Focus on ... The Curious Pancake

This week’s ’s ‘Focus on’ is a new supplier to Chirpy, Claire Senior, otherwise known as The Curious Pancake.

Here’s a little interview we did with Claire to find out a little more about her.

Tell me a little bit about yourselves & your company

I’m a woman in almost the last year of her forties, and I founded The Curious Pancake, my online store selling cards, stationery, and silly things, in 2011. I was born in Pontefract, home of liquorice and rhubarb, but I’ve lived most of my adult life in Nottingham, and, whilst my state of mind is very much A Northerner, I feel just as much a Nottingham-er too (I nearly said Midlander, but it doesn’t sound quite so mysterious).

How did you get into doing what you’re doing?

 I studied art for many years, and I have always been creative. I graduated Loughborough Uni with a first class degree in illustration. There aren’t that many times you can say that sentence without sounding like a big-headed tit, and I’m not even sure I’ve got away with it now, although I suspect you will forgive me because the rest of my story is fraught with mediocrity. After graduation I worked part time in so many greeting card shops, that it felt like a natural progression to begin creating cards. I’d worked in a couple of ‘budget’ card shops, and it made me think that people deserved a better choice, and a wry and drier kind of humorous card. I started my online shop, The Curious Pancake, in 2011, but I didn’t have enough self-belief to do my own designs straight away, so I stocked my shop with lots of cards by other creatives. The focus for the curated range of cards at Pancake was always on illustration first, with a heavy leaning towards humour, swearing and random cuteness! When my mum died in 2017, it was kind of the wake up I needed to ask myself what I was doing, creatively, and why hadn’t I really gone for it with my own designs. I decided to quit my part time graphic design/marketing job (I still miss that regular income and holiday pay) and I finally started creating my own cards. I really wish I’d started doing that from the beginning, but I guess it’s no bad thing that my journey has been on the scenic side!

What does a ‘normal’ day look like?

 I wake up anywhere between 6-9am, make a ‘posh’ coffee (posh in this case means a cafetière coffee with cream) for me and my other half, Ben. We watch a bit of news and swear. I do the Wordle. Ben always gives me a new prompt word every day to start. If zero letters are correct from his prompt word we call it a “Benji Classic”. At some point one of us will say ‘right, better go start work’ – it’s usually me, because I feel guilty for earning so little. I pick and pack all my customer orders that have come in since yesterday afternoon, which could number anything from 7 to 40, depending on the time of year. The late morning and early afternoon is often taken up with admin tedium. Anything from listing new items on Faire, or my website, or Etsy, to answering customers, paying invoices, deleting SEO spam emails. I do a post office run around 2pm (I walk there, it’s just a mile round trip, and my only regular exercise!), I mope around Tesco wondering what to get for tea that’s both healthy and tasty. I usually end up buying broccoli and fish. I come home and realise it’s too late to start anything creative. I eat my tea usually in front of Pointless or House of Games. We both agree to re-convene to watch a show around half eight. 7-8pm is creating time. I look at my greeting card ideas (I have several Google Keep files that I jot random musings down on), these are often unhinged sentences like “Happy Birthday from a non-trending cryptid” or “chicken cucumber what a kerfuffle” the origins of why I wrote that last sentence is now lost to the mists of time. Many times, I realise nothing is inspiring me and I go onto Instagram to see everyone I know doing lots better than me. I’ll often bookmark exercise routines or creative workshops I see on Insta, never to revisit them again. I play with the cats, watch TV, go to bed and read 1.5 pages of my book. I stick the Calm app on. My favourite sleep story is Journey to the Stars read by LeVar Burton. If I’m lucky, I’ll only wake 6 times before morning.

Biggest achievement to date (personally or business wise)?

