Interview with Arielle Elise Designs
Read our latest interview with Karina from Arielle Elise Designs! Karina creates gorgeous paper flower arrangements for birthday parties, nursery decor, and so much more. She also sells templates, and loves teaching others how they can create floral arrangements of their own. She has even used some of our PrintWorks Cardstock in her projects. We love seeing how she takes each piece of paper and makes it into something truly spectacular!
Learn more about Karina and her work below!
Tell me a little about yourself.
“My name is Karina and I am the creator behind ArielleEliseDesigns. I have four beautiful children; Ezra 6, Arielle 5, Eli 2, and Luka who is 1 years old. I have been married to the love of my life Todd for 9 years. We recently moved from Illinois to Texas about two years ago and live in the beautiful city called New Braunfels.”
How did you begin making such beautiful paper floral creations?
“My journey to paper flowers all started when I wanted to create floral backdrops for my daughters first birthday party. I went on Pinterest to look for some ideas and started creating my own flowers for her backdrops. Within a month, my husband helped me open up an Etsy account under the name ArielleEliseDesigns as “Arielle Elise” is my daughters name and the reason why I fell in love with paper flowers. Within a week of opening up my shop, I received my first order and that first order kick-started my at home career of creating beautiful floral sets for clients.”
What is Arielle Elise Designs all about?
“ArielleEliseDesigns is all about being creative, bringing our customers’ and my own dreams to life. Giving other people the tools and unique technique to be able to create in their own homes. I find great joy in seeing other people take my vision and creation and making it with their own twist. That’s what keeps me going and wanting to keep pushing forward.”
Where do you get your inspiration to create your designs?
“When I first started creating paper flowers, my inspiration came from the search results on Pinterest. I would spend hours looking at other people’s work and just be in awe of their work. Within a few months of making flowers with templates that I had found free online, I decided to start making my own floral templates. I would spend hours on Google looking at all types of flowers and studying their petals. At times, I would even go to the stores to buy flowers so I could dissect them and study the petals. I eventually started making my own floral designs. I received such great positive feedback from my followers on Instagram that I decided to start selling my own floral templates. Mother Nature has truly been an inspiration for my floral designs.”
How do you manage your time with family and creating such beautiful designs?
“Time management– I have to say has always been a weakness of mine and I would be lying to you if I said working from home and managing home life has been easy. Truthfully, the last year has been a little rough as with four kids, well, life can be a little chaotic. Thankfully, I have such an amazing support system who helps me tremendously during the day, but I do find that what works for me at this moment in my life is working at night when the kids are asleep. During the day it is pretty much impossible getting anything work related done, but at night when they are asleep I can work uninterrupted – and let me tell you it’s amazing.”
These projects were made with our Gold Glitter Cardstock and White Glitter Cardstock.
Do you have a favorite holiday/life event to create for?
“One of my favorite things to work on are custom orders for nurseries. Many of my clients reach out because they are in the process of decorating their baby’s room and I just adore making floral sets for nurseries. Makes my heart melt when clients send me pictures of their babies nursery with my flowers mounted on the wall.”
Any advice for anyone interested in learning how to make paper flowers?
“I do have to say, that when you first start getting into the world of paper flowers, it can be a little intimidating, but I always tell my clients who purchase my templates that ‘practice makes perfect’, and to never compare their work to others. It takes time, but with patience and practice it can be done.”
With all of the different options available to express one’s creativity, why do you choose paper?
“There are so many mediums out there that one can use to create these beautiful floral arrangements, but I fell in love with the look of card stock. I find that card stock can hold the petal shape very well and there are amazing colors out there.”
Where do you see Arielle Elise Designs in the future?
“When I first started ArielleEliseDesigns, my intentions were to solely focus on making arrangements for clients. As time has gone by, my passion has been on creating floral templates and teaching my clients how to make paper flowers. I would love to continue teaching and offer local workshops for those who would love to learn my techniques. Possibly reach a wider audience and start offering online workshops as that has been highly requested from my followers. Overall, I want ArielleEliseDesigns to be a place of learning and guidance and for people to fall in love with the art of paper flowers.”
What other projects/endeavors are you working on?
“Besides making paper flower sets and selling them on my Etsy shop ArielleEliseDesigns, I have launched my own template website where customers can purchase PDF, Hard Copy, or SVG templates.
To go along with my templates, I have created a YouTube channel, where I upload video tutorials on the templates I sell on my template website.
I also have video tutorials on my Instagram TV, along with picture tutorials under my Saved Highlight Stories. I also share a lot of tips such as card stock I like to use, tools that help me craft, images I use for centers, and quick picture tutorials on my Instagram feed.”
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