Our 12 Year Business Journey
The Raspberry Blossom Story
From a Small Independent Greeting Card Brand
to an Award-Winning British Brand.
Raspberry Blossom began as a small independent greeting card brand with a big love of colour, bold typography and joyful design.
What started in 2014 as a side project between two marketing agency jobs has grown into an award-winning British greeting card and giftware brand, stocked in some of the UK’s most loved retailers and around the world.
Here’s how it all unfolded...
2014 - Launching Our First Greeting Card Collection
In 2014, Raspberry Blossom officially launched at Spring Fair in Birmingham, Rebecca’s hometown, with 50 colourful greeting card designs.
At the time, we were both working full-time in marketing agencies, Rebecca as a lead designer and Mark as an Account Handler.
It all started because of Rebecca’s love of stationery, colour, pattern and spreading joy with handwritten cards.
After nearly ten years working with big brands in London, and inspired by her dad who ran his own business, Rebecca felt the timing was right to launch Raspberry Blossom, a name she’d secured the domain for almost ten years earlier.
We didn’t have a warehouse. We didn’t have a team. We worked evenings and weekends and took holidays off from work to build the business.
2015-2016 - Growing As A UK Card Designer
Orders were packed from Rebecca’s parents’ house, by Rebecca’s mum and aunty, with spare rooms filled with boxes of greeting cards ready to ship to retailers.
Rebecca was nominated for Most Promising Young Designer at The Henries, a UK's leading greeting card industry awards.
Then came a huge milestone, our largest order yet 30,000 greeting cards for Waterstones, which was packed by all the family members around my family's dining room table.
We exhibited at Top Drawer, London for the first time and began stocking our colourful cards in amazing shops like Oliver Bonas, Harrods, Selfridges and Waterstones. All huge pinch me moments for both us, still while working full time.
2017-2018 - Going Full-Time In The Greeting Card Business
In 2017, we both quit our jobs and went full time at Raspberry Blossom. It was a huge leap of faith both being dependent on our own creative business, building a modern greeting card and gift brand from the ground up.
We redesigned our logo to reflect our evolving design identity. We hired our first team member, who sat on a little desk in our lounge!
We got married!
And once again we called on family to help grow our business. With moving the cards and operating the distribution from Mark’s parents’ house in Norfolk, proving that many brands start with family support and a spare room.
2019 - Family & Business Growth
We welcomed our first baby, Ophelia, and we moved to Norfolk to support Mark’s family with the distribution.
Growing a family while growing a creative business is no small task. There was little sleep, lots of tears and serious discussion on how we were going to do this!
We then hired Liz, our wonderfully chatty sales superstar, which helped us strengthen relationships with independent gift shops and card retailers across the UK.
2020-2021 - Resilience & Recognition
We won our first Henries Award after being finalists for some years, a super proud moment for both of us to be recognised in a room of amazing and established companies within the card industry.
During the uncertainty of Covid, we continued designing colourful greeting cards, supporting our independent stockists wherever we could. Writing and sending many handwritten cards, creating Youtube videos for lots of DIY craft projects all while parenting a toddler and going through IVF for the second time.
We welcomed our second baby, Reuben. And eventually outgrew our family-run Norfolk distribution setup.
So we made a big decision to move our family and the business to Leamington Spa, creating space to expand our UK greeting card and gift operations. Looking back this really was a big pivotal moment in our business.
2022-2024 - Expanding Beyond Greeting Cards
Raspberry Blossom evolved from a greeting card company into a broader design-led gift and homeware brand. We launched our first gift line with Widdop and our first gift packaging line with Penny Kennedy.
Rebecca joined the Greeting Card Association and got involved in numerous industry projects.
We went on to win two more industry awards, including Best Children’s Collection, a category especially close to our hearts, with our beautiful children being such a big source of inspiration.
Our Leamington Spa team continued to grow, welcoming two wonderful operations members, Nat and Sally, into the Raspberry Blossom fold.
Our colourful, modern aesthetic expanded into giftware and home accessories, while staying true to our roots as an independent British greeting card designer.
2025-2026 & Beyond - An Award-Winning British Design Brand
Rebecca continued in her GCA council role and spoke at the GCA Conference launching Card Club.
We collaborated with Winston’s Wish for our second charity collection and won our fourth industry award for it!
Our team continued to grow, with Steph and Ell joining the design and marketing team, and Michelle stepping in alongside Mark and Liz in a pivotal sales role.
This January we launched our biggest edit yet our most expansive collection of greeting cards.
And we’re only just getting started. From packing orders in spare rooms to becoming an award-winning UK greeting card and giftware brand, Raspberry Blossom has always been about colour, creativity and connection.
We’re proud to be a female-founded British design studio creating modern greeting cards and gifts that bring joy to everyday moments.
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