Personalised Grandparent Gifts: Ideas for Nanna, Grandad and the Whole Family

Grandparents are notoriously hard to buy for. They already have the biscuits, the slippers and the good tea towels, and most of them will tell you they do not need anything at all. What they actually want, more often than not, is to see their grandchildren's names in something. We have built two prints entirely around that idea, one soft and illustrated, one built like a football pitch, and both are made by hand in our studio in Hessle.

Both of the prints below work the same way. You send us the names, we set them into the design, and you get a proof to check before anything is printed, so the spellings of the grandchildren's names, always the part people worry about, are yours to approve first. Neither needs a special occasion. A birthday, Christmas, a house move, or genuinely no reason at all beyond "I saw this and thought of you" all work.

Here are the two designs, plus a few more ways to fit a grandparent into a print if neither one is quite right.

1. A chick for every grandchild

The Grandparents Flock Picture gives each grandchild their own little illustrated chick, with a hobby or trait to match: a football lover, a ballet dancer, a book worm, whatever fits. You choose the title yourself ("Nanna and Grandad's Flock" and "Grandma's Little Ducklings" are two we see a lot, but it is your call), then send us each name with a line describing them. There is an optional footer line too, if you want a family motto or something like "with puddles of love" underneath. It works whether there is one grandchild or ten, since the flock simply grows to fit, and it suits any pairing: two grandparents, one, or a step-grandparent who is every bit as loved. It starts at £12 for an A5 print and goes up to £31 for an A3 framed in grey with a mount.

2. Grandad's Great XI

For the grandad who has spent half his life on the sidelines of a football pitch, Grandad's Great XI draws an actual pitch and puts a grandchild's name in every position, eleven names in total, with room for extra names on the bench if the family runs bigger than a matchday squad. You tell us the kit colour and who is playing where, and we lay it out from there. It is built for a grandad specifically (the title is fixed), so if you are buying for a grandma or a step-grandparent, the Grandparents Flock Picture or one of our other family prints will suit better. It starts at £10 for an A5 print and goes up to £31 framed in A3.

3. More ways to fit everyone in

If neither of those feels quite right, our wider Family collection has more ways to put grandparents alongside the rest of the household on the same design, names, dates and initials included. We go through several of those options in our guide to family name prints for the hallway. A photo works just as well as an illustration if you would rather use a real picture of the grandchildren than a drawn one. That is usually a case of choosing a photo print instead and telling us who is in it and what to write underneath.

How we make it, in Hessle

Every print is made to order by us, Lee and Sam, in our studio in Hessle (HU13). Once you have sent over the names, we email you a proof before anything is printed, so you can check every spelling before it goes anywhere near a frame, useful when you are relaying names and nicknames from a group chat rather than writing them down yourself. If you want it framed, our frames are solid wood, made in the UK, in black, white or grey, and the front is 1.2mm acrylic rather than glass, worth knowing if grandchildren will be climbing on the sofa underneath it. Because each print is personalised to your family, we cannot take it back for a change of mind, so the proof is your moment to get every name and spelling right.

Where to start

Both designs sit in the Family collection alongside our other name and photo prints, and Grandad's Great XI is also in the Sports collection if you are browsing by team spirit rather than family tree. If the grandparents are sorted and you are stuck on the parents next, we have guides to personalised gifts for dad and personalised gifts for mum too.