#7: Meet The Crafting Queen

I have always bought greeting cards for my family, friends and husband, but never did it occur to me to make a card or personalize an already bought card. 

After talking to Karuna Chauhan, founder of Lulupu, I cannot wait to share her story with you. Hailing from a simple family, with an ex-army officer as her dad, she received abundant encouragement and support from her parents in order to prove herself. “Though I was always inclined towards the creative line, there were not enough options to discover the right course or education. Distressed through B.com, I decided to give NIFT a shot. But fashion was not my thing and I realized it later of course, when I didn't make it. I went ahead and completed my MBA in Marketing from Symbiosis, Pune, in 2007 and joined a job at a leading IT firm. Four years into the corporate job, I realized I wasn't cut for the hardcore politics. Plus IT stopped interesting me. I think it was around the same time things changed and for the good,” shares Karuna.

Passionate about craft ever since she was a kid, she would go to pick up cards from Archies’ for special occasions. But it did not allow her to customize it beyond a certain point. And always keen on creating a hand-made card with customized messaging, she believed it added an additional human element to the entire gifting process. “While I love everything to do with paper craft, people tend to mix it up with a more widely known form of paper art, which is Origami. However, the fundamental difference between the two, is that the traditional concept of Origami uses only one piece of paper, to create shapes, without the use of any scissors or glue. However, paper craft lets you deploy various techniques on paper or card as the primary artistic medium, for creating 3D objects as well,” says Chauhan.

As a paper craft artist, she uses various kinds of craft supplies and tools to create more professional looking handmade cards, scrapbooks, altered items, home decor which gives her work a fun and free-spirited feel. She makes all kinds of handmade invites, favour boxes, 2D/3D greeting cards, quilled paper art, scrapbooks for all occasions, altered arts like book ends, wall hangings and home decor products out of paper and related products.

On relocating to Bangalore for work in 2009, Karuna decided to use her free time to try her hand at hand-made greeting cards. Since her mother’s birthday was approaching, she decided to source the raw material. That’s when she spotted the colourful quilling strips. She navigated through a few DIY videos on YouTube to understand the technique better.

“As time progressed, I became extremely addicted to this form of paper craft and simultaneously started exploring other forms as well. I began a blog called Crafting Queen and kept updating it with my latest work and this gave me an opportunity to interact with other paper crafters not just in India, but also abroad. While the basic material was available in India, for the next level most of the material had to be sourced from abroad. I saw a lot of crafters relying on their friends and relatives to get them these products while returning from a trip to United States. It took me a lot of patience to source products through this channel. This is when I decided to create an online store, which will give crafters across India, an opportunity to purchase these products locally. Initially I used a blog called Crafting Queen Store to sell the products. Looking at the traffic and the demand I decided to go the e-commerce way and Lulupu.com was born on March 1st, 2012,” elaborates Karuna.

This special design team of Lulupu comprises of talented crafters across the country, which focus on providing a platform to build a community of like-minded crafters. To be a part of this team, a crafter has to qualify the set of filters or parameters decided by them. Lulupu.com provides them material from the store to create innovative projects which not just serve as an inspiration to other crafters, but also act as tutorials for amateurs.

Talk about the future of crafts and she quips, “Paper craft industry is at a very nascent stage in India. As a result, when I began pursuing my childhood hobby seriously, it was extremely difficult to source high quality raw material in India. The absence of retailers and suppliers prompted me to take the decision to open an online craft store which will cater to this growing need. It was a tough decision to embark on an unconventional journey, as the investment would come from my personal savings. It will be unfair to evaluate the success of such an initiative within a few months, as the task at hand is not only to help crafter source high quality global brands, but at the same time grow this segment by generating enough interest amongst prospective crafters.”

After quitting her job in March 2013, without doubt Karuna is her own boss and appraises herself. She gets to stay home, help take care of her 2 month old Labrador puppy, and also explore her creativity. Her husband, Siddhant, built her blog and ensured she kept it updated all the time. “He is an excellent photographer and he makes my work shine on my Facebook Page too. I love challenging myself to try new, quirky and crazy craft ideas. While the online store is one portion of what I do, I am an avid crafter and that’s the reason I began this journey.” she says. “We are constantly working towards optimizing our supply chain to source the best quality products of internationally renowned brands at the lowest possible cost. Along with this we wish to increase our team size and make it efficient and scalable,” she ends.

#6: Spirited Shoes. Beautiful Accessories.

With the festive season approaching, apart from jewellery, what is the other thing women like to splurge on? SHOES!

Ruchika Panwar, owner of Viveza Shoes and Zene Creations has a lot to tell. 
Since childhood she was a creative person and tried to involve herself in anything and everything. She loved making candles, decorating diwali diyas, sketching, painting, or drawing on all her house walls. After working for a corporate like Google, she thought it was time to start something of her own, where she could work independently. With no formal education or training in this field, she started Viveza - the Shoe Boutique and Zene Creations. “The idea behind starting my career as an entrepreneur in the field of ladies footwear and faux fashion jewellery was to deal in something I had a huge interest in. And also where I could be involved in the production process from start to finish, using my abilities to the fullest. I am a shopaholic. Shoes and jewellery are my first love. So what’s better than designing shoes and accessories?” she shares.

