This month, kindergartners step through the doors of their first big-kid school for the first time. This month, countless kids leave the safety and kinship of their elementary, middle, or high schools and are plunged into new places, systems, and communities. (This year, Jacquie’s granddaughter is making one of those big leaps. In August, she moved to a university in Alaska from the Pacific Northwest.)
It’s so exciting. But it can also be scary and lonely. The way to get through it is to remember that this is a time to be brave.
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You know what’s really hitting home for us as we settle into fall?
Transitions.
That might sound obvious, given the clear cues we get from nature, like the trees preparing for winter by shedding glorious flames of color.
But as a parent of two school-aged kids (Sarah) and a grandparent of teens (Jacquie), we tend to think of the fall as a time for preparation and landing. Once that’s happened—once the kids have finally settled in—we turn our attention toward our work and upcoming holiday season. It’s easy to forget this important truth: September is a time of newness, uncertainty, mistakes, awkwardness, homesickness, and discovery.
We need to recognize the bigness of change and how real it is for anyone navigating something new.
This month, kindergartners step through the doors of their first big-kid school for the first time. This month, countless kids leave the safety and kinship of their elementary, middle, or high schools and are plunged into new places, systems, and communities. (This year, Jacquie’s granddaughter is making one of those big leaps. In August, she moved to a university in Alaska from the Pacific Northwest.)
It’s so exciting. But it can also be scary and lonely. The way to get through it is to remember that this is a time to be brave.
It may seem like everyone is already settling in and establishing a new rhythm, but beneath the surface they may still be uncertain, worried, or feeling out of step.
A note of encouragement would probably be landing at just the right moment. We picked out some of our favorites for you, in case you want to send a quick love note to the people in your life who are navigating something new.
Drop a note to your favorite student or teacher. Send a line to a friend who started a new job. Check in on anyone who’s a new parent or grandparent and see how they’re faring. When you’re in the middle of something new, strange, and (hopefully) wonderful, it means the world to be remembered.
With love and encouragement,
Jacquie and Sarah
Quote: “My favorite thing is to go where I have never gone.” – Diane Arbus
Inside: “Here’s to sights unseen!”
Quote: “Chase your wildest dreams.” – Patch Adams
Inside: “Congratulations!”
Quote: “Round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Inside: “Can’t wait to see where your next adventure takes you. Congratulations!”
Quote: “Follow your dreams, transform your life.” – Paulo Coelho
Inside: “Congratulations!”
Quote: “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way!" – Dr. Seuss
Inside: “You’re on your way…Congratulations!”
All the dogs, all the time
National Dog Day is coming up on August 26 and we’re SO ready!
To celebrate, we’re offering 20% off ALL our dog cards through the end of August! No need for a coupon code, you’ll see the discount automatically applied at checkout.
We not only love our own dogs, but we love the idea of dogs, these sweet companions who make our lives better just by being there. There are so many lessons, so much to be learned from these friendly fellow beings.
You already know that our cards feature original images (no stock photos here—ever). But you may not know that each of our dog cards features an actual companion of someone in our families. So there’s a story behind each furry face.
Jacquie and Sarah have a soft spot for rescue pups. Don’t get us wrong: we love the purebred pals in our families, too. But our mixed-breed dogs bring us a lot of joy and we’re glad we’ve been able to play a part in providing homes for some sweet, silly mutts.
You never know what you’re going to get with a rescue. They’re a little quirky.
Take Honey, Sarah’s dog.
She’s an even-tempered, stuffed-animal-like pet who loves to just be an adorable, low-maintenance companion.
Until UPS comes to the door: poor Honey is terrified of boxes. Which, for a shop dog in a business like Stonehenge that generates income by shipping orders all over the country, is a pretty significant hurdle. It’s like immersion therapy around here!
She’s getting better. Every time Sarah brings a new box into the office or her house, she lays out a trail of treats to encourage Honey to approach the box. She’s almost there. (She won’t eat the treat that’s sitting on the box. Not quite yet.)
We don’t mean to make light of this. Sarah knows that Honey’s reaction is a trauma response. Lucky for Honey, she has lots of people who love her to help her when she’s scared.
By the way, Sarah recently had a DNA test done on Honey and she is pretty much everything: 39% poodle, 14% chihuahua, 14% cocker spaniel, and 7% American Eskimo, with smatterings of Pomeranian, Shitzu, and many others. She’s a perfect mutt, through and through.
We immortalized Honey with her own card during our latest print run. You’ve got to order this one—look at that face!
Sarah’s dog, Sugar, got a whole line of cards. (And yearly birthday parties, too.) This card captures Sugar’s sweetness and dogness perfectly. We love and miss her so. See the whole Sugar line here.
This is Mick, one of Jacquie’s brother and sister-in-law’s many lovable golden retrievers. Such a good boy. He was lucky enough to swim in Lake Austin on many, if not most, of the days of his life. Sweet dog, sweet life.
Que (pronounced like cue) was the best-worst dog ever. He could jump five feet up from a standing position (to see out the window at the top of the door), punch his paw through a plate glass window and live to tell about it, and steal food from the tallest of counters. Que left us this year and do we ever miss this naughtiest love bunny. Here he is at the beach back when Sarah’s daughter was just a toddler, trying to keep up.
In Jacquie’s son’s and daughter-in-law’s house, they have a big collection of sticks that Zoe brought home throughout her life. She loved a good stick. (There were so many to find!) She loved her people. And she was probably the most obedient dog ever.
Once, Steve left a steak dinner on the coffee table to grab a phone call and when he came back 15 minutes later, having forgotten that he’d left it out, Zoe was still sitting there quietly—the dinner still intact. What a dog. What a friend.
Jacquie’s daughter and her family adopted Linden about 10 years ago. Even though he was almost a year old, he hadn’t been introduced to stairs yet. And he wasn’t pleased with the hard floors in the kitchen and bathroom.
When the family uncovered the hardwoods in a nook off the living room, he promptly stopped going in there. Well, more accurately, he’ll walk through it but he won’t stop. It doesn’t matter that he loves his ball almost as much as his dinner: if the ball rolls in there, it’s dead to him.
Ladybird is a true rescue. Jacquie’s brother and sister-in-law brought her home after someone they knew found her on a farm, dangerously thin and in dire need of care. Once she was healthy again, she liked to escape and lope around the neighborhood, taking in the Texas air. She left this world last year, leaving a giant bloodhound-sized space on the couch behind. Sweet Ladybird, we miss you so. So much to love.
A few years after Jacquie’s first dog, Heidi, died, she brought home Alex from the pound (as a surprise!). He used to run a circuit around the first floor that included a flying leap off the back of the family room couch. Alex barked a lot (he had a lot of terrier in him), trotted happily around the neighborhood on his daily walks, and really, really loved the beach.
Have any too-cute-not-to-share photos of your dog? Send them our way! We always love celebrating our loyal, furry friends.
SEND US A PICTURE OF YOUR POOCH!
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Hello, dear Stonehenge friends!
We’re excited to let you know that 12 new designs for our Special Occasion line are printed and ready for you to order! Featuring images from Jacquie’s travels last summer, 2 designs from a new Portland artist, and art from Stonehenge’s youngest featured artists yet, this round of new designs has something for everyone.
This batch includes 6 birthday cards, 2 celebration cards (for graduation or retirement), 1 thank-you card, 1 anniversary card, and 2 sympathy cards.
We’re so excited to be able to offer you a dozen brand-new designs to show your people some love.
Some highlights on our new card release
Jacquie took this photo on a hike in Alaska with Nadia, her granddaughter, last August. It was a special trip on its own: Nadia chose the destination based on nothing but a desire to see this part of the world. The two of them explored nature on trail hikes, checked out a muskox farm, got to know Anchorage, and played each other their favorite music as they drove around in a rental car.
The trip also turned out to be a bit of a premonition. Last winter, Nadia decided to attend college in Alaska. This August, she’ll launch her adult life up in Fairbanks. Wish her luck! And wish your own people luck as they embark on their special journeys.
Tulips Galore
We can’t resist tulips! Jacquie took this photo at the height of the season and, honestly, we can’t get enough of these rich colors. We think this card is the perfect way to say “happy birthday” to any of your beloved ones.
Besties
Sarah’s kids have made yet another appearance on a card! This time, they’re splashing in the waves of the Pacific Ocean. This one’s a birthday card to give to a friend or family member you love having in your life.
We, of course, love the cards with our pets and kids on them. But our decision to make their images into cards goes deeper than a parent’s love.
By printing cards with images that are personal to us, we also give you a window into the Stonehenge world. Stonehenge is officially the two of us. But it’s not just the two of us. “We” are our kids, our friends, our families, our neighborhoods, and our greater community.
Sarah’s girls are a part of it. They did online school here throughout the pandemic, have spent many after-school and weekend hours in the studio, and now they’re official contributing artists. (Click here and here to see the cards they created.)
Our partners, Pat and John, are a part of it. They both move boxes, help us reorganize the storage room, hang pictures, and act as sounding boards when we’re working on something new or dealing with the many twists and turns that happen when you run a small business.
Our friends are part of it. They listen, offer ideas, proofread, promote our cards, and celebrate with us.
And YOU are a part of it! We are honored to do business with such fabulous people. THANK YOU!
Our luck isn’t lost on us. Because of this wider “we,” the two of us get to continue this work. We’re not in this to make our fortune, but in a way, we have—and do—every day. This business is a sustaining lifestyle. It’s a way to love and respect one another and the world. It’s doing something we care about with our time and providing people with a positive way to love and respect their people.
These are some of the reasons why doing business the way we do is important to us. We hope you feel that way about the work you do too. Let’s spread lightness and joy!
Warmly, Sarah and Jacquie (and Honey)
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We love May and June. It makes us hopeful to think about the thousands and thousands of young people who are launching their adult lives.
So many of them are already rooted in kindness, compassion, and fairness. And, despite the urgency out there, they maintain a sense of joy and optimism. It’s inspiring.
Send your favorite graduate off with a paper embrace and best wishes with one of our graduation cards.
Can’t decide? These are some of our favorites:
“Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore! Dream! Discover!" — Mark Twain
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!" — Dr. Seuss
“Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.” —Minor Myers
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss
At Stonehenge, we’ve been thinking a lot about transitions over the past few weeks.
Transitions that signal a new, exciting phase in our lives, like graduating or retiring.
Transitions that tear at our hearts, like loss or tough times in our personal lives.
Transitions that defy categorization, like the loss of autonomy or stability on a personal or public scale.
As women who operate our own small business, we sometimes feel like we’re in tune with all of these transitions at once. As if transition is a state of being instead of an exceptional circumstance.
