Crafting Purpose-Driven Success and Conscious Leadership with Janna Willoughby-Lohr

[00:00:00] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads Podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, borders, and expectations. There's no sugar coating here, just the truth told by those who are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences, gathering women leaders together for over a decade. And this is the She Leads Podcast. I'm so excited to welcome my next guest. Her name is Janna Willoughby-Lohr and she's the founder and lead artist of Papercraft Miracles, an eco-friendly handmade paper art company that specializes in sustainable weddings, corporate gifting, and custom creations. Janna is an artist, an entrepreneur, a speaker, a podcast host, plus she's a poet, a musician, a musician. Why can't I say that? A rapper, and a mom. I am so excited to welcome Janna to our show. She's also the winner of She Means Business 2024 pitch competition. She's a top 10 NABO women business owner of the year in both 2025 and 2021. And she's created gifts for everyone from Lionel Richie to Lowe's. Her story is all about overcoming obstacles and resilience. And it's truly inspiring and uplifting and everything that she has done. She puts art, beauty, and sustainability at the center. So, welcome to the She Leads Podcast, Janna.
[00:01:41] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:43] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I'm so excited. When we first spoke and I got to know you and everything that you were doing, I was just blown away. I mean, we had an epic conversation. We probably should have recorded that first one, but for for those of us in in the audience, that don't know your brilliance. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, where you are in in the world and then sort of where you are in your business and then I think we can go back and talk a little bit about your origin story.
[00:02:08] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Sure. Well, I'm currently in Buffalo, New York. I'm a lifelong Buffaloonian aside from the four years I was in college in Asheville, North Carolina. And it's a magical place here and I'm really happy to have been a part of the renaissance that's happened in Buffalo in the last 20 years. And just to to see the city really kind of rise to its a little bit of its former glory is really special to see. I am currently working in my business, managing my team, doing crazy projects every single day, and I'm currently focusing on scaling the part of my business that creates more impact as opposed to scaling for growth. Because conscious businesses have a unique responsibility in the world to build the circular economy, right? Like we need to stop making and then throwing away, making and throwing away. And I know that a lot of artists don't have a huge amount of confidence and suffer from a lot of imposter syndrome. And sometimes I fall into that too. And And I've had a lot of people tell me in the last couple years like, "Hey, you have a lot to offer. You have a lot to that you know a lot more than you think you do and you should share this with other people." So, I've been I've been really focusing on doing more podcasts, doing more speaking engagements, and really just trying to educate people about how sustainability and our future are just so intertwined and possible.
[00:03:07] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Change is possible. Change is possible. And I just love that so much. [Topic Shift: Connecting Janna's philosophy to women's leadership] Because I feel like what you're doing is encapsulates so much of what women are doing and what women are thinking about when it comes to business. You know, we all sort of started our businesses for a variety of different reasons and we all need to earn a certain amount of revenue and profit in order for that business to grow. It It really needs to be the thing that serves us versus us, you know, becoming you tied to our business and giving all of ourselves. I have been talking to so many women about the word that you just said about impact and women as they're growing their businesses, scaling, getting past that elusive for many million dollar mark in their business. When they do get past it, they they say to themselves, "How can I now go beyond my business and truly make an impact?" And what I love about your business and how you started is that from the very beginning, the get-go, your business was all about impact. So, you you spoke about how you went to college in South Carolina, North Carolina,
[00:03:41] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: North Carolina.
[00:03:42] HOST: Adrienne Garland: North Carolina. Okay. Asheville. in in North Carolina. And did you go to school to be an artist?
[00:03:47] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: So, not initially. Well, sort of. I I had a creative writing scholarship to the school that I had never visited at all, but it was going to be cheaper for me to go all the way to North Carolina and live on campus than to stay home and take the bus to UB. So, I took a chance and I went as a total anonymous stranger to this place where I knew zero people at all and went to this school in North Carolina called Warren Wilson. And when I got there, I realized that they did not have a creative writing major. They had an English lit major, but I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I did not want to be an English professor. And I the courses that you had to take in order to get that major were just not things I wanted to I was just not interested in that at all. So during freshman orientation, I started looking through the course catalog to see what other classes they had at this crazy little liberal arts school that I happened to go to and I saw they had an entire book arts department in the art department and they had paper making and book binding classes and print making. I was like that's the coolest thing ever. I didn't even know you could take classes in that. And I met with that teacher and I said hey you know I love this I love all this stuff. I've been making my own journals forever and I want to I want to get into these classes. Which ones do you think I have a shot at getting into as a freshman. And she recommended a couple of them. And it got into both those classes. One was called artist books and illustration where I learned all about the art form of artist books where the form and the design and the materials and the words and the illustration and what it sounds like when you open it and what it feels like when you open it. They all work together to make a bigger concept or a bigger idea, like a whole body experience with a piece of art.
