Congratulations to our very own QuirkynBerkeley, for being accepted in the 1000 Handmade Cards book project by Rockport Publishers/Quarry Books. The entry required submitting beautiful examples of handmade greeting cards for which Carol is know for!
Carol responded to the request to share with us just how she got started working with paper items and what she attributed to her success.
I've been doing this for over ten years, now. I chose paper because I've loved playing with paper since I was a little girl. My house is filled with it, not only for cardmaking, but for bookmaking, boxmaking, and of course I've played with making my own. I love it in the form of printed books and I have four file cabinets full of it in my apartment in addition to my studio. Paper is one of the most brilliant inventions in history - the written word provides humans with a way of speaking across time and space. It can be used in an almost infinite number of ways. There are thousands of different kinds. It is portable and versatile. I had worked with paper, or rather with printing, for 20 years in major metropolitan newspaper newsrooms, using computer-based graphic design. Due to illness, I was no longer able to do that, but I found I could still emulate the printing process by using rubber stamps. I found card blanks quite by accident in a hobby shop, and I've been making all sorts of cards since then. As I learned new techniques, I was able to create cards that delighted my friends. These days, I spend a lot of time on the computer as a writer and researcher, and enjoy making cards because it is something that draws from the other side of my brain. I LOVE sitting in my card-making chair in my studio and dreaming up my next set of cards. I think that is what keeps me going. It's doing something that regularly turns out good results and occasionally turns up something that I think is really beautiful or very original or that clicks just right. I think the first tenet of success is showing up every day. I list at least once a day on Etsy, sometimes twice. I've worked hard to move from scanner-based images of cards in my shop to taking good photos. My street teams, but especially CCCOE have been crucial to the success I've enjoyed on Etsy. As far as cardmaking goes, I also try to show up every day, and to make something I would love to receive and fill my shop with those as much as I'm able. I spend several hours in the forums or chat rooms most days and set goals about how many hearts I try to earn every day, which I equate with some unknown but relatively constant number of visitors to my shop every day. I also try hard to be a positive contributor to the forums rather than a complainer, and to help people learn their way around the site. You can find Carol/s etsy store at: QuirkynBerkeley.etsy.com