Women are leaders, caregivers, workers, parents, guides, cooks, listeners, shoppers, planners, cleaners, meditators, mediators, problem-solvers, friends, visionaries, and more, more, more. We will always support women, the things they pursue, and the decisions they make every day to live and to thrive.
If you know a woman going through some kind of transition today, send her a note of encouragement, congratulations, or support to let her know you love her and have her back. We certainly have yours.
With love and solidarity and joy,
Jacquie & Sarah
]]>All the beautiful spring things
The other day we were talking about spring and Sarah said, “It’s my very, very favorite, favorite time of year!” Suffice it to say, we are giddy.
Blooms.
Mild walks along the river.
Spring light in the garden.
Jacquie loves the changing light, the gloom lifting, and her garden coming to life, plant by plant. Last year she took her calendar and wrote down the date that each plant started blooming, day by day.
This year, that calendar is like a time map: she can follow along as everything pops up in order. The dafne. The daffodils. The currant outside her kitchen window.
The garden is grounding. In a literal way, first. But also psychologically. It’s a comfort to watch each plant bud and bloom, according to its own schedule.
Maybe that’s why so many of our cards feature flowers: They’re both ephemeral and everlasting. We simply never get tired of the seasonal rhythm: the anticipation, enjoyment, and memory flowers evoke for us all.
Speaking of, Sarah and her girls went down the waterfront several weeks back and beheld, along with what seemed like everyone in the greater Portland area, the cherry blossoms.
It was a scene—in the best way possible. Loads of people were wandering under the trees. And there were countless photo shoots going on. Pregnancy photos, engagement photos, and even a photographer capturing a quinceañera. Everyone was happy. What gorgeous memory-making.
After the cherry blossom walk, they visited a favorite Greek food cart, one that’s been in the same spot with the same menu for 17 years. Like the blooms, we all just keep doing what we do best, year after year.
That includes Stonehenge. Read below for some more about what we’re doing over here in our pretty little studio. We have some new cards coming out soon. (Stay tuned.) In the meantime, scroll down to see a collection of some of our favorite springtime cards plus details about our new porch pickup option!
We hope you feel like you’re in a good life rhythm this spring. Thank you for supporting our business and for being part of our wide and wonderful circle.
Jacquie & Sarah
Our social media feeds are full of fuzzy, adorable spring animals. The other day we saw a video of a baby duck snoozing in the sun that we probably watched 10 times on a loop. (What else could we do??)
We do baby animal adorableness pretty well ourselves, along with flower cards just for Mother’s Day (coming up on May 9).
Here are a few of our seasonal favorites:
Sarah’s kittens, Lily and Buttercup, have grown up around books. If you have a kitten-loving, book-loving friend with a spring birthday, this is just for them.
What more could you—or anyone—want other than ridiculously cute snuggly kittens? This card features Lily and Buttercup entwined in best-friends bliss. Another birthday card for your cat people.
Okay, we actually have another kitten birthday card for you. Sorry, we couldn’t resist giving you a peek.
Even though it’s not summer yet, this Mother’s Day card has all the brightness of spring going for it. Plus, it’s definitely time to start looking for a card for your mom.
These lavish sprays of flowers are just for your mom. This Mother’s Day card tells her, simply, that you appreciate her love.
SHOP NOW
Are you local to the Portland area? If so, you can now swing by to pick up your cards in person.
Enter the code PORCH when you order we’ll waive the shipping fee and leave your order on our porch. If you have a sec, drop in to say hello!
It’s Valentine’s Day in a few weeks, the ultimate love-with-a-capital-L holiday. But every time February rolls around, we find ourselves feeling a little hesitant about it. Both of us have been lucky in love—and when we look at everything in the rearview mirror, sometimes not so lucky. Can you relate? We think most people can.
We both feel deeply grateful for our partners. (They’re awesome.) But we also feel deep gratitude for our friends, our kids and grandkids, special neighbors that make our lives brighter, our pets. Love is anything but one-dimensional.
Why not celebrate all of this? Why not throw all the love we give and receive into a giant bottle, shake it up, and let it flow? Why not fling big, messy ribbons of love to the sky? Tell everyone you love them that you love them. Period. No need to make it only a romantic thing. Connection and collective joy is something big and beautiful. Let’s celebrate that.
If this resonates, we have cards for you. Lots of them. Cards that celebrate a romantic partnership. Cards that tell a friend they’re the best. Cards that are like paper snuggle for your kids, your mom, your co-worker.
These cards don’t say “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Because they’re more about widening our sphere of love, no matter what’s happening on the calendar. We like to call them our just-because-love cards, good to send on any occasion or no occasion to the people who matter most. Here’s a list of the ones that come to mind for us first. You can also browse all our love cards.
With that, a happy Valentine’s Day to you and all of yours!
Fondly,
Jacquie and Sarah
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Our new greeting cards are out. We’re so proud of this batch. There are cards for fans of cat snuggles, sweet moments between friends, flowers in anticipation of spring, and our second-ever celebration of retirement.
Check out all of the new designs HERE!
We spent hours looking for just the right quotes to pair with these timeless images and found what we consider to be some of the best yet.
We hope you’ll find them just as enchanting and hopeful as we do. Always—despite everything—our world and lives are dotted with moments of felicity and enchantment, gifts from the earth, and people we adore. We hope these greeting cards help you embrace all of these good things and send encouraging words to the people in your life.
