I have been in love with paper my whole life. I’m especially drawn to paper with strong designs, and interesting surfaces. I like manipulating paper. I like how it transforms. Each card is a small canvas, a 4x6 or 5x7 or 6x6 design challenge. As I travel, I enjoy buying paper, stamps and trims. Currently, my cards start either with color stock that “pops” the top layer of a good, fun paper, or a cream or white stock. Sometimes paper “picks” me, or I find a trim or stamp that needs a home. The fun is combining what I call “elements” in a design that says to a customer “pick me up and look.” As I learn techniques, I incorporate them into the cards, working with embossing powders, stamps, antiquing, chalks, pencils, markers, spray bottles, pop dots, glues, shapes, ribbon, silk flowers, found or re-purposed items, and sometimes my own drawings. Cards may be minimalist or layered, funny or elegant.

The badpoodle logo was inspired by company president and founder, Bernard Spink. While with us, Bernard, a 17 pound mini-poodle, introduced us to a life philosophy based on the principles of “joie de vivre” and “enough about you, what about me” and “what’s for dinner.” I asked my daughter, now an animator, to draw a picture of what she thought Bernard did during the day while we were out, and the wonderful image now used as the logo was born. I always thought it would one day have a special place in my life. It’s a perfect illustration of the company motto, “life is too short for obedience.”

In 2003, I began paper play in earnest, making and sending friends and relatives presents of cards (play time for me and easy to ship). I began seeing that my friends were displaying the cards and getting happy reviews from those receiving the cards. One of the special people I made cards for was my godmother. As a child, I called her my fairy godmother, and the name stuck, and she signs her cards to me as F.G. She encouraged me to “go public.” In 2006, I launched badpoodles handmade cards, a business infused with the badpoodle notion of “let’s play now.”

Someone called me a paper artist, but surely that’s too grand for a badpoodle. I’m just having fun as a card-maker. Sit. Stay. Enjoy my cards.