About

Hi, I'm Toria! I'm 23 years old and I have a HUGE passion for creativity. In my younger years I did a lot of painting, drawing, and photography which has since evolved into papercraft, design, and makeup artistry. I truly love what I do!

I started my shop in May of 2011, while I was living in Miami Beach, FL. I had never had a real job and therefore was having a hard time finding any work at all. My boyfriend had to use my car to get back and forth to work, so my choices were limited even further. I was desperate to help out with our bills and actually have SOMETHING to do. I had been playing around with the idea of starting an Etsy shop for over a year but wasn't sure what products to sell. One day, as I was scrolling through Pinterest, I saw a tutorial on how to make a pinwheel, so I got out my crafting supplies, made a bunch in different sizes, threw them on the floor to make a random design, and my first pinwheel cluster was born! Okay, so it wasn't THAT easy...there was a lot of trial and error involved...and a LOT of wasted paper and hot glue. Eventually, I got to what you see here in my shop!

As for my process when I receive an order, first I check to see if I have the customer's color choices on hand, and enough of it to fulfill the order. If not, it's off to the craft store for me! I start by cutting all of the paper into strips of the right thickness as well as enough of them to make sure that the pinwheel has enough material to fan out without ripping (which brings us back to my trial and error days...so glad THOSE are over, haha!). Once i have all of my paper strips, it is either time to punch designs into the edges, or I go straight into accordion folding. Fold, fold, fold. Then I will glue them so that they make a cylindrical shape, and then gather the top, add a bit of glue, and push down so that it fans out into the circular pinwheel shape we all know and love! Then they are boxed up, and I take them off to the post office.