Here’s our new lineup:
As Jacquie was walking down to the river one day late last April, she came upon this incredible pink commotion. She’s lived in this pocket neighborhood for many years but has never seen such a thick blanket of blooms before. A cherry blossom cloak to herald the spring!
Sarah’s girls and their best friend, the daughter of a lifelong friend of Sarah’s, had their very own pandemic camp last summer for two days each week. They swam, hiked, crafted, visited a farm, went on treasure hunts, and lots of other activities. They even had a special name—complete with T-shirts! This photo was taken a few years ago during one of many sweet moments with, as they call themselves, chosen family.
Over a year ago, Sarah’s then-kitten, Lily, popped up on her lap to, apparently, read the story along with her. She was into everything, all the time. Including her sister, Buttercup. The two are thick as thieves; Sarah often finds them nestled together, like they’re waiting for a bedtime story. In fact, another new card features one of their snuggles!
Jacquie took many photos in Boston Commons during her trip with her daughter last summer. These particular flowers are special, though, because they grow across the walkway from a statue of Jacquie’s great-great-grandfather, which stands at an entrance to the gardens. The entire trip was an homage to this side of her family, one full of artists, writers, architects, and thinkers. She loves knowing that generations of people enjoyed the same beautiful things we do.
Kate, a dear friend of Sarah’s, snapped this shot at her family’s cabin at Cream Hill Lake in Connecticut. We like imagining the many conversations that have happened beneath these million leaves. This card celebrates retirement in the most peaceful way possible. Wouldn’t you like to retire here, too?
Lily and Buttercup: the picture of candid affection. Sarah and the girls adopted the two when they were just eight-week-old kittens and the bond between them was pretty much immediate. They often find them just like this, tangled and content. They remind their family—and all of us—that there’s no shame in loving and needing another.
]]>It’s dizzying to think back to where we were a year ago: no vaccines, restaurants closed up, our customer base of bookstores and boutiques barely scraping by, distanced outdoor get-togethers in the cold. So much has happened.
Our PPP loan helped us emerge from the Covid bunker. And all of you—customers, reps, friends, and collaborators—helped Stonehenge survive and grow. Our gratitude will never feel wide and deep enough to hold every online order, compliment, and kind word we’ve received over the past year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Our focus this year was figuring out how to get back to business when so many of our stockists were closed or limiting their orders. This led us to ramping up our online shop, which is a big success! We’ve found a new group of customers who either don’t have access to Stonehenge cards in their communities or who prefer to shop online for health or other reasons. We love making connections with them and being able to offer our full range of cards to anyone, anytime.
A big moment for us was in August, when Sarah and Jacquie finally got to work in the office together again. During lockdown, we took turns going in to fill orders and keep the place running. But we missed being together. It didn’t feel like Stonehenge without the two of us. And it was hard. Think of us bundled and masked up on Sarah’s front porch with a laptop, trying to finalize new designs. We did it, but are we ever glad we get to collaborate inside and in person!
After 21 months in a pandemic, many of our favorite indy bookstore partners have opened up again. Thank goodness. We’re thrilled for the many communities that have places, once again, where they can browse titles and racks of cards to put together the perfect gift.
We’re also delighted that, despite everything, new bookstores are still opening!
Quail Run Books in Green Valley, Arizona is one of them. The owners are following a dream and bringing Stonehenge along with them—they have a great selection of our cards in the shop. Stop by if you’re in the area.
Are there any new or open-again bookstores you love in your community? Drop us a line and tell us where you love to buy your books and cards!
This year, Sarah and her family:
This year, Jacquie:
Thank you again for supporting us. Despite—or perhaps because—of everything, we are grateful for our health, our loved ones, and for everyone who made the world more tolerable, funnier, and more compassionate this year. That includes you. Thank you for linking arms with us.
]]>Annie Bloom’s is one of our favorite local bookstores. The shop was founded in 1978, just a couple of years before Jacquie’s big move to the Pacific Northwest. It feels like the shop has always been here for us, and also like it’s always been.
We’re not the only ones who feel this way. Erin Kaempf, the shop’s card and gift buyer, says many of their loyal customers have been shopping with them for decades and decades. “So often we hear from folks that they spent their childhood shopping here and now they are bringing their own children to browse the shelves.”
The shop has a huge following of book lovers who frequent the Multnomah Village store for its selection of books, which can be described as a wide-ranging variety influenced by the voracious reading habits of its staff. If you click on the Staff Favorites tab on their website, in fact, you can peruse each staff member’s list of recommended reads.
Like any good local bookstore, Annie Bloom’s also carries greeting cards, games, paper goods, and other book-related art and gifts. Erin says they make a point of offering goods by local artists and makers that “celebrate books and reading.”
“Many of our card lines are local Portland artists,” she says, “and, of course, we love Stonehenge especially. (So do our customers).”
We’ve been selling our cards to Annie Bloom’s since Jacquie founded the business in 1997 and feel grateful that, all this time, we’ve been able to supply their readers with sentiments to accompany the many bookish gifts they’ve given over the years. Would you believe that more than 20,000 Stonehenge cards have gone out into the world through Annie Bloom’s alone? We can hardly believe it. Stonehenge and Annie Bloom’s are true kindred spirits.
Erin says their customers love our book-themed cards and notes that “we have a hard time keeping Deborah DeWit cards on the shelves!”
If you visit the store, you may be greeted by shop cat Molly Bloom who has her own adoring fan base. And you’ll be surrounded (masked, of course) by the very people who have kept the shop afloat through the pandemic.
