SPOILER ALERT: This blog post contains mm* Christmas card spoilers. To preserve the childlike joy of Christmas surprises, please stop reading here.

Alternatively, plough on regardless. You old cynic you…

*****

This week we put a few hundred Christmas cards in the post to our lovely clients and friends, and now we wait with bated breath.

Did you get one?

If you did, you’ll know that it comes with a few extras this year. Attached to your yuletide missive are four postcards, each featuring one of eighteen designs by children from our local area. (Plus the two on the outside of the card! Find out how we got our hands on these brilliant designs>)

We know you’ll want to keep them forever because they’re brilliant. But if you can bear to part with them, you’ll be helping a truly fantastic cause.

Heart Felt Tips

As you may have heard, this Christmas we’re raising awareness for Heart Felt Tips. It’s a wonderful organisation, set up by contemporary British artist Jeremy Houghton to bring pencil cases full of goodies to less fortunate children. The process is brilliantly simple:

1. Sponsors donate pencil cases
2. Schoolchildren fill them with nearly new surplus stationery
3. Food banks distribute them to less fortunate kids

Here’s the plan

The whole Heart Felt Tips operation runs on awareness, sponsorship and collaboration, and that’s where you come in.

We’re asking for a tiny bit of your time and the cost of some stamps to send special people (or even just all right people) a Christmassy postcard, and spread the word about Heart Felt Tips in the process. It’s an opportunity to catch up with someone you haven’t seen in a while, send a quick hello to a business contact, or just wax lyrical to family and friends about Heart Felt Tips’ brilliant work.

We just want to reach as many people as possible. It would particularly cool if the cards found their way to schools, community centres, potential sponsors or food banks who might want to get involved… but we’ll settle for spreading a bit of festive cheer to your friends and family with these lovely drawings.

Take it further

• Enter our prize draw. Hand-draw your own red and black Christmassy picture and post it on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, tagging mark-making* and using #heartfelttips. You could win one of two limited edition Jeremy Houghton prints! (AND a massive art set, if you’re a kid).

• Get involved. If you or your business are interested in getting involved with Heart Felt Tips as a sponsor, or to help raise awareness, contact Jeremy Houghton at admin@heartfelttips.co.uk

Find out more

Check out the campaign page: mark-making.com/heartfelttips