I do love to try and get orders out on a Saturday morning. The best part is definitely being able to be as creative as I could possibly dream. From working in numerous print design roles before Pippa & Paper became full time, I would get frustrated at how little creativity I could actually use. Now however, it’s the more creative the better. I also have found that I am very good at putting colours together now.
“I like to add lots of detail to the sketch by adding in a flower crown or clothing item, something to make it unique. After that I use watercolour paints to finish the piece which is definitely my favourite part. ”
Can you describe a typical working day?
A typical day at work for me starts with checking my emails and Etsy messages, as I tend to get a lot of enquires overnight. After answering those I move on to my orders, from both my website and my Etsy shop. This is my favourite part of the day, looking through what all my lovely customers have ordered and what they have chosen to put together, especially prints. I either print out what I need or get it from my stock shelves. Then is the fun part; hand wrapping all of my order in tissue paper. I like to try and add a little note to each individual order as well. After that, if there is time, I either try to start working on a new painting, idea, product launch or day to day maintenance on my website. For example, a stock take or newsletters. I am lucky that I have a post office just a 5 minute walk from where I live, so I can drop off all my orders on the same day.
Talk us through your process
My making process always starts the same, with research. I look through my own photos from my safari trip, visits to the zoo, or cute pets I know. From there I work out what I want it to be and what to add, for example a birthday card or maybe a new baby card. I then start sketching it out, I like to add lots of detail to the sketch by adding in a flower crown or clothing item, something to make it unique. After that I use watercolour paints to finish the piece which is definitely my favourite part. From there, once the painting is finished, I scan it in and start working on a layout and composition for the card, print or stationery on photoshop. Adding in any text or branding needed. Now it is time to print or order my product. I love being able to print and make as much as possible from my Bristol studio. Once printed I only ever use biodegradable sleeves and they go up on my stock shelf waiting to be lovingly purchased.
Visit Emily’s website: pippaandpaper.com
Follow her on Instagram: @pippaandpaper
