My cute festive birds designs have flown into life! I just received samples of my 2025 Christmas card design – a series of five cute festive birds – or birbs if you will! Seeing them in print has been so magical – after all the time I’ve spent with them – refining, tweaking, and imagining their stories – seeing them in their shiny, foil-y majesty has been an absolute delight.

Each design is connected through a little set of narratives I imagined as I was creating them. “Leggy,” with his ridiculously long and wonky legs, ties the presents and the stars series together. I love how you can enjoy the cards individually, or as part of these interconnected sets.

These illustrations all started life as rough pencil sketches I drew in my studio:

Once I was happy with the designs, I translated these cute festive bird sketches into the final design using Procreate. All the gold elements were drawn separately to the rest of the picture as this had to be uploaded as a separate file when I send them to print. The background came from a textured abstract piece of art that I made by hand then scanned ,and adapted to fit this card.

Like my Christmas Star cards last year, these cards also feature a cut-out bookmark design on the back. I love the idea of these cute festive birds living on after the decorations come down, bringing a little bit of delight into a favourite book, planner, or sketchbook.

These cute festive bird Christmas cards are available now in my online shop and will soon be landing on the shelves in Leith Makers.