Meet Cara Schaarschmidt of Grape Street Greeting Co. in Park Hill

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cara Schaarschmidt.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Cara. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I spent almost 20 years in corporate marketing as a copywriter and communications manager. There wasn’t a conference call I hadn’t been on, or an email I hadn’t tried to ignore. While creative writing was always my passion, I always thought it was going to be corporate writing that paid the bills. So, I tried to fit my square-ass peg into that round hole.

When I got laid off in 2016, I was initially so scared! I’d never really not worked. Suddenly I had all this time on my hands and so much pent-up creative energy, not to mention some questionable thoughts about being home with my child all day. I decided that I was going to make some snarky homemade greeting cards to make my friends laugh, so that at least I’d be putting something out into the world. I bought a vintage typewriter and some card stock and typed greeting cards by hand. The first one said: “Thank you for not calling HR.” It was so me.

That holiday season, I tied up a few stacks of the cards with ribbon and kind of sheepishly gave them as novelty gifts to give to my pals. Because my friends are supportive and nice, they said things like, “Hey, these are really funny; you should sell them.” or “These are cute; I would totally buy these.” And I thought they were just being their normal supportive and nice selves. But then they started asking for more cards. And then the people they were giving the cards to started asking if they could get cards, too. And from there it started to grow. I listed my cards for sale online, sold a few here and there, got another marketing job, and sold a few more cards on the side.

A few months later, for reasons I didn’t totally understand at the time, I acquired a used commercial heat press. It seemed like a bargain, and I thought I would try to make something other than cards. I designed some snarky slogans and pressed them on to tea towels and canvas shopping bags to give to my friends. Those same friends started up again with their support and the niceness and the urging me to sell tea towels along with my cards. So, I did.

The first year I had an online business, I worked full time in marketing and sold about 100 cards and 50 tea towels on the side. Three years later, I work at this full time making almost ten thousand tea towels and fifteen thousand cards a year that I sell both online and in 40 shops across the country. The typewriter is gone, but I’m still a one-woman show. I make and print and ship everything with my own two hands.

I always kind of knew that I didn’t belong in corporate America. I have a hard time with BS, I don’t always respond well to authority, and it takes an act of someone’s god for me to properly pay attention during a conference call, but somehow, my knack for figuring things out as I go, taking a risk here and there, and making people laugh all turned into the dream I didn’t know I had. And now there’s no turning back, human resources be damned.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think owning a small business always comes with challenges, especially when it’s so often creative people who start businesses like this. If someone would have told me a few years back that selling creative wares online and in shops involved getting the right licenses and paying the right taxes and doing way more accounting than a writer-slash-marketing major ever bargained for, I may have never jumped in. When you start a business accidentally on purpose, you figure those things out along the way and you make a lot of mistakes. And then you learn how to find the nice people at the IRS who will help you fix those mistakes without arresting you.

My first few months in business, I sent samples of my cards to a few shops in Denver thinking they might want to carry them. Several shops responded back to me asking to see my line sheet. And I smiled and nodded and said, “Sure!” all the while having no earthly idea what a line sheet even was. I have basically figured everything out along the way—without a plan, without an idea how a lot of things work in the retail business, and often with zero idea of what I might do next. Would I advise starting a business this way? Probably not. Has it worked for me? So far, I think it has.

Along the same lines of figuring things out as I go, another challenge has been finding the right voice for my company. Spoiler alert: my own voice was the right one all along. When I started out, I was really afraid of what some people would think of the language and humor I use in my work; I spent SO much time worrying about it. I initially stayed away from being political or controversial in any of my designs or social media posts. I tried to appeal to every person out there. But then I started to realize, just like in my everyday life, I’m not everyone’s bag.

I’m a big personality with a big mouth a lot of opinions about the world and how people treat others. And somewhere along the way, I remembered that’s a really good thing about me. Once I started to share my views online and add them into my work, my audience really started to identify itself. I could be a staunch feminist, a supporter of civil rights, and as liberal as my little Trump-hating heart wanted to be, and instead of worrying about the people who unfollow me when I say Black Lives Matter or when I support Planned Parenthood, I embraced the crowd who stuck around and cheered, the people who really ‘get’ me. So now, I have a big Instagram following of people who feel like my friends, people who care about the same issues I do, who want to fight for what’s right and fair in the world, and who want to have a little bit of a laugh along the way. Letting down my guard and being a true version of myself in everything I do for Grape Street Greeting Co. was scary at first, but it has been the smartest business decision I’ve made.

Grape Street Greeting Co – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Grape Street Greeting Co. creates greeting cards, tea towels, coasters, and other fun gift items that are mildly offensive, highly entertaining, and handmade with sass in Denver, Colorado. Everything is handmade and created by me, and I lean toward feminist mom humor with an edge.

Most of what you see in my designs starts as something I say out loud, often accidentally and a little too loudly, and then it morphs from there. I get so much inspiration from marriage and parenting and from my hilarious group of girlfriends, and the things that get blurted out inadvertently are often the best things to put in print. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re all pretty much thinking the same things, but I’m the type who says the quiet part out loud. And then I put it on greeting card and it resonates with people.

I lost my mom suddenly 14 years ago, and received so many cards that were very thoughtful and appreciated, but they also said things like (the dreaded) ‘thoughts and prayers’ when, as a non-religious person who was angry and in shock, what I often needed was someone to say, ‘listen this is bullshit and it sucks balls’. And that’s why you’ll find sympathy cards in my line that say, “This all sucks balls, and I’m sorry.” Because that’s exactly what I would say to a friend who lost someone or got divorced or got laid off. Life sucks balls sometimes and thoughts and prayers aren’t always helpful!

I think that’s both what sets me apart and what I’m most proud of at the same time. Above all, I want to give people something that makes them feel like they’re being genuine, like they’re actually giving a card that sounds like something they would say in real life instead of something they would say when forced into being on their best behavior. I don’t really do ‘best behavior’ around here; it just wouldn’t be me.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My mom had the sharpest wit of anyone I’ve ever met. She was smart, quick, and always surprised people with the hilarious things she said. Making her laugh became my mission as a kid because she didn’t do it easily. She wasn’t going to give a pity laugh for some lame joke, you had to really work for it; it had to be real. So, I’d have to count all the times that I genuinely made my mom laugh among some of my favorite childhood memories. As I got older and smarter, I was really able to crack her up, and nothing was more satisfying to me. I think she’d be proud of what I’ve accomplished with my little company. Making people laugh for a living seems like the most fitting tribute I can give her.

Contact Info:

• Website: grapestreetgreetings.com
• Email: grapestreetgreetings@gmail.com
• Instagram: @grapestreetgreetings

Image Credit:
The first personal photo should be credited to DN Photos. (it’s listed in the lower righthand corner of the photo) the rest are personal photos. Thanks!

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