“We owe it all to them for making these past few COVID years successful,” Erin says. “As arduous and unprecedented as the last few years have been, they made it possible for us to be here and for us to have very little change in our operations and staffing. It's a privilege to serve this community.”
You can order books from Annie Bloom’s online and visit their events page for virtual live readings and events. They also have a YouTube channel.
Thank you for our yearslong partnership, Annie Bloom’s! You are an integral part of our community and we couldn’t be more grateful.
]]>Well, it’s been a year! Again. Sarah and Jacquie are weathering the pandemic by making sure the studio is safe (we work on opposite days if we need to) and protecting our loved ones. We mask up, we stay home when we can, and when we eat at restaurants we sit outside. We’re getting our outdoor patio spaces ready for another winter of outdoor entertaining.
Despite everything, we had so many great moments over the past year. During the warmest months of 2021, we saw so many friends, went on lots and lots of walks, and adventured far and wide. It was a year of discovery and laughter. We’re so grateful.
Thanks to our amazing customers, our business is steady and getting stronger. We printed new card designs this fall (including several that feature Jacquie’s watercolors) and we’re already selling a bunch of our holiday cards. We can’t believe it’s already time to plan meals and wrap gifts! Sneaks up on us every year.
We hope you have wonderful celebrations and that, after they’re over, you’ll use the enclosed bookmark to save your place in a thick novel. ‘Tis the season for reading!
We hope you and yours are getting through these times alright. We are so grateful for you.
With love,
Jacquie and Sarah
P.S. Need to write a year-end update like this one to your people? Send your Solstice, Christmas, or New Year’s update with a Stonehenge card! Here are some of our favorites:
Front: "Winter was made for warm blankets and long books."
—Anonymous
Inside: Wishing you a season of good books and the time to read them. Happy Holidays!
Front: “In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
—Albert Camus
Inside: Here’s to brighter days and new beginnings. Happy Solstice!
Front: Merry and Bright!
Inside: wishing you all the joy of the season
]]>It’s always been hard for us to shop for sympathy cards. They’re either too generic or too syrupy. Few reflect what we’re really feeling for the people in our lives who have lost loved ones. So we decided to design our own.
]]>So we decided to design our own. How challenging could it be, we thought, to create heartfelt sympathy cards? Pretty challenging, we discovered. Creating image-word combinations that aren’t cheesy or dismissive is much harder than it sounds.
It’s kind to send a card to someone who’s grieving. It’s also a delicate act during a tender, heartbreaking time. To respect grief and the grieving process, we take extra time to design the most authentic cards we can.
A good sympathy card is helpful for the sender because it reflects their sincere wishes for peace and healing. It’s helpful for the recipient by allowing them enough space to feel whatever they’re feeling. Striking that balance takes reflection, research, and time.
But after years of designing sympathy cards, we now have more than two dozen of them, featuring paired images and words that communicate care and presence. Many thankful customers, and recipients, have contacted us over the years to tell us how much a Stonehenge sympathy card meant to them.
If you need to send a card to someone in your life who’s had to say goodbye to someone close to them, we have many to choose from. Look through all of our sympathy cards and see which one will help you express your support, care, and love.
Here are a few of our bestsellers:
“Sometimes the veil between this life and the life beyond becomes very thin. Our loved ones who have passed on are not far from us.” —Ezra Taft Benson
“With heartfelt sympathy”
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” —Isak Dinesen
“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.” —Elizabeth Berg
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Why are Stonehenge Designs cards so beautiful? Spoiler: We have an incredible printer. For the past six years, we’ve worked with Don Youngman, printing and packaging specialist at Precision Graphics of Oregon.
]]>Why are Stonehenge Designs cards so beautiful? Spoiler: We have an incredible printer.
For the past six years, we’ve worked with Don Youngman, printing and packaging specialist at Precision Graphics of Oregon. (Before that, we worked with him at another company, too.)
Don is our liaison and advocate. He makes sure that our cards, out of the many thousands of printed materials they produce every year, are spot-on every single time. His work is timely. He gives us a fair price. And the quality of the work they do is far above any other printer we’ve worked with. We promise this isn’t an ad for Precision. We just adore working with this company.
In the post on our design process, we walked you through each step we take when we’re designing cards in the studio. Once Sarah gets her (expertly formatted) art files to Don, he starts the process over at the press.
We usually print 15,000 cards at a time: 1,500 cards each of 10 designs. Ten of our card designs fit on a single printing sheet which allows for just one set of print plates—a big savings for us and our customers. Details like this help us keep our prices reasonable.
Other than Don’s kindness and expertise, a big reason we work with Precision is that they have the best printing presses anywhere. They own two Heidelberg presses which are, in the world of printing presses, the undisputed leader. A Heidelberg can print up to six colors at a time and up to 18,000 sheets per hour. They’re less finicky to work with and are capable of recreating rich, precise color, which is obviously of supreme importance to us.
Once Don receives our files, the press operators run proofs, a process that involves a set of four print plates and complicated computer programs that interface with the press.
The proofs are our chance to see a test run of what our cards are going to look like. Once we have them in hand, we give Don our feedback and make requests for color adjustments, if there are any. Then they deliver a second proof. Because we’ve been working together for so long, we usually only have to give one round of feedback before it’s ready to go to press.
Once we have a press date, we go to the printing facility for a press check to watch the first sheets come through. This allows us to make slight change requests on the spot. Can you believe they can do that?