[00:04:47] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow.
[00:04:49] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: And I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. I want to do this. So, I took that class and then the next semester I took paper making and the first time I put my arms into that giant vat of pulp up to my elbows. It was like I don't know it like spoke to something in like my past life. I was like I have done this before. Wow. Like I just I already knew how to work with it. I I just understood it. Like me me and paper we we go way back. And so after I took th those classes plus a bunch of other weird random classes that I had picked to go into. I at the end of the year met with my adviser and I was like, "Hey, these are all the classes I took. What major am I working toward?" And he says, "Those are all electives, so nothing."
[00:05:33] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Oh, no.
[00:05:35] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Right. And this is a long time ago. I mean, I know I look very young, but it was a long time ago. And you couldn't take unlimited student loans back then, which I guess, you know, now that we look at it is definitely a good thing. But I said to him, I was like, "I can't do five years. Like, there's no way that I will be able to afford it. They're not going to give me enough loans. to do that. I don't qualify. So, I need this year to count. What am I supposed to do now? And he could have taken the typical, you know, I I know more than you guy route and said, just major in communications, you screwed up, whatever. But he did not. He didn't say that at all. And bless this man forever, John Casey. Great man. And he said, "What do you want to do?" Now, who asked? And I was like, "Well, I want to be an artist and I don't want to be broke. How do I do that?" And he said, "You should do that as your major." And I looked at him like he was insane because I was like, "That's not a major. If it was, all the artists would take it."
[00:06:17] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.
[00:06:18] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: And he said, "We have integrative studies as a major here. You already know what you want to do at 19 years old. Do you know how rare that is?" He's like, "You should do that. You should spend the rest of your time here figuring out how to learn what you need to learn to do what you want to do because, you know, you don't want to be an art teacher. You don't want to be an English teacher. you want to be a professional artist and obviously the art major has one two credit class business for artists and that's it and that's not going to cut it right so long story short made up my own major and I put entrepreneurial business and creative art together as one course of study and part of what we had to do when I made up this major was to pitch it to the board. So I got really good at pitching early and like telling people
[00:07:01] HOST: Adrienne Garland: yeah
[00:07:01] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: this is what I want to do and this is why I love it and we had to justify why we couldn't just do a double major in two different things. And it really started me thinking like what stops artists from just going to business school and then making lots of money. And I I really started diving into like what is the difference between artists who are successful and artists who are not? And it's really not just learning business skills because selling art is not like selling any other product. Yeah. Right. Like buy one get one does not work.
[00:07:29] HOST: Adrienne Garland: No.
[00:07:30] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: It's not why people buy it.
[00:07:31] HOST: Adrienne Garland: No.
[00:07:32] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: And so I reallyed started like researching a lot of different artists who were successful and I was like what are these artists who are successful while they're alive right because you the whole like oh you'll be famous when you're dead kind of thing I was like you know what is the difference and what are those artists who are successful what are they good at doing that these other artists suck at doing and it's communication, yeah, it's social work it's working with people and I built a whole social work component into the middle of my major and I took a lot of class classes about helping other people and working on communication skills and you know what do they call them like the soft skills right working on the soft skills and by the time I graduated I had a 25-page business plan I had a really crappy website because it was 2004 and that's all there was back in 2004 but I had a print catalog and some business cards and I was technically ready to start a business
[00:08:24] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Amazing. At 22 years old. That's so incredible and you know 200 before till now I don't think that there has been much progress in the field of combining entrepreneurship entrepreneurial thinking mindset approach with the business of art. You see some things here and there but is definitely something that artists struggle with to this very day. Why do for they have not changed the major of art No,
[00:08:55] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: like in ages, right? And you know, I think there's a lot of background in the art field where like it's it's a man's world, right? Like the art world is a man's world. And for a long time, women would create art or literature under the like a pseudonym, pretend to be a man, make art like a man would make it in order for someone to take it seriously and put it out there and make it visible. And then I mean, it's really like Judy Chicago changed the world, right? Like she changed the face of art for women. And it was like what what helps a woman artist be successful? It's connecting with other women, right? It's not it's not pretending to be a man. It's saying this is the experience of being a woman and it is valid. It is important. It is something beautiful and it brings people together. And I think that they still have not added any of that aspect into art majors. I mean, there may be, you know, like a couple more classes they've added, maybe. I don't know. I haven't checked in a while. It's been a long time since I was in college, but, you know, it's I see it every single day where there's so many artists who are like, "Well, if I make art, that's great, and if I make a little money, that's great, too. I would love to do this all the time, but nobody does that all the time."
