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OUT OF THE WOOD
When Barry Saich first had the idea for his Stick & Log cards, he was making hand carved walking sticks, and the offcuts from these were used for the little cartoon characters. Most of the wood he used was Hazel, which grows naturally on his four acre smallholding, deep in the heart of Devon’s beautiful countryside.
As the cards grew in popularity, Barry found that he no longer had the time for making sticks, and consequently he now cuts the wood solely for the cards. But he still uses the naturally coppiced Hazel from his own woodland wherever possible. Coppicing is a centuries old practice, of cutting the trees back to the stools and allowing them to regenerate. Certain cards call for different types of wood, Beech and Apple are two, and where this is necessary, Barry tries to make sure that the wood comes from local hedgerows and orchard prunings.
Cutting takes place during the winter, when the sap is down and life in the tree is dormant, it is then stored for a whole year to allow the wood to fully dry out. Then the properly seasoned wood is cut and sanded to make the little characters that have popularised Barry’s extremely funny and witty cards.
It was in the Autumn of 1996, when Barry first conceived the idea and designed a series of greeting cards, which he sold at local craft fairs. By the late Spring of 1997, he had started selling these cards through a few local retail outlets. Demand became so good that following this initial success, Barry decided to “put all his logs in one basket” and in 1998, he undertook his first Trade Show solely for the cards.
Now nine years and several trade shows later, he has over 70 designs, has sold over 150,000 of his unique cards to over 800 shops, around the world. Following problems importing wood with bark to Australia, Barry made a licensing agreement with Australian company, Card Sharp to manufacture the cards themselves and these were successfully launched in early 2003.
Following all this success it is no surprise that Barry was busy at the design board, and the succeeding years have seen the launch of further card ranges, including gift-wrap, gift bags, notebooks, and seen his designs used on ties and handkerchiefs.
Last year saw the successful launch of his Stick and Log designs on adult and children's T-shirts, whilst 2006 has seen the release of Tree People, featuring designs of artist Virginia Lee. Plans for the future include further card ranges and the use of his Stick and Log designs in books. |