If the color seems a little off or something needs to be darker or lighter, the press operator adjusts it with an online computer. Then they run a few more for us to see. Once it’s exactly right, they lock in the ink colors and run the whole batch.
Don tells us it’s somewhat unusual for clients to do regular press checks.
He said the other day that “Stonehenge goes way out of their way, over and above, to make sure the color is just what they want.”
Once the cards are printed, they run them through a die-cutting machine, which scores and perforates the cards. Then the cards go through a cutter, a machine that can cut up to 400 sheets of cardstock at a time. Then it’s on to the folding machine.
To get it right, this whole process requires a meticulous eye and years of expertise. Don is proud of the work the company does for Stonehenge. As a printer, he notices that “about 90% of the cards” he sees on retail racks in stores aren’t printed—or even cut—square.
Not so with ours. He would never let that happen. “These are,” he says, “very high-quality cards.”
We’re so glad to have Don and the entire Precision team. They elevate our cards by making them look how they should, as if you’re actually gazing at the ocean or walking down a tree-lined path.
Every time Precision delivers an order, we thank our lucky stars for Don and the team. They’re integral to the success and integrity of our work.
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When my daughter and I visited Boston this summer on an ancestry-inspired trip to learn about the places where my great-great-grandparents (and those before them) lived, we also took in some of the city’s historical and artistic attractions.
]]>When my daughter and I visited Boston this summer on an ancestry-inspired trip to learn about the places where my great-great-grandparents (and those before them) lived, we also took in some of the city’s historical and artistic attractions.
The courtyard garden at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum alone was worth the price of our tickets. I’ve always been attracted to Italian architecture and to the idea of an enclosed garden. Imagine being able to look out from any room in the house and see a sunlit green space! It’s magical.
Her garden is even more remarkable than I expected. To the untrained eye (mine), it’s a harmonious design tastefully studded with statues and other collectibles. And it has great light.
Critics point out that it’s singular in vision and design because it combines elements from many eras (Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance) in a way that’s congruous.
The rest of the museum is the same way: full of an eclectic array of art, arranged in a salon style in each room, along with decadent window and wall treatments, tapestries, and furniture. You can just picture the dignitaries, artists, writers, and academicians wandering the rooms in wonder.
Among the couches, chairs, and rugs, I noticed a pattern in her furniture buying habits: writing desks. They were sprinkled throughout the museum and made me realize, perhaps, why I liked this place so much. Her life was about beauty: artistic works, gardens, personal connections, and the handwritten word.
What a sense of camaraderie! These are all reasons I started my own business and the way I approach my life. I, too, collect art and value reading and writing. I love creating spaces where people gather easily, places that inspire conversation and reflection. And I love creating, along with Sarah, greeting cards to inspire these same things.
Even though we don’t have a courtyard at our house, our garden is central to our lives. The house, the gazebo, and our backyard studio enclose a garden of multi-level growing spaces; our living room, dining room, kitchen, and studio all have windows from which you can peer out onto the garden. We’ve created our own kind of magic here.
On the website for the Gardner Museum is a quote by architecture critic Robert Campbell: “...the Gardner is more remarkable than it looks at first,” he says. “This is a palace that has been turned inside out…The Gardner’s real facades are the four sides of the atrium…these mottled indoor facades are washed by sunlight that is modulated…in such a way that it often resembles light reflected off water, as it would be in Venice.”
I like to think of my garden, my home, and my business the same way. I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from a life of travel and artistry and gathered it all together in order to encourage connection between people, just like Isabella. My surroundings—and our products—softly reflect everything I hold dear, like Venice canals or the ocean at sunset.
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Jacquie’s mother, Margie, was a watercolorist. So many of her portraits exist that the family can’t track them all. Growing up around paint and canvases, it makes sense that Jacquie would pick it up herself. And now, a few of her watercolors—from a painting trip in Europe several years back—are Stonehenge cards!
]]>We’re thrilled to present them to you—sweet scenes for your dear ones.
Thank you...so much.
Bookmark: Ever more thanks. —William Shakespeare
With her travel watercolor kit and little watercolor paper book, Jacquie sat in Collioure, a town in Southern France, near the border with Italy. On the beach she sketched this harbor and café scene. Just where you (and all of us) would love to be.
Happy birthday...to you.
Bookmark: Rejoice in who you are.
On the same beach, just down from the harbor, Jacquie sketched this idyllic seaside town. It’s enchanting in its simplicity: a palm tree, umbrellas, balconies, with a glimpse of both sea and hills.
Happy birthday...to my friend.
Bookmark: Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things.
In Italy Jacquie sketched the veranda and the two chairs in her room. The scene was just the place where two friends could sit and talk. From this simple little room in the center of town she could hear the bustling street sounds below.
Thank you...so much.
Bookmark: There is simply the rose. It is perfect in every moment of its existence. Ralph Waldo Emerson
This delightful watercolor was inspired by the Double Delight rose bush in her yard that was given to them by dear friends. (You could say this is a triple delight!) We think there’s always room for another thank-you card like this one.
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Our new card designs include two photographs, each featuring a single bloom. It’s our invitation to recognize the people in your lives and let them know you see them and are thinking of them.
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When Jacquie captured an image of this single calla lily blooming in her yard—with its gentle spiral hinting at eternity—it was obvious to both her and Sarah what kind of card it would become.
This single bloom is the only one that has ever appeared on Jacquie’s calla plant, which captures perfectly the way we feel about our loved ones when they move on: each person is singular, beautiful, irreplaceable, and striking to those who knew and loved them, whether they lived simple or complicated lives.
