Our Story
We are a family-run studio creating hand-watercolored and hand-calligraphed wedding invitations, stationery, paper goods, and more. Since 1999, we’ve kept things small where it matters—in the artistry and personal attention behind every El’s Cards creation—all while growing into an expanded in-house print shop.
Our greatest joy is helping you celebrate all the special milestones in your and your loved ones’ lives. To mark our 25th year, here are some of the milestone moments in our own history!
our timeline
After running the Boston Marathon, Ellen Greely Braley was inspired to pursue her next big dream of becoming a full-time artist.
El launched the first El’s Cards website from her in-home Milton, Massachusetts studio. At the time, she was doing all the watercolor and calligraphy in every single card by hand! As both a self-taught artist and business owner, in those early days, El would take orders virtually anywhere, even at her local health club!
When El met Bob, love bloomed. After a year, El moved from Boston to Bob’s home on the stunning New Hampshire seacoast.
El and Bob got married. For the wedding, El painted every invitation by hand and created a watercolor map of Portsmouth for their friends and family.
The wedding map was so memorable, it inspired El to create a map for a New Castle craft show. Maps have been some of our most beloved offerings ever since.
After years of helping El run El’s Cards behind-the-scenes and at craft shows, Bob joined the business as our full-time production manager. He helmed our major expansion into a larger in-house print shop in our Greenland, New Hampshire studio. To this day, upstairs, El creates every watercolor painting and all our calligraphy lettering by hand while downstairs, Bob personally runs every order through print, production, and shipping.
The newly relaunched El’s Cards website made it possible for customers to shop every one of our cards, bookmarks, invitations suites, and more online. We created a basement studio in our home to make room for all the printing!
As the world changed and so many weddings and craft shows were canceled, we branched out to create tea towels, notepads, stickers, and gift wrap with El’s original artwork. These items are printed by trusted vendors who meet Bob’s high quality standards, while our paper goods continue to be printed in-house in our studio. We also hired some support staff-Marty and Sunny were great for morale!
We marked the 25th anniversary of El’s Cards with a brand new website and an ever-growing passion for spreading joy in customers’ lives through beautiful artwork.
Over the past two and a half decades, we’ve had the pleasure of being part of our customers’ weddings, birth announcements, birthdays, anniversaries, and even their grown children’s weddings! It’s a beautiful cycle of memories we’re honored to celebrate with you.
