Watercolor
Soft washes, cold-press paper, a painter who works with the window open.
Est. 2023 · Portland, Maine
Your family photo, a painter's hand, thirty seconds.
Upload one photo, pick a style and a message, and we'll send a hand-painted Christmas card back before the kettle boils. Digital PDF you print at home, or a set of ten mailed from our shop.
Currently painting 412 cards this week. Rush orders ship in 48 hrs.
To: The Wilsons
Wishing you warm rooms and loud kitchens this season.
— Sam, Mira, Leo & the dog
A quiet manifesto
The supermarket aisle isn't it.
Shutterfly will take your photo and slap it on a foil template someone in an office designed in March. You know it when you get one. Your aunt puts it on the fridge because she has to.
The other direction — hiring an illustrator, waiting three weeks, nudging them twice — that's beautiful, but it's November again and you're never going to do it.
So this is the thing in the middle. A real painter's eye, done by model we spent eighteen months training on 1950s cards, pressed into a PDF the size your local print shop wants. Thirty seconds instead of three weeks. Three dollars instead of three hundred.
Pick the hand you want the card to feel like.
Oil pastel
Thick pigment, visible knife strokes, the feeling of a gallery wall.
Vintage postcard
Engraved crosshatch, a 1952 stamp, a corner that looks faintly weathered.
Paper-cut
Layered card stock, warm shadows, the texture of something you could actually touch.
Three small steps. One small order.
1
Send us a photo.
One picture. Family, dog, couple, you at the cabin. Phone shots are fine — the model is trained to look past bad light.
2
Pick a style and a message.
Four painted styles, twenty ready-made messages, or write your own. Italian greeting, grandma-voice, dry funny — whatever fits your house.
3
Print it, or let us ship it.
PDF to your inbox in thirty seconds. Or pay twelve dollars and a set of ten printed cards arrives in six days, envelopes and all.
What people who used it in their first week said.
I'd been putting off cards for three weeks. Did this while my daughter was in the bath. She's on the card now. My mother-in-law cried.
Aisha Okonkwo
Mom of two, Brooklyn
We run a small bookshop and send 120 cards to regulars every year. First time they didn't look like a mail-merge. The watercolor one of our dog is framed at the counter now.
Daniel Moreno
Co-owner, Moreno & Sons Books
Ordered the printed set thinking it would look like an inkjet. It's matte, thick, actually lovely. The tiny gold star in the corner made my partner text me at work.
Freya Lindqvist
Illustrator, Chicago
What it costs
Three ways to send a card.
No subscription. No "enterprise tier." Pay once, send as many as the set allows.
Single digital
One PDF, one style.
$3
Design pack
Ten PDFs, any styles. Revisable.
$9
Printed & shipped
Ten cards, envelopes, ribbon. Six days.
$12
The small print, without the small print.
How long does a card take to make?
Most orders finish in under a minute. You upload one photo, choose a style and a message, and the PDF is ready before you finish your coffee.
Can I order prints, or is it just digital?
Both. Digital orders come as a print-ready PDF (5 by 7 inches, bleed and crop marks included). Printed sets ship from our Portland shop on heavyweight matte card stock, with envelopes and a small ribbon.
What photos work best?
A recent family shot with clear faces and decent light. Phone photos are fine. We'll let you know if something won't hold up, before we take your money.
Is it only for Christmas?
It starts with Christmas because that's where the name comes from, but we also make birthday, new year, thank-you, and new-baby cards year-round. The styles are the same.
Do you keep my photo?
Only long enough to make your card. We purge uploads after 30 days. We don't train models on them, and we never use them for anything but your order.
From the studio
Send the card you meant to send.
It takes less time than writing this sentence did. We'll be here through the season, painting.