[00:09:47] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Well, yeah. And that's just not true.
[00:09:50] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: It's not true.
[00:09:50] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. It's not true. And that's why you're here on this show, to showcase that it's not true that you can be a living, thriving, profitable artist. [Topic Shift: Critiquing Traditional Business Models and Capitalism] And I think something that you are tapping into that's even bigger than art and and art is everything, right? Art is life, but something that you're tapping into is the way that women do things has not always been given the the the kudos or the attention that it deserves. And you're hitting on these fundamental truths about community and bringing people together and things that we do naturally. And that has not been monetized, if you will, properly for eons. And I do see what you're talking about shifting. I think that so many women are starting to wake up to the fact that wait a minute what we are doing is valuable. We are 51% of the population. Why are we playing this old game that does not work for us and in fact tries to keep us down? So yeah, more and more women are starting, you know, they're they're throwing out those old models. They're even throwing out those old business models. We're not building businesses based on how businesses used to be created in the past because guess what? They don't work for us, right? It's why so many women leave corporate America.
[00:10:44] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Exactly. And like I mean I think it's really obvious in our society today that like traditional capitalism does not work for humans. It does not work for this planet. It is incapable of surviving in a system where it's supposed to take care of people. Yeah. Capitalism is based on exploitation and it's something that that as conscious business owner, like I'm sure everybody struggles with it every day. Like I've been consistently thinking about that meme of Will Frell standing in front of a wildfire being like, "Anybody want to buy some art?" Like, and the world burns behind you. Right. And
[00:11:03] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Right.
[00:11:04] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Our our whole society like quote unquote capitalism sort of worked better when women didn't work. Yeah. Outside the home. Right. Right. It only quote unquote works when women's unpaid labor is there to support men in capitalism. Wow. And like here comes the raging feminist in me. Like it's not I'm not going to hide it. It's been there for a long time. But you know that's how the system is set up right. And when women are not doing that unpaid labor like our system it doesn't work. Yeah. And it's currently also at the point where we as humans especially in the United states cannot afford for women not to work. Yeah. Right. Like everything is too expensive for women not to work. Yeah. It's so rare that you find a household where the mom isn't trying to do some side hustle because they can't afford extra stuff. Can't afford summer camp, can't afford this, can't afford that, can't afford regular bills. Forget saving money for college, right? Like who's doing that? Who has savings right in the the general population, right? you know, people who have master's degrees are driving Uber in their spare time, quote unquote spare time, because they literally cannot make ends meet. And I think it's wild that there's this, you know, kind of fictional femreneur out on the social media webs that's like, "Hey, look at how I'm making $30,000 a month. You could do it, too, by getting other people to spend $30,000 a month paying you."
[00:12:35] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes. Oh my gosh. Say it, Janet. not the answer, right? That's not the answer.
[00:12:40] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: No, no, it's not. And, you know, not to say that like coaching isn't great, but like, you know, there it's a lot of coaches that fall into that where like that's the only answer is making $30,000 a month and then you could use AI to run your business for you and you could just sit on the beach all day. I'm like, that is not the world we live in. No, that is not realistic. And, you know, the more that people are trying to aspire to that, to the 4h hour work week or whatever, whatever the hell it's called, right? Like it just causes the vast majority of people to be like, I'm a huge failure because I don't know how to do that or I don't want to do that or that literally is just not realistic for people. And the future of society is bringing back that community, right? And like back in the day when many women were at home, they still only made it work because they had other women around them. That's right. To help do the work. And you know, women, mothers in particular, are still expected to do all of that sht that they used to do and then also work full- time and have a side hustle, work like work like you don't have kids and then be a mother like you don't have to work. And it's, you know, men are doing way more parenting than they have ever done in the history of our people ever, which is great. More men are saying, "I have feelings, too. which is great, right? Like there is a big shift happening here and that like that's why there's such huge push back on the other side, right?
