Back in January, when we usually start the tin design process with our longtime design partners Christine and Eric from Strohl, we locked down the ideas for the Cross Stitch and Once Upon a Time tins early on. But we still needed to choose the concept for the third new tin in our 2026 collection.
As Strohl elaborates below, we try to balance our new tin designs each year with a diverse set of themes and styles that has a little something for everyone. Since neither the Cross Stitch or Once Upon a Time tins had a holiday or winter theme (which are typically our most popular during the holiday season), we knew our third tin needed to lean heavily in one of these directions.
I keep a running list of potential tin ideas, and something we hadn't yet done in our 46-tin history (!) was an ice skating theme. I've also always loved the idea of using snow as a pattern on a tin. So I shared these thoughts with Christine and Eric, who explain where the design process took them:
"Our immediate thought was to make this one bold and brightly colored because so many snow scenes end up being a bit heavy with the sleepy whiteness (which can be great!). But for this illustration, we wanted to capture the joy of the precise moment of the first snow fall of the year.
Often our work is inspired by historical design and illustration, and we started out from this classic angle with our first sketches (which were a bit mid-century). We like to use marker to keep the shapes simple and then a black pen to add detail when we are sketching.
Although we saw potential in these drawings, each year we have the challenge to design 3-4 tins, and we want there to be something for everyone in the collection. Because the Once Upon a Time tin was turning out to have a mid-century feel to it, we decided to shelve this style (for now) and to go bright and modern instead. And we are glad we did!
Our objective was to try to create an excitement with the colors and the positioning of the people, without getting too mired down with detailed faces. It was more about the frenetic mood than the individual:
We love using pattern in our work, for this tin we drew heavy snowflakes with marker to create pattern to overlay on the finished scene."
Once again, Christine and Eric took a couple little kernels of ideas and transformed them into a tin that conveys the feeling of the season perfectly.
(PSA: due to some large wholesale and corporate orders, we have fewer than 200 First Snow tins remaining for the season, so we suggest ordering soon if you're thinking about it.)
