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Born in Bolton, Jonathan comes from a large family (he's number three of 8 children!). Ever the dog lover, he grew up in rural Cheshire with his canine companion, a Newfoundland called Daisy.

He studied Art at college before venturing North to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to study design at Northumbria University.

After his degree, he began working as an apprentice at a design studio. 

In October 2011, encouraged by his fellow designer brother and sister-in-law, Jonathan designed and made a dove decoration (the predecessor to our Pop Out Dove Christmas Card) which, they took along to sell at a Christmas fair.

It proved to be a hit with the festive shoppers and that one design soon sparked a creative flurry (fuelled by his good friend, Coffee!).

From that dove decoration, Jonathan created a range of pop out cards and, from a tiny flat in the North East, the idea of The Pop Out Card Company was born.

The original cards were colourless and he often found customers commenting that they loved to colour them in. So he set about finding a way to include colour to his designs.

After much head-scratching and trial and error, he successfully managed to add colour to the cards and re-launched the entire range afresh two years later.

In April 2014, Jonathan and I met for our very first date in Manchester, where I was living at the time.

He was an hour late and my face was, he later admitted, "a little stern-looking" :-) But all was forgiven and the first date turned into a second!

It didn't take long for us to realise we'd each found our someone special. We spent the next two years taking turns to make the 300-mile round trip each weekend.

Long-distance love wasn't easy and so we made the decision that I would move to Newcastle to begin our life together.

Surrounded by our loved ones, we married in June of 2018 and, after three years living together in the North East, we relocated both home and studio 200 miles south.

The move was kindled by a desire to be closer to family and friends and, just eight short weeks later, in May 2020, we welcomed our wonderful little boy named Thomas.

And, as for our studio, we're now happily settled and working out of a converted cowshed in beautiful rural Staffordshire.

With two accounting roles behind me, I had always wanted to do something more creative.

I started to help with the business in my spare time, playing Santa's little helper at trade shows and having a go at redesigning the website.

In November 2019, I officially became a member of Pop Out HQ. We knew that my bean-counting skills and love of all things admin would come in handy one day!

We've come a long way since that very first design and are proud to have been stocked by some wonderful places including Paperchase, The National Trust, Kew Gardens and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Today, we are proud to call ourselves a small, family business.

We have plans afoot for more pop out cards as well as some brand new products (watch this space!). With your support, we will continue to design and create.

Whatever the future holds, we hope you continue with us on our journey.

Thanks for reading,

Jonathan & Louisa

The Pop Out Family