[00:13:50] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. It's it's funny because I everything that you are saying I I am just absorbing because I agree with you 100%. [Topic Shift: The Solution: Scaling and New Business Structures] And I I also think that women are leading that way and we're not we're not being quiet about it. it anymore, which I I'm here for. I love it. And I think that it's not just women, right? We we even my company, she leads media. We're we're hyperfocused on women, but underneath it, it's not just women because that swings the pendulum the other opposite direction and doesn't take into account everybody. And and we are here, you know, I think as human beings to be a global community, a g a global p perspective and that includes everybody. So I think women are sort of leading the way in this shift but it's not women for women only, it's women for humanity and that is definitely what she leads media is is all about. I think through uplifting women's voices, telling women's sto there are others that are going to see themselves in that story and and everybody sort of needs to get on board. I totally agree with you. Capitalism does not work anymore. And I think that the the challenge for so many women that have started businesses and and it seems that when women start businesses, they know something deep deep inside like that is the answer for them, right? The the corporate world that structure for whatever reason, maybe it worked for a little while does not work anymore. And so the the conclusion that they come to is let me let me take my brilliance, my expertise, my hard one experience and wrap that into a business. And then what happens is like this big slap in the face where they just don't know how to grow it beyond themselves or the majority of women only get to, you know, even $250,000 in in revenue a a year. And the the you know, what is it less than 2% of women even get past that million dollar mark. And that is so unfortunate because when women have money, they can use that money for influence and they use it for good. you know, and so what you know, I'll ask you. I know that you think about this all the time. What do you think is sort of the the answer? You know, is it a new business structure, business model, collective approach? Is it, hey, don't don't necessarily put all your eggs in one basket and create something that actually generates, you know, tons of revenue so that you can do the thing that you were put here on this earth to do. What are what are some of your thoughts?
[00:15:10] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: I mean, I think just even even going to the structure of how B Corps are set up and just thinking about that because traditional corporations are beholden to shareholders, right? Like they have to make whatever decisions make the most money for the shareholders. That's the bottom line. That's the whole purpose of business. business that are run that way. And you know, making the most money for the shareholders is never going to be taking care of the people that work there. It's never going to be taking care of the communities where that business is set up. It's not going to make a lot of money for the shareholders. And until the system of capitalism is not built that way on like we have to keep growing always, the company always has to grow year after year after year. That's it's not sustainable on this planet that we live on.
[00:16:03] HOST: Adrienne Garland: That's cancer.
[00:16:05] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Yeah.
[00:16:05] HOST: Adrienne Garland: When unchecked growth is cancer.
[00:16:08] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Yeah. And it's not good for the host, is it? Right. Like, right. And so, while yes, you want your business to grow, you want your business to grow sustainably. And if you are growing a company and making shtloads of money while paying your employees garbage and creating tons of waste material and shoving it back into a land bill or selling a product that is inherently bad for the earth or utilizing processes in your production that are inherently bad for people and bad for the earth. And if the only way that you're making money is built on exploitation of people and planet, you do. That's not real growth. It's not right.
[00:17:10] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. It's growth that leads to implosion in the end. Exactly. You know, it's just like it's the dot bubble all over again and we're in the AI bubble and all know it. It's going to happen, right? We're going to look back in five years and be like, "Wow, that was a poor life." And there's so many people who have absolutely no idea what the effect of AI is having on our environment every single day. Yeah. And it's not even just our Yeah. It's it's it is our environment and it's also our internal environment as well. I mean, I I know for sure that I have now started to question myself like what I just wrote. I don't know if that's good enough. I don't know if my thinking is clear enough. Let me pop it into AI and check myself. And so I'm starting to, you know, it's such a familiar and yet awful feeling of not having confidence, right? AI is almost feeding into me not having confidence that I try, you know, have tried so hard to velop over these years.
[00:18:03] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Yeah. And I think like people need to remember that like it's a robot. Yeah. It is a robot and it only can be as right as the data it has to compile together. And it's based on everything on the internet. Do you know how many idiots are on the internet? Oh my god. Do you know how much incorrect information is on the internet? I mean, even just today, I mean, I wish I could turn it off like the, you know, whatever the AI synopsis of the emails, but But even just today, I just glanced at what it said. It was a synopsis of an email chain and it was like, "Oh, so and so was offered a a position on the panel and these two people accepted." And I was like, "Actually, no, that's not what it says. That's not what went on in this email chain." It was like one person accepted, shared it with another person who wasn't even in the email chain, and that person said, "Yes, that's great."
