Crumble & Core’s silver jewellery cards concept’s a hit across the pond
A direct approach from a US gift company has taken Crumble & Core’s boxed silver jewellery cards across the pond as a new concept in a licensing deal.
Pavilion Gift Company’s co-founder Zina Hocker loved the watercolour artwork so went straight to the source at the publisher and had already showcased the designs tweaked for the North American market at trade shows in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas. Las Vegas, Minnesota and Toronto before they were even out of the production stage!
“As there was nothing like it in the States, Zina felt there was an untapped market,” Crumble & Core co-founder Louise Pike told PG Buzz. “We discussed various options for distribution, but both decided the best route for us would be via licensing.”
Having looked at the publisher’s extensive range Pavilion chose 40 images to manufacture and distribute as jewellery cards across the North American region, and the cards were well received at the trade shows.
Crumble & Core started in 2016 when artist Jilly Mercer Pont and her pal Lucy Rigby showed Lucy’s sister-in-law Louise some of her work over a coffee at the kitchen table, and they decided to use the designs for greeting cards.
Now running the business from an oast house on a farm in the East Sussex countryside, the kitchen table is still where Jilly sits to create all the watercolours used in their designs, which have expanded to include the sterling silver jewellery cards – which were highly commended in the 2023 Gift Of The Year awards – as well as candles, and all products are as recycled and biodegradable as possible.
Louise added that Pavilion took the lead on which cards were to have the sentiments changed and to what “as they obviously know their market better than us”, and they’ve also produced specific artwork, with Jilly painting a cardinal – see video below – so the “robins appear when loved ones are near” design has become “cardinals appear when loved ones are near” to match the American version of the adage.
“It was nice to hear back that many customers stated they’d never seen anything like them,” she said, “and, by the time the first stock was released in mid-September, nearly all the lines had sold out, so further orders have been made.”
And the two companies have already had further discussions for expanding the range in the first quarter of the new year.
