Country Living, 2023

Bright BEAUTIFUL AND

From seed heads to snowdrops, robins to reindeer, Ellie Hodesdon’s playful paper decorations made in her Glasgow studio take their cues from nature and folk art

ven in the height of summer, Ellie Hodesdon’s Glasgow studio is brimming with baubles, garlands, greetings cards and Advent calendars – all crafted from thick recycled paper and screen-printed by hand. So it’s no surprise that by the time the holiday season rolls around, the East End Press founder is too exhausted to festoon her own home.

“I’m surrounded by decorations all day, every day,” she says. “The last thing I want to do is look at them after hours.” Nevertheless, she loves to spot her creations in the outside world. “When I set up the business in 2015, my goal was to be stocked by the V&A,” Ellie recalls. Within a few years, she was. Now, her work is sold in National Trust and RHS shops, plus independent retailers across the UK, Europe and the US: “I get the loveliest emails from customers all over the world.”

PURSUING A PASSION

Ellie’s success is all the sweeter for having been discouraged from art as a teenager. “I always wanted to pursue art as a career, but a teacher begged me to study something with more promising job prospects,” she says. And yet Ellie was determined – in 2007, she relocated from Dorset to Scotland to attend The Glasgow School of Art.

It was here she discovered a passion for screen printing. The painstaking process involves embedding a stencil on to a mesh screen, then using a rubber blade (or ‘squeegee’) to cover it with ink. Ellie was dazzled by the resulting designs – walls of colour combined with intricate patterns. After graduating in 2011, Ellie “didn’t do anything remotely creative”, choosing instead to live in New Zealand and Australia, where she worked as a waitress and

a cleaner. The long shifts taught her the value of hard work and resilience – skills that would prove invaluable for running a creative business. But returning to Glasgow several years later, Ellie struggled to find a job where she could use her artistic talents.

Frustrated, she returned to the studio and made her own art, creating colourful designs that depicted the exotic flowers, birds and fish she had seen during her travels. Visiting local markets and independent retailers, she was delighted to discover that there was an appetite for her work. Her vibrant greetings cards were a hit with shop owners. Indeed, the first one she visited –with a satchel full of 50 cards – offered to buy every single one. Many more sales followed and the business was born.

EXPANDING HORIZONS

Renting a small studio, Ellie spent every waking hour printing and packaging, expanding the collection into garlands and papier-mâché baubles. The garlands, now her bestselling products (she expects to sell 50,000 of them over the festive season), came about accidentally. “It seemed wasteful to throw away scrap paper from test prints, so I cut it into shapes and sewed them together,” she says.

Her jolly robin and reindeer designs followed – and proved so popular that she struggled to keep up with orders. “I was selling them faster than I could make them,” she says. “It took six hours to print 50 sheets of paper, which then had to be cut and stitched

THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE Over the festive period, Ellie sells around 50,000 garlands –her bestselling product. Each one is adorned with robins, reindeer and mistletoe. She shares an airy studio with her dog Frida, named after Frida Kahlo

“Landscapes with colour and texture are a big influence on the palettes I use in my designs”

together.” Outsourcing production seemed like a sensible option, so Ellie travelled to India to find a craftsperson to collaborate with. Her overriding concern was creating an ethical working relationship: “I wanted to visit printing plants myself to ensure workers’ rights were respected and everyone was paid fairly.”

In Jaipur, she met Nikhil, who runs a small printing workshop and was able to recreate Ellie’s work to an excellent standard. She put in a £7,000 order for that year’s Christmas decorations, which Nikhil and chief printer Sajid spent months fulfilling – making everything, including the paper, by hand using 100 per cent recycled pulped cotton waste. When the finished products arrived at Ellie’s studio, it felt like Christmas had come early, with box upon box of brightly hued concertina garlands, greetings cards and fold-out decorations. She was still apprehensive. “I’d laid out a huge sum of money and was scared I’d never sell enough to make it back,” she says. Her worries were unfounded: at her first trade fair, she sold out.

ART OF GOLD

Ellie celebrated her success by getting a dog, Frida (named after Frida Kahlo, an influence). Today, the loveable mongrel spends her days in Ellie’s airy studio, alongside three full-time East End Press employees, who help with processing and packaging. As a result, Ellie has more time to share her knowledge – hosting workshops where would-be crafters can make their own versions of her products. While running a business inevitably involves a lot of admin (“when I was at art school, I’d have laughed if you told me I’d be doing cash flows one day”), there’s still plenty of

creativity. Country walks are an important part of Ellie’s working process and landscape is always a source of inspiration: “I love views with lots of colour and texture – they’re a big influence on the palettes in my designs,” she says. A bit of a magpie, she collects little treasures “such as beautifully shaped leaves or interesting stones”. When planning specific designs, Ellie works from photographs, but the initial idea usually springs from something she’s seen when out and about.

All pieces begin with a simple black and white sketch, which is cut into a stencil and screen printed in the studio. Physical samples are then posted to Jaipur, alongside hand-painted swatches, so Nikhil can perfectly match the colours – mocking up copies and posting them back to Scotland. This system of trial and error can take months, which is why Ellie orders stock over a year in advance.

“Anticipating which products will be bestsellers and knowing how many to order is a challenge,” she says, although by now she has a feel for what people want. At this time of year, people love traditional colours: “You can’t beat red, green and gold.” This season’s collection includes motifs of woodland animals, British birds and folkloric scenes inspired by the Scottish

OPPOSITE AND THIS PAGE

Ellie’s designs begin as a sketch, which is cut into a stencil and then screen printed in her studio, before

being sent to India to be hand-printed. At this time of year, her palette focuses on the traditional festive colours of red, gold and green

countryside. With East End Press running like a well-oiled machine, Ellie is thinking about her next goal: escaping to the country. “Here in Glasgow, I’m a 20-minute drive from some of Scotland’s most scenic mountains, moors and lochs – one day, I might have them on my doorstep,” she says. “I’m fortunate that I can work wherever I want and having poured so much effort into the business, I now want to make it work for me.”

She has her sights set on a cottage, nestled in the Cairngorms. Perhaps once she’s settled, she’ll even put up some decorations.

TO FIND OUT MORE about Ellie’s work and shop the Christmas collection, visit eastendpress.com. CL readers can receive a 20 per cent discount on all orders using the code COUNTRYLIVING at the checkout from 1 December to 31 January. Not eligible with other offers.

“I’m a 20-minute drive from some of Scotland’s most scenic mountains, moors and lochs – one day, I might have them on my doorstep”