[00:19:07] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.
[00:19:07] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: But that's the summary that the robot comes up with because it's only as good as the information that it's put into it. And the more crap that people are busting out blog posts and social media posts through AI, all of that crap that's spit out that's based on some things that might be true, but some things that are not true, it just adds like more crap onto the internet for it then to process through a more crap. And I think in the same way that like when you when you go to look and buy a pack of cigarettes, it has the warning on the side like this is awful for you and here's why. I think when you go on chat GPT, it should say at the bottom, you know, search responsibly because when you throw your blog post in there, one session on chat GPT is pouring out a bottle of water like this every single time. Fresh water and how much energy is it using, you know? And like when you go on and you create like an image through it, it's so much more. It's so much. It's like five gallons of water. for one of those little figurine images of you as an action figure. Like, is that something that's making the world better?
[00:20:13] HOST: Adrienne Garland: No.
[00:20:14] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: That's Yeah. Is there a possibility in AI to change the world for good? Yes. But only when it's used in a way that is going to save lots and lots of energy and resources. And I was like, you know, make it have it so the image on my computer screen, tell it to tell the printer to select whatever settings it needs. to select to make it look like that when it prints the first time. Yeah, that will be a great savings of time and labor and resources and ink and energy. That would be a good use for it, but that's not something that they're focused on using it for. They're taking away the creativity of humans and giving that to a robot instead of having the robot do stuff that actually is a waste of time, right? Like
[00:20:57] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah, that I mean I think that whole AI conversation is definitely worth having. And I I love how you're saying forget about everything because you can definitely go into a rabbit hole on this, but just have a thought. Use this responsibly and and know that what you're doing is requiring energy. I think we we as human beings don't understand the the workings of AI and all of the server power and everything that that requires because we don't see it. Where is it? You know, and so we almost can't wrap our heads around what type of energy this is using cuz, you know, I I don't I don't see AI servers anywhere near where I live, right? So, I I do think that just like everything too, right? Be aware of be aware of what you're saying. Be aware of what you're purchasing. Be aware of where you're purchasing and know that you as a consumer truly do have power. You have power in your choice and how you spend your money and where you spend your money. It makes a difference. But only if you make that choice time and time and time again. If you say, "Well, screw it. I'm this is just easier for me." Then you're just feeding into the system that is harming you.
[00:21:56] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And it's in some ways, you know, corporate huge corporations are really difficult to avoid. We have run all the mom and pop shops out of business to the point where there are certain things that you cannot get unless you go to Target or go to Amazon or go to Walmart, right? Like You can't get certain things anymore without doing that. And because none of these things have any kind of warning label on it, like warning, by purchasing this, you are supporting a company that the owner can have a $50 million wedding and his employees still don't have health insurance.
[00:22:42] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Mr.
[00:22:42] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: They still make so little money that they qualify for food stamp, which is insane, right? And I think in general when they I mean they've done all these studies that when women are leading companies the employees all do better. Yeah. When you treat employees like people instead of robots or animals, the company does better because the employees give a crap. Yeah. Like or you know they always say like no one wants to work these days. No one wants to work. I'm like no one wants to be exploited and now many more people have woken up to the fact that they are cogs of the machine. And of course they don't want to do that. People have no problem working for a company that obviously cares for them and their families at the earth, you know, like and people don't realize how Yeah, I think they're just starting to realize now, but like how much their choice of what they choose to spend their money and their time and their efforts on every day affects the whole world. grow. I mean, even right now, like it was it's Prime Day and Amazon sales are down 40%.
[00:23:59] HOST: Adrienne Garland: 40%.
[00:24:00] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Right. And it could have happened just like this last year, but there wasn't a huge social media campaign saying, "Stop buying stuff here. You don't need to go shopping for fun." Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's a lot of changing the culture because when there's so much of marketing and advertising that's based on lack scarity and that's that's the huge difference when like for me you know as as a person who sells art right traditional marketing doesn't work because it's based on what problem do you solve?
[00:24:22] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.