We pay special attention to our sympathy cards at Stonehenge. No flowery, syrupy language. No over-the-top sentiment.
You know how they say that the best thing you can do for someone who’s grieving is to simply show up and be with them? Our sympathy designs are the paper version of that. Just love, presence, and a shared appreciation for the person you’re remembering together.
Happiest birthday wishes to you.
One afternoon, the sun shone on Jacquie’s kitchen table and backlit a rose in a bud vase that she had brought in from the garden.
The sudden moment of high color—the red of the bloom, the primary colors in the tablecloth—gifted her another moment of balance and wellbeing, as her house often does.
As you might expect of an artist (and the daughter of an artist), Jacquie pays close attention to the colors in her house. The walls are melty Tuscan shades; the goods filling the space are homey, textured, and collectible. The home she shares with her sweetheart is eclectic but not studied, the kind of place where you know you can nestle in, nursing a mug of coffee, cinnamon-sprinkled eggnog, stiff tea, or a nip of whiskey (this writer has had each, perched on the berry-red couch, on countless occasions) and dish on the latest headlines.
This rose is a birthday wish and an invitation to a friend (or anyone, really) to share in just this kind of camaraderie and togetherness—even if your friend is far from you.
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Relationships aren’t trite. They’re deep. They’re central to the human experience. They’re stories.
That’s really what we’re taking part in when we attend a wedding or send a gift to people who are making a commitment to one another: we’re bearing witness to a significant part of their story.
A lot of cards don’t capture much of this: the depth of feeling, the hope and joy we have for our friends and family members who are getting married.
We design our wedding cards to be something different. Something that expresses just how much you want your people to be happy together. We always incorporate heartfelt statements that wish people the best and never try too hard.
Take a look at some of our favorite greeting cards for summer weddings.
“Love Birds”
In Rome, Jacquie saw this fountain with—no kidding—two love birds perched perfectly on its edge. At first glance, they look like part of the fountain’s design. But just as it goes with love sometimes, she had just happened upon the perfect moment. (That happens to her a lot.)
“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”
—Audrey Hepburn
When Jacquie was traveling in central France with her brother and sister-in-law, she found this delightful scene in a little shop. It’s become a customer favorite. And no wonder. Paired with the famous Audrey Hepburn quote, it’s a thoughtful, beautiful wedding card.
"Marriage should be a duet - when one sings, the other claps."
—Joe Murray
A walk through France is like the Promenade of the Lace Window Coverings. They’re everywhere and always dreamy. Jacquie loved the birds on this on in particular. (Can you tell how drawn she is to little feathered creatures?)
“Happy Wedding!”
While Jacquie was on a walk with her son, Steve, to his favorite neighborhood coffee shop, they came up on this tulip tree, in full bloom. It was irresistible.
]]>We love capturing cozy cafe scenes and nostalgic images on the Oregon coast. But our second favorite part of running a greeting card company is the design process.
No matter how many times we go through the process, it never gets old. And even if we think we’ll know what an image will look like as a card, it always looks slightly different than we thought it would. (It’s always better!)
We can print 10 cards at a time, so the first step is to figure out how many of our current designs we need to reprint. It’s usually three or four So we often come up with six or seven new designs at a time.
The next step is to decide what kind of occasion each new design will celebrate: birthday cards, sympathy cards, love cards, retirement cards...we look at sales, upcoming holidays, and our current stock to choose the occasions we think our customers want most.
Then Jacquie and Sarah each look through the Stonehenge photo archive and choose the images we think match each occasion the best. Then we get together, compare, narrow it down, and decide on the final images.
Once we know which images we’re using, we start the search for the perfect quote to pair with each image. Again, we go to our archive—we have resources that include thousands of quotes we’ve gathered over the years.
Once they’re paired, we choose a name for each card (a deceptively tricky task) and move on to the editing process.
Using Photoshop, we correct the color and exposure, figure out just the right cropping for the front image, back thumbnail image, and the bookmark, and place the quote and greeting. Voila!
After we send our files to the printer, they send back proofs. We check them each for errors, again and again. This is where we make quadruple sure there are no spelling errors, typos, outright mistakes, or random spacing. Then we take a deep breath and give our final approval.
(Printing day is its own thing; we’ll walk you through that another time.)
As a two-person business, we love that we have complete creative control over our whole process and we’re proud that we do every bit of it ourselves. (No stock images or tired internet templates here—everything is done in-house by the two of us.)
We hope you love our products—all 300+ of them—as much as we do! Peruse our collections often—we’re always adding more greeting card designs for you to send to the people you care about.
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The bonds between friends are special—and different from the ones we share with family members and colleagues. That’s why we create birthday cards specifically for the friends who feel like family.
]]>Friendship is about understanding each other, having (and offering) a ready ear, and simply being together. Our cards reflect this. Or, rather, we should say they reflect you and your deepest feelings about the people who mean the most.
Here are three of our favorites. (They’re our customers’ favorites, too.)
"Friendship isn't a big thing — it's a million little things."
— Anonymous
We couldn’t love this quote more. Each of us has a special person or small collection of people who know us so well, they could order take-out for us—from any restaurant. These are the people you’ve known for a lifetime, or for what feels like one. Over time, it’s really the million little things that bond us to our friends.
“The road to a friend’s house is never long.”
