Here's what designing a new collection actually looks like for me. It starts with a spark — a conversation with someone, or noticing something showing up over and over without me realizing it.

That's how Prairie Roots started. I drive out to the towns around Calgary to restock the stores, and I kept noticing country and western items everywhere — in booth after booth, vendor after vendor. I finally asked a shop manager if the western stuff actually sold. She said yes, without hesitating. That surprised me. I've lived in Calgary basically my whole life, and the only time I really think "western" is during the ten days of Stampede in July. But the more I drove past ranches and farmland, the more it registered — this province is genuinely built on that way of life, I'd just stopped noticing it. I went and visited the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site not long after, and learned more about Alberta ranching and cowboy history than I expected to. Prairie Roots came out of that.

The newest one, Lemons, started differently — a local Calgary business reached out and asked if I had any cards with a lemon on them. I didn't, not yet. I told them I could make one. And then I told them they'd probably just inspired an entire collection, because that's exactly what happened. It's still in the works right now.

Here's the part I'm less proud of. Designing is where my energy lives — I could sit and create new collections around the clock and never get tired of it. It's everything after that trips me up. Once a collection is finished, I make it, I add it to the shop, and that's usually where it stops. I don't tell anyone the story behind it. I don't build it up. I just quietly hope people find it.

I think that's the actual problem — not the cards, not the ideas, just the silence after. I love talking about what I'm making, sometimes maybe too much, with people who already know me. But when it comes to telling someone I don't know about my own cards, I freeze up a little. I never want it to sound like bragging. I love the work, and what I actually want is to share that love — I just haven't figured out how to do that without it feeling like showing off.

So consider this post an attempt at doing it differently. Prairie Roots exists because I finally paid attention to what was already around me. Lemons exists because someone asked, and I said yes. Both of those are good stories. I'm just working on remembering to tell them.
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— Anita, YYC Crafts 🌱

I started making plantable cards because I wanted less paper waste, and I wanted to be able to give something back to the earth. Gift giving has always been something I love — I've even thought about becoming a personal shopper at some point, just for the joy of finding something unique that someone will actually love. When I landed on seed paper, I knew I was onto something. A card and a gift, all in one. Something someone could give that would actually grow into something beautiful — and along the way, feed the pollinators that keep our ecosystems running.

It's easy to forget how much relies on pollinators until you actually stop and think about it. Bees alone are behind so much of what ends up on grocery store shelves — not just fruit and vegetables, but even the feed crops that livestock rely on, which means beef and dairy too. Not to mention honey, which happens to be one of my favourites. We pick it up off the shelf and rarely think about what it took to get there. A healthy environment for bees and other pollinators isn't optional — it's essential. And something as small as a plantable card, given again and again, adds up to something real.

None of this started with a business plan, though. As a kid, I used to make handmade paper and press flowers into it at school, so by the time seed paper crossed my path as an adult, I already understood the craft — how it's made, what it feels like, what it takes. A lot of people are genuinely surprised when they first hear about seed paper. I never was. It wasn't until much later that I knew I wanted to move my work in a more eco-friendly direction, and having that background made the idea click almost instantly. I never wanted to be left second-guessing whether what I was making was good enough. I wanted to know it was.  

Finding the right supplier took hours of searching, and it wore me down some days. Funny how once you finally find the right thing, it follows you around online for weeks afterward — but that initial search is its own kind of exhausting. You can't just grab the first option that pops up, which is usually Amazon. And look, you can buy seed paper on Amazon. It's cheaper. But is it high quality, traceable, made locally? No. So what exactly are you growing with it?

When I found Botanical Paperworks, it felt like everything clicked. Based in Canada. Six types of non-invasive wildflower seeds. Locally sourced recycled paper, pulled from schools and businesses. Award-winning. Women-owned. They checked every box I had, and then some. For me to stand fully behind what I'm giving people, I need to know my suppliers are standing behind theirs the same way.
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When my first shipment came in and I printed my very first card on that paper, I knew this was it. The paper smells like flowers. The texture is unlike anything else I've worked with. Seeds everywhere in it. The print sits on that texture in a way that just feels like it means more. Pictures genuinely don't do it justice — people pick one up in person and say, wow, this is so much nicer than it looks online, and I just smile, say, "yeah", and think - now you get it too.

What I love most is imagining what happens after someone decides to give one. I wish everyone who received a card would film themselves planting it — there's something so exciting about watching them go into the ground, and even more rewarding watching them grow. I'd love nothing more than getting to share in that moment with the people who plant them.

— Anita, YYC Crafts 🌱

The Seed Money Collection Started With a DM

Back in June, I got a message from the owner of Main Street Market. She said she'd been talking with a customer, and together they'd come up with an idea for a card. the line was simple: "I was going to buy you flowers, but all I could afford are the seeds."

I loved it instantly. I told her I was on it.

From there I just started brainstorming. Once I has that first line, more kept showing up - the kind of ideas that come easier once you've found the right tone. I ended up with a full set:

• "I was going to buy you flowers, but all I could afford are the seeds." 
• "I could have bought you flowers, instead I bought you a hobby."
• "Most cards end up in the trash. This one ends up in your garden."
• "A bouquet dies in a week. You're welcome for the upgrade."
• "Other people brought bouquets. I brought potential."
• "Anyone can buy flowers. I gave you an origin story."

Every card in the set has a watercolour bouquet of wildflowers on the front, with the line in black script laid overtop. They've got a bit of a wink to them - funny, but with something true sitting underneath the joke. That combination is exactly what made my Friend line take off. It took the right person to find those cards before they really caught on, and once they did, that became my most popular line. I have a feeling about Seed Money that it's cut from the same cloth.

