I was contacted recently by a lovely lady in Italy who was graduating from University in November this year and wanted to have a special swing tag made to put on special favours / gifts to give to her family and friends to say thank you for all the support they have given her during her degree and to celebrate this wonderful day.

She had a fantastic concept of using a succulent plant as her inspiration as for her they are known to be associated with resiliency.  Her idea was to have cards that would have a ‘see, don’t see’ element to them and with her name and the qualification on it as well.  Also with a special Italian quote on the tags “Chi ha un perché abbastanza forte può superare qualsiasi come” which approximately means “If you are strong enough you can overcome anything” – which I absolutely love!

The Design Process
Armed with her beautiful brief I created two designs to start with, Alessia was keen to have colours of red, green and gold but didn’t want it to look too Christmassy.   

From these initial designs, Alessia decided she really liked the bottom card from Option 2 and the vellum layer from Option 1, so I created a new revised design to incorporate them both.

This design incorporated two of the colours and we settled on a printed handmade paper layer with a vellum layer on the top handwritten in calligraphy and a succulent plant hand drawn in gold ink.

The two layers were hole punched and tied together with a deep emerald green ribbon and looked stunning with the gold vellum on top and the paper behind, the vellum was cut smaller than the handmade paper so that the layer underneath could be seen.  Everything was wrapped very carefully and sent to Italy in time for her special day.

It was a delight to work with such a creative person and Alessia had the following to say about the project before the parcel arrived:

“I have to thank you, because you realised THE perfect tag…it is exactly as I desired, I couldn’t ask for a better one! I’m glad to have found you and your website, I’ll surely recommend your work because, as I had the opportunity to see, you’re really talented and professional!”

and the day the tags arrived in Italy:

“Simply beautiful! Can’t thank you enough! The tags are so so so lovely, I couldn’t ask for better ones! As I have already said to you, you’re really talented, continue doing what you do!”

It was truly an honour to work with such a generous and kind person and I wish Alessia all the best of luck for her future and huge success in her new career!