I Just Make stuff and add it

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 🌱