[00:24:23] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: And that kind of marketing is set up around every single human having a problem that needs to be solved instead of like you're okay as you are. Why don't you buy something that matters to you? If you're going to buy something, if you're going to have stuff that should matter. And it's not about how cute your outfit looks that day when you have no idea that it's made by tiny children in Indonesia who are in horrible conditions. Um, you know, like there's so many thing like some if somebody's going to use AI, why don't they design a web browser extension that pops up and says this is the impact of that thing you're about to buy.
[00:25:01] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Maybe somebody will maybe somebody will be listening to this conversation and don't know how to do that, but I know that it's maybe they will. designed that, right, [Topic Shift: Papercraft Miracles Business and Products] Jenna? Everybody that's listening in, you can see why when I spoke to Janna the first time, I don't even know how long we we spoke. It was probably for over two hours. And I feel like this conversation could go over two hours and and I would just be enraptured by it. I do want to definitely share what your business is all about because you do create such beautiful works of art and I want to give you the opportunity to share what it is that you do and where you do it and how you do it so that when people are thinking about gifts, when they're thinking about events, when they're when they're thinking about, you know, decorations that that you and what you do and people like you pop into their mind first. So, can you talk about your company, your beautiful company, and all that you do?
[00:26:00] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Sure. So, my company is called Papercraft Miracles, and it's an eco-friendly handmade paper art company. What does that mean? We don't make origami. I mean, sometimes we do, but that's not a lot of people think paper art and they think, "Oh, it's origami." We actually craft handmade papers from scratch using repurposed, recycled, and 100% plant-based materials. We We do treefree papers. We make papers with seeds in them that grow when you plant them. And we repurpose a lot of waste material from other local companies into the products that we make. So we have a couple of main departments. So we we do make a lot of handmade papers for different purposes. We make paper flowers that look so real you have to go touch them because surprise surprise the floral industry incredibly wasteful. And we make flowers that last for years, decades, and not just just a couple of days. And we purposely design all the products that we make to either last a very long time and be like heirlooms, conversation pieces, the special things that people have in their homes. And when people come over and they say, "Look at this thing. It's amazing. Here's where I got it. Let me tell you the story." We make those kind of things. And if it's not that kind of thing, we make something that is easily returnable to the earth that grows plants and food. and flowers that are beneficial for pollinators and you know we do it with repurposed recycled materials as often as possible cuz if you're going to have stuff the stuff
[00:27:07] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes, it it that's everything that we have been talking about and where can people go to see all of all of this we know you have a website can you share your website with us
[00:27:21] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: sure the website's really easy it's papercraftmiracles.com. If you Google it, you'll find all the places where we are. It has all of our social links and stuff at the bottom. That's definitely the easiest way to connect with us and our our main social platforms, Instagram and and LinkedIn. And I mean, we do every we do everything. And I hate, you know, it's funny because it goes against like the niche down niche down, you know, like aspect of like what is what is your business? But we do have many many different types of clients, right? Like We do sustainable weddings which is a BTOC right but we also do sustainable events which is a B2B thing right and we work with planners who do all of those different things and that's technically B2B but that's B2B TOC kind of thing so we have that we do we have retail products we sell wholesale of those retail products into other small businesses and and then we just do like wild weird oneoff custom orders and people are like I want this crazy thing that doesn't doesn't exist anywhere. Can you make it? And we say yes.
[00:28:16] HOST: Adrienne Garland: I just love
[00:28:17] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: I love that we have a company that is based in creative problem solving and saying yes to customers when they can't find something really unique and meaningful, right? Like that's our sweet spot. We make things that are, you know, you could get something unique at things remembered, right? But is it meaningful? No. No. Nobody wants that thing. I mean, guess people buy them, but the people who get them are like, "Yeah, this is going to end up at Goodwill. This is going to end up in a landfill. Nobody wants somebody else's music box that says Marcy on the top, right? Like, right? Like, why make that thing if it's not something that is really meaningful for other people? And you could have a macaroni necklace from your kid. Is it meaningful? Yeah. Is it unique? Probably not. And we are in that sweet spot where we make things that tell people's stories, that help people communicate and connect with other people. We We have people get cards from us and those are the cards that people hang on the fridge. They tape it to the mantle and they say that is my connection with someone who cares about me. And I think that's the biggest problem with our whole society these days is that there's so many people who feel so disconnected from everyone else in their community that it's so easy to hate on other people, to think other people are the reason that you are struggling and to feel alone.
