HALIFAX – A new Halifax greeting card company is making love more accessible by designing LGBTQ-friendly cards.
Halifax Paper Hearts launched in stores last week, and it’s already had a great response from customers, said Owner and Designer Stefanie MacDonald.
“A lot of gratitude in terms of giving them an opportunity to connect to each other in a really meaningful way,” said MacDonald. “I think that it’s been a frustrating experience to go into some major stores and only see images of men and women together and its got to change.”
MacDonald started the business after she noticed a hole in the greeting card market when trying to buy a wedding card for her Aunt and her Aunt’s wife.
“I was only really able to find brides and grooms on the top of cakes in the large department stores, and so I ended up just making them one. It was two little old ladies on a card and it said ‘lets grow old together,’ and they loved it.”
The cards launched in stores on Sept. 14, they’re available in four provinces and also online. The designs are for same-sex couples and straight couples, and put a twist on some of the classic wedding and housewarming style of cards. For example, MacDonald designed cards with towels that say ‘his and her,’ ‘his and his,’ and ‘hers and hers.’
The first card she designed has already sold out at Duly Noted stationary store in Halifax. The ‘lets grow old together’ cards sold out within seven days. Store Manager Kate van Gurp said she knew right away the cards hit the right note.
“I loved the humour right away, my favourite was the ‘you’re the pea to my pod,’ and it got me laughing out loud,” said van Gurp. “It can be really hard to find LGBTQ cards, especially ones that I find that people like.”
Van Gurp said she especially appreciated that the cards for the same-sex couples were the same style as those for straight couples.
“That’s just the message that we want to send, is that everyone is the same, everyone deserves a cute card, everyone should be treated equally.”
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