Hello, I am Ania

It all began with my wedding in 2019. I was looking for a special gift for my parents — something to hand them during the ceremony, something that would stay forever. That is how I found scrapbooking: I ordered a handmade album, and watching how it was made I thought — I could do that too. I bought papers, scissors, a few tools. My first card was for my family, for Christmas. And that was that — 231 pieces later, Christmas is still my favourite card-making season.

For the first years I made cards only for the people closest to me — word about them travelled from one family celebration to the next. This shop is simply the next step of the same road: the same techniques, the same joy, only the box of finished cards finally stopped fitting on the shelf.

In the evenings, at a big desk

I sit down to my cards in the evening, when the house grows quiet. I have my own corner with a big desk: coloured papers, lace, ribbons, boxes of pearls, and flowers I shape myself from foamiran beforehand — petal by petal, warming each one so it takes a natural curve. A single card can hold me for three hours: I move elements around, check what sings together, and sometimes take a nearly finished composition apart to start again. I sit down “for a moment” and when I look up, it is midnight. Under the desk sleep Tofik and Pixie — my two dogs, who assist with every card.

The most important card I ever made had golden angel wings. It was for someone close to me, in a difficult time — and that is when I understood what cards are actually for: they can say what we cannot say out loud. I make every card since with that thought.

My second love: the garden

My father taught me to love plants. He had three daughters and no sons, so it was us who planted trees and dug holes with him — as a teenager I found it a chore, but he used to say you have to grow up to love plants. He was right. Today, behind the house, I keep a garden full of roses, lavender and hydrangeas, a small vegetable patch, and a pink wheelbarrow you can see from space. In spring and summer I practically live out there — and that is where so many of the flowers on my cards come from.

With paper and with plants I find a quiet I find nowhere else. I do not have to be anyone but myself — just Ania. If you carry a card in your head that is not in the shop, describe it to me — those are my favourite assignments. And the whole process, from a sheet of paper to the envelope, is on How a card is made.