As the nights shift earlier in the day and the frost begins to welcome us in the morning, the cosy glimmer of Christmas lights and the yearly speculation of a white Christmas grows ever closer.

Christmas means so much to so many people in different ways, and we all celebrate it differently. For me it always brings beautiful memories of laughter, love and a lot of food! For this season’s collection I have designed my stickers around what Christmas means to me.

The Story behind each sticker…

Little Jack Ginger was designed out of my yearly tradition of making gingerbread men for my colleagues as we tackle the Christmas period together. He is sweet, brave and full of love for his friends as they go on their adventure.

Freddie Frost, the snowman, was designed in honour of the snowmen my sister and I made every time it snowed. No matter what was happening in our life, this was one thing we did together that made all that melt away.

Rolo the Reindeer! My family and I love animals, we have always had at least 2 different types in our household at any given time! The fact that Santa has Reindeers… they always became my favourite characters in any story and a focal point in any imaginative play I did as a kid during the festive season.

Jingle and Tinsel the elves. When I was a kid, I invented a character called Jingle the elf that I became each holiday season. I loved Christmas bells; they chime so beautifully so the name Jingle was to me the perfect name. I had to bring this into the story, and Tinsel… what another great festive elf name.

Then the big man himself… Santa Claus! What is Christmas without him?

When stickers became a story!

When I was making these characters, I suddenly got the urge to make them into a story! I wondered, what would these characters be doing at Christmas? My mum always read us our favourite Christmas stories as a kid on Christmas Eve and it’s a tradition I intend on carrying on for my son. When I gave Little Jack Ginger a story behind him, I knew I had to finish it…

The Tale of Little Jack Ginger was born! But then the tricky part of how to make it. I researched about getting this printed professionally but the costs to do so with such a small number of books would have been too expensive to then sell on. It then made me think whether I could bind the books myself! I had some tools already to do this I just needed the right material. I kept on researching, learning about how to format the book, how to bind, whether I should staple, glue or sew the book together, what paper materials are best, what thickness they need to be, how to cut the book once it’s bound with minimal equipment, until I found exactly what I was looking for and then started the process of creating the actual book.

I was sketching every chance my baby slept and every night when he went to bed and managed to get the book drawn and formatted in 2 weeks! Then came the test prints. I cannot tell you how much paper I went through to make sure the book was printing in the correct order.

Then I wasted more paper trying to cut the book by hand with a box knife and cheap guillotine. There were lots of times I go frustrated and thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I kept going, because I believed in this book and wanted to share it with you all. Finally, after 2 weeks of trial and error, I managed to print, cut and bind the book all by hand to a standard I was happy to sell it for. Now I had a physical book in my hand, I started to wonder if this would even sell… so I advertised a pre-order.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And my god! I never expected to sell as many books as I 

did. It may seem like a small number, but I sold 12 books in 2 weeks! 5 of which were pre-orders! This was amazing for me and made me so proud that I stuck at it. All the hard-work and worrying was worth it. The feedback I got as well was that you all loved it and that was also so special to me.

Little Jack Ginger will be returning next Christmas. Will there be another adventure? Who knows! But as Christmas day is dawning upon us, it’s time to let my printer take a break and m

yself and enjoy the holidays!

A little shop update and what I have learnt…

My store will be closed from the 22^nd December – January 1^st 2026 in the new year. This will also give me the creative space to think of what my next project or sticker sheet will be. These last 4 months have been such a steep learning curve with a lot of self-doubt, but I have grown a lot of confidence in myself as well in starting this business… something I would never have done even 1 year ago. I want to thank each and every one of you who support me on social media, visit my website, and a bigger thank you for those who purchase from my store!

There are going to be some changes in the new as I return to work, but I have also learnt what does and what doesn’t work in my store, so there will be a shop update in the new year at some point!  But that will be explained in another blog!

Until then, Merry Christmas Everyone and a Happy New Year! See you then!

 

Love Emily

The Little Sticker Shop!