COMPANY UPDATE FOR THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK 3/21/2020

Well…that escalated quickly…one minute we were in the basement working away on wedding invitations and the next minute…everything is canceled. Now what?

Obviously, the entire world knows about Covid-19 now and is experiencing the changes brought on by such an immense and widespread outbreak. Our studio has been closed to the public for at least 10 days at this point and Becky and I have been practicing our #communalsolitude with our families for that long as well, so the number of points of contact inside the studio space is very minimal. Despite this, we have also taken steps to sanitize the workspaces, computers, restrooms and any commonly touched surfaces just to be extra cautious.

For those who don’t know, our business is located in Buffalo, NY (the Western-most part of New York State). As of 8pm tonight, our entire state is closed…all non-essential businesses must be closed or have 100% of employees working remotely.

What does this mean for us? Luckily, the studio is located in the same building as my home and is not usually open to the public so I am able to come downstairs and continue to work on our open orders and to make new things and fill new orders that come in. My faithful assistant, Becky, is working remotely on some tutorials and online workshops which will be up on the website soon and anything else we can think of for her to keep doing from home while our state is on lockdown.

This also means that for the foreseeable future all large events and gatherings are canceled…so the wedding industry? Screeching halt. Ugh.  While this is certainly devastating to us, our clients and our business, we have not lost hope that we will all get through this and there will be weddings and celebrations again soon(ish?).

In the meantime, we are so very glad that the part of our business that got us our start, our super special sustainable gifts, is still there to hold us up through the tough times. And these are tough times.

I keep being reminded of a lesson I learned in my East Asian Civ class in college…where my teacher was telling us about his favorite Chinese character…the character for “Crisis”. It is actually made up of two characters, one meaning “danger” and the other meaning “opportunity” and while there certainly is danger abound, in equal parts there are opportunities for growth, reflection, rest and change. And we can all agree that we needed some change. But it is going to be hard for awhile. Really hard.

When you can’t go see your friends and loved ones and all the extroverts of the world are on high alert and are missing their need for interaction, a unique handmade gift delivered to their door can be the difference between a good week and a terrible one.

We are happy to have a full line of handmade gifts including journals for getting our thoughts out, seed bombs for starting a garden, paper flowers for brightening up your brand-new closet/office and more.

Right now, my husband’s work was deemed non-essential so he is home without pay and Papercraft Miracles has become the breadwinner for my family and our team. We appreciate all of our clients, fans, friends and family so much for all of your support over the years and now, more than ever, we need you.

If you are able to purchase a gift to send, please shop our online store. We have shipping options and curb-side local pick-up available. We also have gift cards available that you can save for later or give to your friends who have had to postpone their weddings and celebrations to help them make their day special when they finally get to reschedule. If you can support us by placing an order, we will be so appreciative.

We understand that this epidemic has brought financial hardship to many other families as well and if you are not able to make a purchase, we get it. We ask that you please “like” and “follow” us on social media (Instagram & Facebook) and please share our posts, review us on Google and recommend our business to your friends and family who may be able to help us through this.

I will also be sharing some of my poetry and music on our social media pages as well to help brighten the world a bit more and to get my extrovert-fix…so stay tuned for that. The first song went up yesterday on Facebook here.

We hope you and your families are practicing adequate caution in your daily lives and to all the healthcare workers, grocery store workers, food service workers and other public servants, we salute and appreciate you so so much. The rest of us truly could not be doing any of this without you providing these essential services.

We will get through this. Just remember that we are not all alone…we are alone together.

Watch this song by my wonderful friend Lindsay Katt if you ever need a reminder.

So much love to all of you. Take care of each other. We will see you again soon.

Janna Willoughby-Lohr, owner