— Danish proverb
This image is from Jacquie’s visit to Segesvár, Transylvania, a walled medieval town designated as a World Heritage Site. Jacquie snapped this photo in one of its quaint streets when she traveled to the region for a film project in 2008.
This street—at once mythical and brightly painted—reminds her of friends: nestled close together, like they’re gossiping over tea.
"Friends are flowers in life’s garden."
— Proverb
Jacquie happened upon this scene just as her group was boarding a bus in Cashel, Ireland, while on a choir tour.
For context, this was taken right outside the ruins, around which the town is constructed. The juxtaposition of ancestry and ruins with this welcoming, homey scene was like moving from a black-and-white picture to color. Isn’t that how it feels when you’ve found a lifelong friend?
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We’re coming into a new era at Stonehenge Designs. After this past, extremely difficult year, we’ve had conversations about the sustainability of our business. What does it look like to sell greeting cards in 2021 and beyond?
]]>We’re coming into a new era at Stonehenge Designs. After this past, extremely difficult year, we’ve had conversations about the sustainability of our business. What does it look like to sell greeting cards in 2021 and beyond?
Our nationwide reps are still going strong and the network is rebuilding as people welcome back more and more customers.
We’re excited to continue selling cards wholesale to stores across the country. As they open up, we’ve been filling orders and it has been pure delight to reconnect and help our longtime customers restock their card racks.
It’s exciting to pick up where we left off with so many of our customers and to continue growing our presence in bookstores, specialty grocery stores, library shops, gift stores, garden stores, and so many other delightful retail spaces.
In addition to all of this, we see an opportunity to grow even more by growing our online sales even more. But before we get into that, let’s get a little cheesy about Stonehenge and why we keep doing what we’re doing.
With so many difficult things happening in our communities and around the world, it’s really easy to lose heart.
Want to know one thing that’s getting us through? Our company. These cards. The process of creation, using beauty and joy as our guides.
Every single card we design, print, and sell is one more heart offering. We imagine each of them ending up in the hands of someone who needs to feel uplifted and loved. We could not be more thankful to have the opportunity to put goodness into the world.
Everyone is welcome at Stonehenge. Everyone is welcome in our homes. Everyone is welcome in our hearts. We know this sounds completely hokey but we couldn’t mean it more.
All people deserve to be welcomed. All people deserve to be celebrated. All people deserve a card in the mail or a gift on the doorstep.
Our bookmarks are a gift but also a message: Read. Get outside yourself. Challenge yourself to consider different perspectives and to learn something new.
By continuing to put bookmarks in people’s hands, we’re inviting them to put them to use. We love being a subtle part of this all-important, deeply hopeful message.
No matter what, we still have ideas. We always have books.
This is what ties everything together for us. As Jacquie says, “We do sell greeting cards, but it goes beyond that. It’s all about connection.” We want people to nurture their relationships and develop new ones. We want to encourage deep conversation, laughter, and dreaming.
Is all of this too grand for a small greeting card company? We don’t think so. These values are the enduring part of Stonehenge. We love our beautiful office. We’re proud of our products. But it’s really all about connecting with each other and with other people.
So we want to do even more of this! And the way to do it is to expand our online sales so we can be an even more sustainable business and spread more joy.
As more and more people have been buying our cards online, we’ve realized that this can be a way to reach people who don’t buy cards at their local stores. Or, perhaps, to people who live in an area where Stonehenge cards aren’t on the racks.
So you’ll see more from us as we move forward about how to buy online. It’s an exciting new development for us and, we hope, for new customers, too.
We hope you’ll shop our cards. We hope that shopping for a card is a delightful experience for you. And we hope you’ll use Stonehenge cards to send out all the good feelings to people you love.
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This popular card features our shop dog, Sugar. Sugar was the life of the (birthday) party and queen of the beach. She spent so much time on the Oregon coast that we can’t exactly recall where this one was taken, but it was probably on the rocky, breathtaking shores of Manzanita.
Her exuberance and playfulness lives on in the cards in our Sugar Series, which each include a quote by Sugar herself!
When Sarah saw this scene, she couldn’t help thinking about a graduation procession. This graduation card is a perfect gift for anyone who’s watched a child grow up—whether it’s their own child, a niece or nephew, a neighbor, or the child of a longtime friend.
Few moments are as significant as watching them receive a diploma or degree. This beautiful image begs the question: What’s next out in the big, wide world?
Jacquie has beheld and documented flowers all around the world, in Transylvania, San Pancho, Mexico, at the Summer Palace in Beijing, the tulip fields near Amsterdam, to name a few.
She snapped this photo of sunflowers in the rural fields of France on the way to the Dordogne Valley, at the golden hour. It was one of the many times she pulled off the road and grabbed her camera. The message in this card, “It’s your time to bloom,” is just the way to celebrate and encourage your new graduate.
This Montana pup—the sidekick of one of Sarah’s closest friends—knows just where to go and how to get there, don’t you think?
With a perky Dr. Seuss quote and a dog disposition to match, this card embodies the emotions of the graduate and of those who are wishing them well: optimism, hope, anticipation, and a long, open road paved with possibility.
When Jacquie took a watercolor tour of Italy, she took her camera along, too. She captured these in Assisi, one of her favorite villages on the tour.
This card, with its invitation to “Chase your wildest dreams,” is like giving a bouquet of flowers to your graduate. They’re fresh and bright, like graduation day itself. And what better way to celebrate than to adorn the day with splashes of color and joy?
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