Blue Eyed Sun’s beautiful glass enamel cards are already making their mark on the greetings industry. The artist behind the handmade enamel greetings cards is Jo Kirby and Vicky Hancocks visited her workshop in Hove to find out how it all started.
Although Blue Eyed Sun is relatively new company, it’s not taken long to make its mark. If you don’t know the name, you’ll definitely know these luxury greetings cards. For everyone who toddled round the last season of shows feeling the stands all looked a bit ’samey’, Blue Eyed Sun’s Glass Enamels stood out like a shining beacon.
I confidently expected to find Jo knee deep in enamel jewellery and discover that cards were just a side line she’d expanded into. Not a bit of it. She does sometimes make jewellery apparently, but since she also creates decorative prints, stained glass and even wedding gowns from time to time, it was clear that handmade cards are what she has chosen to build her business.
It seemed unlikely that Jo had just stumbled across these multi-creative talents as on adult, so I asked her if she had always been arty. “Yes, art was my best subject at school, right from the start” she said. “My parents really encouraged it and ignored the fact that art isn’t usually considered the best career move.”
Jo’s parents were both artistic though and that always helps. “Dad’s talent lies in design, while my mum is on excellent craftswoman. Brilliant at needlepoint” Jo added. In fact, Jo’s dad often gave impromptu art lessons on the dining table and occasionally allowed Jo to use a small, portable enamelling kiln he had for creating glass enamels on copper, but more of that later.
Suffice it to say, that Jo enthusiastically tackled as many art subjects as her school would allow and when it come to choosing options for 0 levels, she attempted to take art, crafts, textiles, metalwork and woodwork to no avail. “I wasn’t allowed to do that many artistic subjects.” she said, adding with a grimace, “they made me do French instead.”
After O levels it was on to college “Much better than 6th form where I’d still have had to go to assembly” where Jo took art as an A level and then Norwich Art School to study for a pre-degree foundation course. “Looking back, I was very lucky to have attended an independent art school.” she said.
“I think there are only a couple left now, most are run as port of the local polytechnic.” Jo found the art school very inspiring. “It was in two parts. On one side of the street were several workshops and on the other was a great gallery” she explained. “It was inspiring and really made you want to get on with it.”
The final part of Jo’s education involved heading north to the University of York and Ripon, where she studied art and English for her degree. “I’ve always been interested in English, but in all honesty it didn’t come naturally to me. I enjoyed it and found it quite inspirational, but it was time consuming for me, because I found it quite difficult” Jo explained.
After several years of higher education, Jo emerged without a clear idea of what she wanted to do. “You can feel a little lost on leaving. There’s little guidance on careers and of course it takes a while for most people to Figure out what they want to do” she said.
Having said that, Jo was already making cards for friends and family, but only for fun, and staying in York, she dabbled with a variety of jobs and voluntary work. One of the places that she worked was at York Art Centre, which had a small card section and it was whilst working here, that Jo decided to try and make some handmade greetings cards to sell.
“The first ones I made were for Mother’s Day’ she recalled. “They took me literally days. They were A4 folded to A5 and had stitching, flowers, poetry - you name it!” To Jo’s delight, all of her handmade cards sold by the end of the week and she discovered that it gave her a real buzz, although she realised pretty early on that it wasn’t commercially viable to spend two hours on every card!
Jo subsequently set up a small design-led shop with a friend near the university, selling contemporary gifts, jewellery and selective second hand clothes. “It was so exciting. We painted it all ourselves, and it was tiny, so we used every available inch of space, including the back of the door, where I placed a greetings card rack” Jo said. “We didn’t have much money to buy stock, so I handmade the cards myself and started messing around with different techniques.”
And it was at this stage that Jo’s dad came to visit, bringing with him the little kiln she had played with as a child. Jo instantly began to experiment with ideas. “I played around with little scraps of copper in the enamelling kiln and began making little white glass enamel squares,” she explained. “I wanted to decorate them and after stencilling an enamelled heart on each one, I added them to greetings cards and put them in the shop.”
They sold obviously, and Jo was pleased to find that they commanded quite a good price, which was good, because the shop really needed a serious injection of cash! However, in the end, Jo and her friend decided to call it a day - the effort to return ratio didn’t add up. So the shop was closed but Jo, who always tries to see the positive, said that she found running the shop a valuable experience. “We put in a lot of work, but we didn’t lose too much money and we did learn a lot” she said and then added, “my ultimate personal dream is to have another shop -with a gallery alongside and be able to run it properly.”
On a whim “Literally - I can’t give you any good reason why,” Jo moved to Brighton. “York was great, but I fancied a change and after coming down for a weekend, I just loved it” she said. Feeling that it was a good idea to be nearer London and determined to work For herself, Jo began (as she puts it), messing around with stuff. “I made a few handmade cards, I made stained glass, I also made wedding gowns for a while, which was quite lucrative but not that enjoyable. I wanted to make more unusual creations, but most brides are actually quite traditional” she said.
In the end, Jo realised that, she needed to target her efforts in one direction. “I sat down, and made a list of all the things that I’d done over the years and decided that greetings cards was the route I’d choose” she said. Simple as that! Over the next few weeks, Jo created some fifty handmade card designs and secured a meeting with the buyer at Fenwicks. She was extremely helpful” Jo recalled, “She said the glass enamel cards were really lovely, but advised me to make them for occasions rather than leave them blank.
So Jo got to work at the enamelling kiln and created another 180 luxury handmade card designs to be launched at Top Drawer May 2000. “The show was such a good thing to do. Not only did it pay for itself, but people were so generous with their comments, that I realised that the products were something unusual” she said. Once this slotted into place, Jo said that her entire mind-set altered. All of a sudden, I wasn’t just making a few handmade cards’ I had a company, a viable business.” She went on to say, “It’s been great for my confidence and determination. I enjoy my work and am convinced that this is what I want to be doing. The success of Blue Eyed Sun so far gives me constant inspiration to push both myself and the company further.”
This new-found determination has had a positive knock. on effect in other areas. “I still make prints” Jo said, “which is actually what I trained to do, and I sell them during the Brighton Festival in May. The psychological change that has occurred means that I am now far more confident about selling my work at a realistic price” she added.
Nonetheless cards are uppermost in her mind. “I really love making cards, I don’t want to be doing anything else at the moment” she said. “I would one day, love to have a shop of my own and when I’m designing the cards, I always think, ‘would that be good enough to sell in my imaginary shop?’ If it isn’t then it hits the bin.”
Jo currently makes all the components and designs all the glass enamel cards herself. The new collection which will be on show at both Top Drawer Spring and the Spring Fair Birmingham, also features delicate illustrations by Jo, but as she concluded, “To me every single card matters, they’re individual works of art.”
Forthcoming trade shows exhibiting Blue Eyed Sun handmade cards for design-led retailers
Glass Enamel Cards
Blue Eyed Sun have launching a funky new range of handmade cards called BRIGHTON ROCK. Available to design-led shops looking for something extra special, there are 90 gorgeous handmade designs covering all major occasions including birthdays, weddings, new babies, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. 
“A shining example of how to successfully grow a business from a very small beginning” - is what the judges said after meeting Jeremy Corner and hearing him talk about Blue Eyed Sun Ltd which is a regional finalist in the manufacturing category of the the British Small Business Champions Awards 2007. 