We recently connected with Cami Franklin and have shared our conversation below.

Cami, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

I’ve been in business for 18 years. I have always worked out of my home. For 15 of those years, all of my work was done while sitting on the floor at my coffee table. As my business grew, my incoming and outgoing projects covered the dining room table and no matter how much I tried to stay organized, I was just too busy with the next deadline. I knew it was going to take several consecutive days to get things organized the way I needed them to be and that just wasn’t happening with my demanding schedule. Then 2020 happened. COVID cleared my calendar in 3 days. I went from fully booked, to fully bored. I decided to deep clean my house and in this time, something awesome happened. It gave me the time and ability to DREAM. I wasn’t looking to the next immediate deadline, but was able to focus on myself, my house and what I wanted things to look like as I moved forward. I reorganized a room and built a studio. A place where I could work at a real desk, meet with clients and have my own space to create without taking over the rest of my home. Finally I had a professional space that was all my own. My other investment happened during this time as well. My son joined the Navy which gave me another spare bedroom so I had the storage space to develop a Rental Inventory. I had been working on mirrors and signs for a while, but only wrote on items that the brides would bring to me. A few months later, I would see those same items online as they were trying to sell them. It turned out they were shopping for these epic mirrors for their wedding, but didn’t want to keep them afterward. Because of COVID, a sweet friend of mine had to close down her rental business and she allowed me to go through a have several mirrors before she sold her inventory off to another company. I began collecting other mirrors so that the brides could rent them from me. I write on them – seating charts, welcome signs, etc., and after the wedding, they bring them back! This has created a line of income that was not expected.
The time invested during COVID to build these rooms and get myself reorganized proved to be two of the best decisions I’ve made. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was ready to take on the influx of weddings that happened in 2021. Because so many events were postponed due to COVID – everything doubled the following year. And honestly, it has not slowed down. I took these risks at a time when we didn’t know what the world was going to look like and how the wedding industry would be affected long term by the pandemic. But both of these investments proved to be game changers for me!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Cami Franklin and I am a professional Calligrapher. The short version is that I get paid to write pretty. The longer version is that this means I have more than 40 years of experience/practice and have been in business for 18 of those years. I definitely did NOT get where here overnight! I literally stumbled into owning my own business. It was never a dream of mine. Not that I was against it. It just never really crossed my mind. My mom taught me calligraphy when I was just twelve. I did it as a hobby for years, making gifts for others, addressing my own wedding invitations, etc. But it wasn’t until 2005, when my youngest child was about four months old, that a friend of mine came to me asking me to address her son’s wedding invitations. She said she wanted to pay me and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Suddenly I was researching other Calligraphers online to see what they charged. Two weeks later, I had a crude website and some business cards and was off on a journey that I never imagined possible! At first, it was very part time. I had 2 children under five and wanted to be at home with them. I was able to be mom during the day and I would do my writing at night after the kids were in bed. It didn’t take long for me to realize how much I loved this artistic outlet and was ready to pursue it.
Throughout the year, I work on everything wedding related. Addressing envelopes, writing on paper place cards, etc. But I write on other items as well such as marble tiles, sand dollars, and oyster shells. I create seating charts, welcome signs, guestbook, bar signs, and table numbers. I write on various serfaces including mirrors, chalk boards, acrylic, and wood. But I also work on custom keepsake items as well. I write in Bibles, and fill out certificates. I design poems and scripture verses for people to frame. I have purchased an engraving tool this year so that has opened up a whole new medium for me to write on! This includes glass, metal, mugs, and water bottles, to name a few. And a few times a year, I teach Beginning Calligraphy classes here in town. I enjoy sharing my love of calligraphy with others.
All of my work is done by hand. I’m very old school. There are computer programs out there that could help me write, but there is just something about the pointed pen, the quill and loose ink. There is something about running your fingers across the paper and feeling the depth of the dried ink on the surface. It’s so fun to see people’s expresion when they realize that I wrote it by hand and it is not computerized. Or they run their fingers across one of my mirrored signs and realize it is NOT a decal stuck to it, but it is hand written.
This has actually been a slow journey for me. I started out just wanting to stay at home with my kids and yet help contribute to the family. I never dreamed it would become the thriving business it is today. There have been lots of ups and downs and lots of lessons learned along the way. I’m still learning and growing. I’m still taking classes and developing new skills. I can always do better. I owe that to my clients and to myself. Five years ago there was a big shift in moving my business forward. I hired someone to help me brand myself and I really worked on discovering who I am as a Calligrapher and where I wanted to go. I told a friend, “I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff and I am ready to soar!” I have done just that and it’s continuing to be an amazing ride.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I love meeting all the different people that I work with. I love their stories. I love working on personal touches for special days in their lives. I feel honored that they trust me with such details. One of my favorite things is when the couples come back to me and have me write their wedding vows so they can hang them in their home. Traditionally, the first Wedding Anniversary gift is paper so this always works out so well. In the fall, I personalize pumpkins and at Christmas, I have a whole line of Christmas Ornaments that can be customized to say whatever they want. This year I invested in a hand engraver. I can now write on glass, metal, water bottles, mugs – just about anything you want personalized. I also began doing Live Calligraphy Events. Clients/Corporations can hire me for an event to sit and write on items as entertainment during their reception and/or cocktail hour. During my last event, I spent 3 hours personalizing oyster shells for a corporate retreat in the area. It was so much fun! I enjoy being creative in my studio but I love meeting my clients and building relationships. All of these personal items allow me to get to know my clients, their stories and the “why” behind the project I am working on. I have built many relationships with return customers over the years. I truly love my job.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I spent the first few years just addressing wedding invitations and doing small projects. I only knew one style of Calligraphy, the Broad Edge, Italic style. The more I wrote, the better I became. But soon brides were asking me to match invitation fonts, and to add more flourishes. To be honest, this terrified me and for a long time I told them no. I quickly realized that if I didn’t learn some new techniques, I would be left behind as the style that I knew was becoming outdated in the wedding industry. So, one year, during Christmas break, I started playing with the quills that I had and created my own cursive style. Now brides had two styles to choose from when I addressed their invitations. This worked for quite a while. Social Media entered the picture in 2016. Pinterest, Instagram, and Etsy all took off like crazy and the few calligraphers that were out there were suddenly KNOWN. They began posting videos of their writing, and photos of their work. The industry went nuts. Suddenly I had brides coming from every direction wanting their envelopes addressed in Calligraphy! And they wanted me to match their invitations. And with this entered the new “Modern Calligraphy” and it was here to stay. I purchased some new nibs and started playing. I took a few online classes but was mostly self taught, with a lot of trial and error. In that year, by pure demand, I went from part time, to full time almost overnight. I was writing 60 – 70 hours a week, just to keep up with the orders. I took the challenge with each order and created over 20 new lettering styles. My brides didn’t know it, but many of their envelopes were my practice. I never had time to just sit and play – I had to keep going. I didn’t know it at the time, but this challenge launched my business into what it is today. I could have given up. It’s easy as a creative to look around and compare yourself with other creatives. If you allow it, you can become discouraged. I’m so thankful that I decided to embrace the challenge and learn new techniques and styles instead of giving up and getting left behind. I still have a lot to learn. There are still ways that I can improve myself and I continue to do so by taking classes myself and learning new skills that can be incorporated into my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CalligraphyByCami.com
• Instagram: @Calligraphy_by_Cami
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=calligraphy%20by%20cami

Image Credits
Angelita Esparar Photography C&C Photo + Video Dani Nichol Photography Stacy Story Photography Bri Cibene Photo