Personally and business wise I often think it’s that I’ve just kept going, and refused to go back to the “real world” of admin (despite my creative world now consisting of 80% tedious admin!). Working for yourself is a crazy thing to do, and when you see it on paper in black and white, next to those sobering, often depressingly small figures, it seems even more bonkers. And yet I genuinely love what I do, and I’m determined that one day it might even make financial sense. I guess one of my biggest business achievements came during lockdown. When the world, en masse, turned to online businesses to help them stay in touch with people. My sales went from 10-20 a day, to 200 a day. It was crazy times, because I was doing it all on my own. I made my first ever £10k month in April of 2020. And it didn’t really let up for the next 12 months. The plus side of this was that I was able to afford a new website, and I also turned our long, much under-used, home lounge into Pancake HQ. We still have a lounge, we just got rid of our dining room and created a ‘snug’ instead. I’ve always wanted a ‘snug’ since hearing about them on Grand Designs. They’re easier to heat, I’ll give you that.

Where can we find your cards?

 All online in my shop The Curious Pancake, and on Faire for retailers, and in an increasing number of highly discerning indie shops from as far north as Glasgow to as far south as Weymouth.

 Favourite card you’ve designed  / most popular card design?

My favourite card, so far, is one I designed at the start of this year for Valentine’s Day. It shows two people on a beach and one’s saying to the other “You’re my rock!” whilst holding out their hand with a rock-looking item on. The second person answers “Umm, that’s a poo” – it did quite well with my customers. It was my first design that I created entirely out of collaged magazines, and it’s rekindled my love for collage. It also felt good to create something that didn’t have any swearing on it (sometimes, in life, and in my designs, I find it really hard not to swear), but it was still nicely childish (poo!) and appealed to my un-developed sense of humour.

My most popular design, in contrast (actually, there’s not that much contrast because we’re still talking about poo) is a sweary card, entitled “Everyone’s Shit Except You.” I don’t mind if you wanna **** that mini swear out 😊 This card did very well on Etsy a year or so ago, and I sold 600 in the run up to Valentine’s. It’s also, historically, done well with my stockists and on my website, because swearing is funny and people are basic. I’m joking… slightly. I do sometimes feel a bit shameful that my most commercially successful card is so sweary and lacking in any real creative talent. But hey, that’s popularity for you 😉

Have you seen any changing card trends over the last 12 months?

Not really. I don’t really follow trends because as soon as I see something once, and then 20 other cards have the same thing, I just shut off to it. I do get bored seeing the same tired old puns, the same Highland cows, the same tropes about Dads being useless or Mums being overworked or just having pink cards with flowers on for Mum. I kinda wish there was more emphasis on originality. Having said that, you do see some retailers buy the same designs year after year, and if the old stuff is selling then I guess there’s no impetus to change your offering. I do think there’s TONS of talented folk out there, I’d just like to see a better rotation of designs in some of the bigger shops sometimes – something a little unusual and different, I think customers can handle it!!

Why do you think sending cards is still so important?

 Because receiving something physical in the post, especially a handwritten card, is still utterly magical and keeps us connected. We need to preserve our analogue world, and sending a card is still (even with the rising cost of stamps!) the most cost effective way of sending a hug in the post.

Best thing about running your own business?

 Not having to wake up at a set time and having my cats around me all the time. Oh yeah, and the sense of enormous satisfaction you get from being able to say to yourself that you’re ‘paying the bills’ on the back of your own creativity. I put ‘paying the bills’ in inverted commas because my money only really pays for the food, and cats. But still, it’s good. Even the shit bits are good, comparatively 😊

 Advice to someone looking to turn their hobby / talent into a business?

 Are you crazy? Never try to monetise your hobby unless you want to loathe something that once gave you joy and immense satisfaction.

Plans for the future?

I’m off to the post office, then Tesco to get some fish and broccoli.

 I think you’ll agree this is the most entertaining “focus on …’ interview we’ve ever done. Check out Claire’s instagram to see what she gets up to (& if she really does just eat fish & broccoli for tea!)