Paper It Fun!

When I start with my PaperIllusion ™ story and how this product came to be, it is necessary to go back to what actually started my fascination with decorating and the development of home decorating products.

By education, I am a business teacher and taught for six years in business colleges and high schools while my husband was in the service and before our children came along. Jim, my husband of 42 years, went into the hotel industry following his tour in Vietnam, and all the subsequent corporate moves necessitated my start into decorating our home to have it ready for resale when the next transfer occurred! Our daughter, Jennifer, was born in Virginia, which is where we purchased our first home—a tiny townhouse, but it was a fresh, clean palette to start on and truly a PALACE to Jim and I. With every house we have had, Jim and I chose to make it personal to us. So, with being an at-home mom, and the budget being very tight, I experimented with decorating that was inexpensive yet personal. Wallpaper was a primary decorating means in the 60’s and 70,s, but the cost of wallpaper was often beyond the budget. So, I started stenciling and cutting designs on the liner in bacon packages and incorporating design and pattern from so many inspirations around me. Instead of wallpapering an entire wall, I would cut elements from the paper and create a “new border” or cut stencils to compliment the wallpaper and stencil on fabrics for the draperies, curtains, or bedspreads! (unbleached muslin came in some very wide widths, was very inexpensive and a perfect surface for decorating!)

One house led to another as Jim was transferred every 1-3 years. In the meantime, John arrived when we lived in Minnesota and with each house I did more papering, stenciling, painting, making draperies and truly decorating on a budget. The houses all sold very quickly and I was given such a great gift—to be home with our children while pursuing what had become a passion—learning more and teaching other housewives such as myself—how to personalize and to be PART OF their home. While in Minnesota, I began teaching night classes through adult education and knew my heart belonged in teaching—but I wanted to teach decorating techniques!

Professionally, I did not begin my true career until the early 1980 when we moved to Hudson, OH. Here our children were in elementary school and I knew I wanted to do more with this passion for decorating but didn’t know how to take the next step. On a snowy day, while leafing through the back of a country decorating magazine, I spied an ad that read “Learn to Stencil Professionally.” So, I traveled to Vermont to take a 3-day Adele Bishop Seminar. From that time on the profession began of teaching, opening a home-studio and distributorship for Adele Bishop products, and teaching national seminars for Adele Bishop. In the mid-80’s I had an opportunity to design stencils, teach and write instruction books for Plaid Enterprises in Atlanta, GA. For the next 15 years, through Plaid, I traveled nationally and internationally teaching and promoting home décor stenciling. During this time, I opened in 1988 and when the children were finishing high school and going off to college, I started another business in Hudson, OH, The doors opened for a retail/wholesale distributorship, Stenciler’s Emporium that grew by leaps and bounds!. Carrying many different brands of decorating supplies, this one-stop shop continued to grow through the 1990’s while I was still designing, teaching, and demonstrating for Plaid.

It was in the mid-90’s at one of these trade shows that another design company was formed with my new business partner, Liza Glenn, and we formed J & L Design and developed Decorator Blocks and glazes which eventually was licensed to Plaid Enterprises. This reverse stenciling technique, using a translucent glaze added another decorating solution for beginners and professionals alike. Always on the lookout for new decorating trends, and being part of the organization Stencil Artisans League, I saw where faux techniques were coming to the forefront and less and less wallpaper was being used. I have always loved wallpapering, and knew that this trend would again resurface as it had done in the 70’s and 80’s. A trend that was now being seen in the custom market was hand-painted wallpaper that the artists would design, paint, let dry, tear into stone-like pieces, paste and then apply to the wall. The look was incredible—an instant faux finish—yet the process was less than easy, and certainly not for a beginning faux painter.

This whole concept for PaperIllusion™ came from these hand-painted papers and the desire to make this “look” accessible, affordable, and doable for a beginning decorator. And so began PaperIllusion™ which Liza and I licensed to F. Schumacher & Company in New York City. I became very involved with their design team in the development of colors, surfaces, instructions while making trade show appearances to introduce this new decorating technique for beginners. At one of these shows, the executives from QVC knew this was a product for them. I had been on QVC with Carol Smith and Plaid Enterprises for several years before PaperIllusion™, so this was just another product for me to share. It was such fun to receive the phone calls from people who had tried PaperIllusion™ for the first time and were delighted with what they had done!

With the artists at Schumacher, I worked hand-in-hand to develop a new kind of engraving plate that allowed for color gradations and NO MATCH. This was the hardest concept for the wallpaper designers to understand; yet when they saw the finished torn look, they were amazed. The paper had to be a special paper that was prepasted but a surface that would adhere to itself for the overlapping, would tear to give that ragged edge AND be durable and washable.

New patterns, colors, and techniques are constantly being developed. The paper is now being manufactured and distributed through a large Canadian company and they are very excited about all the new techniques, the new look for the packaging, and all the usages being found for PaperIllusion™. I am making them aware of all of you on PaperItFun and believe me, we DO want to hear what you have found to do with this product. Please take before and after pictures too and let me know what colors and looks you would like to see in PaperIllusion™!

So, in a rather lengthy story, that is how my career began and how PaperIllusion™ came to be. Even though I am not traveling as I had in previous years, I am still involved with the evolution of PaperIllusion™ and plan to be part of this product for a long time. My heart has always been for the beginning decorator—the one who wanted to make her home special for her family—and one who did not have the available funds to hire it done professionally. That is exactly where I began and where my heart remains today. Now, my “custom” work is done for family and friends—our children’s homes have become a whole new palette for me. Plus, Jim and I are now enjoying a less hectic lifestyle with a summer home on beautiful Lake Chautauqua in Western New York and we can be closer to our beautiful grandchildren. To get away from the cold northern winters, we recently built a winter home on the west coast of Florida. These homes have lots of surfaces to paint, and with each home I try to develop some new techniques that will be shared with others. It seems that each day I have to play in paint!

Enjoy this place in time and embrace the family and friends with whom you share each day.

God Bless:

Jane

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