If you have a cheeky, fun and bold sense of sense of humour, you’ve probably sent or received a Jeffrey and Janice card – and it most likely made you giggle.
What you may not know is that the hilarious scenes featured in these cards are set up and photographed by one woman, from the comfort of her bedroom. Thea Musselwhite, based in Somerset, is the owner of Bold & Bright. She began creating greetings cards in 2017 and quickly developed the concept of ‘Jeffrey and Janice’ – two outrageously blunt characters that love a drink and getting up to no good.
Thea is one of greetings card marketplace thortful’s most successful creators and has gone on to develop over 640 designs, recently reaching 1 million card sales on thortful with the Jeffrey and Janice range.
Since being founded in 2016, thortful has paid over £10 million in royalties to its creators and has supported over 4,000 independent illustrators to build their business in the creative industry. This has enabled parents, students and creative individuals to develop side hustles and even leave their day jobs to become full-time illustrators.
To celebrate Small Business Saturday, and the Black Friday weekend, thortful will be paying an extra 50% in royalties to all its creators over the course of the weekend. Thea will be just one of the creators set to benefit from the initiative.
The inspiration behind Janice and Jeffrey
Thea described the inspiration behind her cards and why she decided to make a range featuring dolls: “I was surrounded by my kids at the time, they were quite young when I came up with the idea and my daughter had a lot of dolls. My husband used to put the dolls in rude positions in the dollhouse and I just thought it would be really funny on a card. The cards look quite sweet and innocent at first, but they’re actually not!”
Creating content from the comfort of her bedroom
When asked about how she came to start designing and selling cards, Thea said: “It pretty much started as a side hustle. I wanted to find a job that would fit around my kids, that would allow me to work from home and be able to spend the holidays with the kids.
“The production is very low-key – it’s all done in my bedroom. I have a small scene by a wall and set up the lighting around them. I have to balance the scene really carefully, sometimes the props fall down and I have to set it all back up again. I often have the dog running in and out, so it’s quite unprofessional at times!”
A look behind the scenes
Being a designer and creator is far from glamourous at times. From figurine donkeys to a handful of sprouts, Thea has bought and made all sorts of weird and wonderful props over the years. Commenting on the strangest to date, she says: “For one of the first rude cards I made, I bid on a cockerel ornament on eBay – the seller must have wondered why I was buying such a disgusting ornament! It’s now featured in quite a lot of my cards.”
Thea’s proudest moments
“When I started to hit really high sales on thortful it was a proud moment. Obviously reaching 1 million sales is a big achievement too – I didn’t actually know until recently how close I was to this many card sales. Also, I’ve managed to stock shops who have found me on thortful – there’s been quite a lot of little achievements along the way.”
To read the full interview with Thea and to see the full Janice and Jeffrey card range, please click here.