“At Viveza, we try and add that extra sparkle to your personality. Viveza is a term characterized by high spirits, in Spanish meaning liveliness, vivacity and sparkle. That is what defines every pair of our collection, while keeping the quality, comfort, airiness, delicacy and femininity intact,” claims Ruchika. The shoes are tasteful and impressive, with a variety of colours, styles and designs, carefully selected for our customers, to complement their style of dressing. “Whether you wear western, traditional, casual or party clothes, Viveza has a lot of options!” adds Panwar.

On the other hand, Zene Creations is a vanity store for all fashion jewellery lovers. Zene in Afrikaans means beautiful. It’s all about bringing out the fashionista in you and help you adorn unique handcrafted sparkling embellishments that are ready to compliment your ensemble. “Our range comprises of colourful bead strings, jadau neckpieces, pachi and thewa art, ornate faux kundan pendants and earrings, handcrafted accessories with motifs and western fashion jewellery,” she says.

“Being an entrepreneur in such a field is a craft in its own, which has further helped me hone my skills at designing and conceptualizing different ideas, yet keeping in-sync with the current fashion trends. I often sit down with my customers (local and outstation) and incorporate their requirements into my jewellery designs. Sometimes I suggest walk-in customers with shoe designs - the kind they want and what fits or suits them best. The end result is a happy customer walking out with their little vanities,” she explains. With 3 successful years for both Viveza Shoes and Zene Creations, “the journey so far has been great and enriching. We have local and outstation customers who appreciate our designs. Also, our Facebook pages received positive and encouraging response,” says Ruchika.

Ask her about her inspiration and she shares a quote:

"When at the same moment she had on a dress,

Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less,
And jewellery worth ten times more, I should guess,
All she said, that she had not a thing in the wide world to wear!"

With all women agreeing with the above quote, Ruchika adds, “Here's to celebrating womanhood, vanity and all that makes each one of us happy!”

After receiving an overwhelming response, Ruchika now wants to further explore her options. “For now I feel I have a lot more to explore and accomplish in my work areas, but yes, very soon we will be coming up with our websites for both Viveza and Zene. Also I intend to start with a store, selling western and contemporary styled clothes. On that, I will keep you posted,” she winks.

Imagine a woman who is already dealing with shoes, jewellery and now wants to add clothes to her kitty – she’s got to be your new best friend! 

#5: For the love of Jewellery!

Since my obsession with jewellery has just begun, I am all excited to introduce you to Suman Dash, Founder of Vastradi Jewels, a website dedicated to imitation jewellery. An engineer by qualification, Suman left her cushy job 5 years ago so that she could spend quality time with her family. Now a mother to a beautiful daughter, who is equally fond of fashion jewellery at this young age, she started this journey 2 years ago.

“We started Vastradi Jewels with a humble investment of some thousand rupees and posted pictures on our Facebook Page. It was surprising to see so many people appreciating it and the orders started pouring in. There has been a lot of learning throughout, and a lot of hard-work has gone into building up the venture,” she shares.

Since childhood, Suman was exposed to all forms of art and was encouraged to follow her own dreams. She loved collecting unique jewellery pieces, and has the talent of combining semi-precious gems, irregular stones and fine metals with craftsmanship. “I became a jewellery retailer following a fascination for anything beautiful. It occurred to me that a jewellery piece is the smallest object one can wear, that also tells stories. My most joyful experience is when I sell a piece, and people seeing it place orders for similar pieces!” she exclaims.

She is an avid traveller and loves to add fine pieces of jewellery in her closet from all over the world which also resonated well with both her Indian and global customer’s choice. Now she not only designs but also curates jewellery pieces from India and abroad.

“For selling, we've been using the Hybrid Model, online (via Facebook) and offline (exhibitions and events) to sell our products. The website was developed majorly to organize our entire collection, to provide our customers with a platform where they can buy products using credit/debit cards and reach an audience beyond Facebook. Another reason that pushed us to start a website was that searching of a particular kind of products is now much easier,” shares Dash.

The icing on the cake for Suman has been her husband, Vinay Jaiswal, who is also her mentor. An IIT Roorkee Alumni, he recently quit his high-flying sales job and joined Vastradi Jewels full time. His ideas and work experience with a multimillion dollar organisation helps Vastradi reach greater heights, every single day. He has been instrumental in hiring key team members, who are all geared-up to take this business to a higher level. Vastradi Jewels is now on a roll and has set up higher targets to grow in next few years. “We plan to open retail shops in all the high street malls in India and countries like UAE, Malaysia, USA and European region. Meanwhile our website is helping us out to reach to our potential customers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities within India,” adds Suman.

Ask her about the pros and cons and she quips, “Start-ups come with lots of in-built challenges and benefits. The benefit that I see is that I get to spend time with my family and my daughter the way I want. Also, although difficult, but I get to choose the day I get to take off from work.”

Meanwhile, her future plans are building up. “We are also exploring the idea of venturing into the gold and diamond jewellery segment in near future, but before that, our focus is to reach out to as many consumers possible. We promise to serve as a reliable supplier for everything that we offer them,” she says.