There's something I like about these cards that goes past the design. They're not limited to one occasion - there's no "for birthdays only" or "just for anniversaries" attached to them. Anyone giving one of these is giving something with a bit of humour, a bit of truth, and an actual living thing on the other end of it. Hard to think of a better excuse not to buy flowers. 🌱

-Anita

What My Body Does (And Why Some Days Are Harder Than Others)

I mentioned in my last post that I'm recovering from a frozen shoulder, on top of something called thoracic outlet syndrome. I said I'd talk more about it another time. this is that post - not the whole story of how I got here, just what a day in this body actually looks like, and why it sometimes gets in the way of the work.

Thoracic outlet syndrome, in plain terms, means the nerves and blood vessels between my collarbone and first rib are getting squeezed. What that means for me, day to day, is that my pinky and ring fingers on both of my hands are numb pretty much all of the time. I get tingling that turns into something closer to a lightning shock running down my arm. My hands go purple more often than I'd like to admit.

The frustrating part is what sets it off. Not big dramatic things - just ordinary parts of my day. Working at the computer, washing dishes, digging in the garden, weeding, picking berries. Anything where my arms are working or my body's bent forward for too long. Which, if you know anything about making cards by hand, is most of what I do.

My body responds to the pain by tightening up to protect itself, except the tightening makes everything worse. The front pulls tight, which pulls my back tight, and by the end of most days the whole upper half of me is sore. I sleep with a hot water bottle most nights just to get my muscles to let go. On the harder days I'll take a muscle relaxant, but those come with a trade - they make me groggy, and getting up the next morning is its own kind of struggle. So mostly I just try to pace myself. Some days that's easier than others.

This is the part of why the gardening I wrote about last time has been slow going - a little digging each day instead of an afternoon of it. It's part of why some card-making days are shorter than I'd plant for, or why a pile of orders takes a bit longer to work through than it would otherwise. I'm not telling you this so it sounds like an excuse. I'm telling you because it's the truth of what running this alone actually looks like - not just the pretty parts. 🌱

​-Anita

Planting the Seed Paper

When you make cards for a living, you end up with scraps. Bits that miss the print, edges that get trimmed away. For years that used to bother me — it felt like such a waste of paper.

That frustration is gone now. When the scraps are seed paper, a misprint isn't waste anymore. It's just something else waiting to be planted. That little shift changed how I feel about the whole process.

This year we had a rainy spring — longer and wetter than forecast. My pots don't have drainage holes, so I had to keep them covered until the soil was dry enough to plant in. That pushed my planting later than I wanted. But the day finally came, and I got the paper in — a bit of soil on top, then a good soak to make sure the paper itself gets wet. There's something about that part I love. You plant it and then you wait, and the waiting is half the excitement.

The first morning after planting, I went out to check and found a peanut sitting in one of the pots. Paper pulled out, scattered across the yard. Squirrels. Or magpies — hard to say who the culprit was. For a couple of days it kept happening, a little more paper dragged out each time. I politely asked one of the local magpies to stay out of my pots. I really do enjoy the company of animals, and I like to think we came to an understanding — whether that's actually why it stopped, I can't prove it. But it stopped.

Around day ten, a few pots started sprouting. I nearly ran outside with my phone — that one made it straight to my Instagram stories. And then, like clockwork, I got a little too relaxed about it. Skipped a watering, then another. The sprouts stalled.

So I got vigilant. Water one day, skip a day, water again. Turns out letting the soil dry out fully between waterings is what got things sprouting again — which tracks, since wildflowers actually prefer it a bit dry. I'm keeping track of everything as I go. Slowly building up what I know about this paper, one pot at a time.

Right now I'm also digging out a section of my front yard for a wildflower oasis — something for the bees and butterflies next year. It's slow going. I'm only able to do a little bit each day while I recover from a frozen shoulder, on top of some thoracic outlet syndrome that's been its own battle. That's a story for another post.

For now, the pots are sprouting and I genuinely can't wait to see what comes up. The seed paper is a mix of six different wildflowers, and I know exactly which ones — I just don't know what any of them look like as seedlings yet. I could easily take a photo and look it up. I'm choosing not to. I'd rather wait and let the surprise happen the slow way.🌱
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— Anita

When I got my cards into The Hive locations in Nanton and Claresholm, I was so excited. I really believe in these plantable cards — the more people I can reach with them, the more we can make a positive impact together. And I say we because it's not just me. It's every person who buys a card, plants it, and grows something from it.
I'll be transparent — it also doesn't hurt to have a little more income coming in each month. 😄
The Hive was excited to have my cards too, which meant everything.
Then in early 2026 I reached out to The Owl's Nest in Olds. They accepted and I had my fourth retail location. If you haven't been to The Owl's Nest — go. It's beautiful inside.
Shortly after that Main Street Market in Okotoks reached out wanting my cards in their store. While working out that agreement, their other two locations also came on board. Before I knew it I was in seven stores.
It was a whirlwind. I was busy making enough product for all of the locations, driving out to restock them, trying to keep up. Overwhelmed and deeply grateful at the same time.
I should also mention Greenbriar Market — my very first retail partner in Calgary. They believed in my cards before anyone else did and I'm still proud to be there.
Looking back now it's settled into a rhythm. Some months are better than others. But having cards in multiple locations means a bit more money coming in each month — enough to order seed paper without having to wait, without having to stretch. Enough to keep making without the financial stress of wondering when I can afford the next order.
For a one woman show in a basement in Calgary, that's everything. 🌱
— Anita