Today I’ve got a special post for you. You all know how I love to make cards and crafty projects so I was excited to see a friend open her own stationery store on Etsy.
We met nearly 10 years ago when she was a cataloguer and I was a records manager in previous lives. Sally is a woman of many talents with cooking, writing and crafting to name a few.We are now both building our own creative businesses, and I am looking forward to seeing Ivory Leaf grow as the years go on.
I’ve invited my dear friend Sally to share a little about her Etsy store and small business. – Melissa
Hi, I’m Sally and I own Ivory Leaf – a small Etsy store which sells wedding invitations, cards and
stationery sets.
As a child, I loved colour. I didn’t have just one favourite colour, they were ALL my favourites!
Honestly, how can someone say they love red more than blue or white or yellow or purple! To
me, picking a favourite colour would have been like a mother picking which child she loves more.
So as a child, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t know –
I just knew that I wanted to work with colour. Somehow. But try telling a high school career
counsellor that you don’t care what you do for a career, as long as you get to play with pretty colours all day. (Eventually, I opted for studying library and information services.)
I worked in a library for a little while, but I never loved it. I found the work dull and tedious so I
quit and began to look for ways to work with colour that didn’t involve painting every room of
my house. Again.
My aunty was the one who introduced me to paper crafts. She’s always been an avid card-
maker and I loved to spend time with her in her little craft room at the top of her house. I would
look around and see colour everywhere – deep blues, rich reds, minty greens, soft pinks, vivid
yellows – colour!
It took a few years to get up the courage to launch an online store, but now it’s up I have no idea what took me so long.
The style of my products is clean, contemporary and classic – I try to keep things simple for two reasons. Firstly because I think the design of an invitation or card or stationery set shouldn’t
distract the recipient from the written word and message. Secondly, overly fussy designs just
aren’t me in the same way that molecular gastronomy isn’t me – I believe you shouldn’t fiddle
with amazing ingredients and you shouldn’t fiddle with beautiful papers which all come with
their own amazing texture and character.
In keeping my designs simple, I also keep the costs of my products down, which is something
very important to me. I don’t believe that a cute little stationery set should cost $35 or that a
wedding invitation should cost $12. Beautiful things should be affordable.
As I said before, I don’t know why it took me so long to open an online store. Getting a sale is a huge thrill and I hope the people who buy my products get a similar thrill when their package
arrives in the post. What’s also thrilling is waking up each day knowing that my little home
studio is full of amazing papers and stamps and inks and COLOURS!
Sally has gorgeous designs and attention to detail so head over now to see Ivory Leaf on the web: