OUR TEAM
The Papercraft Miracles team is made up of fabulous female artists, innovators and creators!
Learn more about our amazing team members below.
SYDNEY STRANO
studio assistant & miracle worker
Creature of unknown origin
Janna Willoughby-Lohr is an artist, speaker and entrepreneur from Buffalo, NY. She founded Papercraft Miracles in 2013 as a way to affect positive change in the world.
She was awarded a $25,000 Ignite Buffalo Grant in 2018 and was named 40-Under-40 from Stationery Trends Magazine in 2019. In 2021, her team created 500,000 seed bombs for Lowe’s Spring Garden Giveaway event. Janna was also a contestant on Meet Your Makers Showdown, a crafting competition TV show on discovery+. She was awarded the Women in Manufacturing Award from Business First in 2023. Additionally, she was the winner of the She Means Business pitch competition in 2024. Top 10 NAWBO Women Business Owner of the Year in 2021 & 2025. She’s worked with Pinterest, Twitter and Capital One and recently created custom gifts for Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire.
She is the host of Reach the Stars Podcast--which features inspiring stories of persistence, passion and purpose. Janna is a board member and Chair of the DEIB committee for NAWBO’s Buffalo/Niagara Chapter and is a founding member of their Diversity & Inclusion Task Force. An accomplished poet, rapper and musician and she is a proud mama to three little kiddos. She likes bright colors, giggling and things that are small.
JANNA WILLOUGHBY-LOHR
founder & lead artist
Life has never been a straight track for me. Curvilinear describes my hair, body and aura. I am in awe and one with the power of paper. I respect its ability to create and destroy. Imagination is my talent, devising better ways to do things is my skill and taming chaos is my superpower. My continuing mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where I have never gone before. I hope you’ll dance like no one is watching with me.
LORRIE MATTAR
studio assistant & miracle worker
Ruby Merritt is a professional Visual Artist that merges environmental sciences, ecology and awareness for local natural spaces to be viewed as an art form in itself. Merritt considers herself as an Eco-Artist and has found a familiar niche in the ‘art and science’ biome, producing work that is process based, using earth cycles, such as rock and water cycles (evaporation), to manipulate and nurture her work. Conceptually, Merritt uses her work to share awareness for environmental issues and promote the pursuit of a sustainable planet.
Merritt received her BFA, concentrating in Drawing and Painting from the State University of New York at New Paltz & her Masters of Fine Art in Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo.
RUBY MERRITT
studio assistant & miracle worker
