This week in Behind the Products, this little spring card – now free to download – holds the beginning of more memories than we can count.
We’ve made many cards over the years through Willow Lane, but this one is genuinely the most special to us.
The artwork, Spring Collage, was the very first watercolour Lisa ever painted.
It began quietly in a tiny 15cm x 15cm journal during a season when words had become difficult to find. Painting became a gentler way of expressing things that didn’t yet know how to become sentences. On one small page, Lisa painted a little collection of spring pots and birdhouses — simple, hopeful, and full of colour.
Later, that tiny journal painting became the very first card we ever printed and sold through Willow Lane.
In many ways, it was the beginning of everything.
We still have copies from that original print run tucked away safely, and every time we come across them, they remind us of how small Willow Lane once was — just ideas, paper scraps, experiments, and the hope that perhaps something creative could grow from them.
With the closure of many of our physical Willow Lane products, there were certain pieces we simply couldn’t bear to let disappear completely.
This was one of them.
So rather than letting Spring Collage quietly fade away, we wanted to offer it a second life — a chance to travel out into the world again and find new homes, new desks, new envelopes, and new stories.
You can download and print the card for free below (for personal use only*).
It felt like the perfect choice for this moment for several reasons.
This week Lisa shared a reflective post about ravens, difficult seasons, and longing for spring, inspired by a new artwork you can read about here.
At the same time, spring has finally begun arriving here in Scotland — slowly, stubbornly, and very late.
And perhaps most meaningfully of all, this is the first downloadable version of one of our previously sold Willow Lane cards. Last week’s free card was sweet and special too, but it was never part of our printed collection.
This card was.
So somehow it feels fitting that the very first watercolour Lisa ever painted — the one that became the first card we ever made — has now also become the first previously-for-sale card we’ve released freely into the world.
It feels a little like both an ending and a beginning.
If you do print it or use it, we would genuinely love to hear about it — and perhaps even see photographs if you’d like to share them. Nothing would make us happier than knowing this tiny card found its way into someone else’s life and became part of a new story.
You can download Spring Collage here:
"Spring Collage" - Free Downloadable Card
PRINT. TRIM. FOLD. ENJOY.
*Please do not resell or redistribute the artwork commercially. If you’re interested in licensing or commercial use, feel free to contact us first and we’d be happy to talk.
If this little card eventually finds its way onto someone’s desk, into an envelope, onto a noticeboard, or into the hands of someone who needed it, we’d genuinely love to hear about it below — whether that’s next week or years from now. And if you ever feel like sharing photographs of where it ended up, you’re always welcome to send them to us. There’s something rather lovely about imagining this tiny piece of Willow Lane continuing its journey out in the world long after it left our studio.
About the Author: Lisa Saul
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Did you find a new home and a second life for our Spring Collage card? Come back any time and tell us how you used it. If you’d like to see more free downloadables like this, we’d love to know. What sort of things are useful to you?