[00:29:36] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.
[00:29:37] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: And when you purposefully make things with your hands, the energy from me and my team of artists goes into all the things that we make. So beautiful. And then the people who buy them from us, their energy goes into it. When they buy that card and they write a very special message on the inside of it and then they give it to somebody else. And our energy, the customer's energy, the final recipient's energy, it all goes into that. thing and you know it's it's all about the intention and it helps people to feel connected in a tangible way and the more the world becomes digital and intangible the more people are starving for connection like that every single day we're starving to hold something real in your hand that doesn't have batteries.
[00:30:26] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Oh my gosh, you're so right on. [Topic Shift: Personal Value of Tangible Connection] It's so funny. I love of love cards and just paper and journals and all of it and I always have since I was young. And I have kept so many cards that are special to me from when I was probably in middle school up until now. And it's not it's not if the card sometimes I keep cards that are really beautiful, but It's not just the the card. It is literally what the the person has written in the card that makes it so special. And I have boxes and boxes of them because I don't want to get rid of them. And I look through them and it it is it's it's memories that are so deep that taking a picture on my iPhone, it will never have that same emotion. resonance as knowing that, you know, my best friend from seventh grade wrote, you know, BFF forever with the, you know, the heart around it. That that sticks with me forever. And I so I I personally love what you do from the depths of my soul because I know what that feels like. I know what art feels like and what creating something feels like. And it doesn't it doesn't have to be perfect. But if it's made with intention, if it's made with love, if it's made being informed by knowing, you know, what that person is looking for, there's nothing more special than that. It's love. It's love. You know, art is love and and that's it. Yeah.
[00:31:51] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: It's like our slogan is like handmade with love and a little bit of magic. And you know, if if you don't feel loved by someone, anyone doesn't need to be a romantic partner. If you don't feel loved and cared for by someone, how how do you exist in this world, right? And you know, when everything is on the internet, Yeah. it's so easy for people to jump in the comments and say some stupid crap. Yeah. That they would never ever ever say to someone's face. Yeah. And the more people get in the habit of, you know, not supporting each other, not being there, each other, not going to a potluck, not showing up at somebody's house to help them fold laundry because they're totally overwhelmed, right? The more that people are not doing that kind of stuff because they're like, "Oh, I don't want to impose." Or they're they seem fine online, you know, like we're seeing this huge rise in suicides all over the place.
[00:32:48] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Suicide, depression, mental health issues. Yeah. And it's all a result [Topic Shift: Conclusion and Call to Action] anxiety. Yeah. It's it's a terrible result of this like hyper connection that is is it's so surface level. It's actually false. It's not truly connection. And we have to do a better job. And I I definitely think that women are going to be the ones at the forefront of bringing us back to community, an evolved community for sure. You know, we're not going to go back to homestead days, I don't think. Although you never know with everything that's going on in the world climate wise and and politically and all of that other stuff. But I I definitely agree that, you know, women are the ones that are calling things out, that are doing things differently, that are attempting at least to bring people back together. And you're one of them. And I just I really appreciate you. I really appreciate what you're doing. I love that you're sharing that widely. Keep going. You know, come on. And this goes for everybody who's listening too. If you are wanting to make an impact, don't think that your voice isn't important. Get out there. Put yourself out there and and start in an imperfect sort of way. Even if you've built a super successful company, you might not have gotten yourself out there and your message out there, get it out there. We need to hear it. So, yeah.
[00:33:55] GUEST: Janna Willoughby-Lohr: Exactly. Because you know, it's so short.
[00:33:57] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah, it's so short. So, Janna, I want to say thank you so much. I I really could spend hours and hours with you, and I I probably will. I'm going to probably come up to Buffalo and visit and see your amazing warehouse, workshop, everything that you do, and and visit Buffalo because I I don't even know if I've ever been to Buffalo, and I'm a New Yorker, born and and bred, and I don't think I've ever been to Buffalo. So, It's it's a special place here, the city of good neighbors.
[00:34:36] HOST: Adrienne Garland: Well, thank you so much and everybody, please visit the papercraftmiracles.com website and connect with Janna. And uh thank you so much for listening. If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and shaping what's next. We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them. If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next, I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsia.com/voice and leave a voice memo or not. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Thank you so much for listening. This is the Sheile Leads Podcast Network.