We recently connected with Shannon Ho and have shared our conversation below.

Shannon, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

Looking back, I wish I started my creative career sooner. For 5 years, I primarily used my creative passion as a detox and side hustle from my 9-5 job. I stayed at my corporate job because it was what I always knew and what was “safe,” but I was not happy and was feeling very unfulfilled during my last few years there. I never considered art and calligraphy as a career until the pandemic and as cliche as it may sound, it truly helped me realize how important it was to live life to the fullest. In 2021, I left my job to pursue my small business, peach & paperie, as a full-time career. That year, I started teaching calligraphy in local businesses around the D.C. area, creating more products for my online shop, and attending makers markets.

If I had started sooner, I would have had a lot more time and energy to devote to growing my business, creating new products, and more firmly establishing my brand. Now that I’m a parent, my day and priorities look a lot different so finding quiet time to work is a luxury.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Shannon, a calligrapher, stationery designer, and lover of all things paper. I first got into lettering and stationery in middle school, where my best friends and I spent summers creating greeting cards for graduating seniors in our youth group. I always remembered that feeling of sharing my art with others and seeing the joy it spread.

I started peach & paperie in 2017, where I mostly focused on doing calligraphy for weddings and events. In 2020, I opened an online shop and started my own line of greeting cards as a way to spread happiness during the pandemic. I loved illustrating cute animals, food with faces, and anything that made people laugh or smile. This quickly snowballed into lots of punny paper goods and gifts, including stickers, notepads, magnet sets, washi tape, tote bags–just to name a few! In that time, I also started teaching calligraphy with Sip & Script. I partner with other small businesses in the D.C. area to host 90-minute classes, introducing beginners to modern calligraphy and making it a fun and approachable art. With both my shop and calligraphy classes, I love connecting with others through art and seeing how simple joys can make such a difference in people’s day.

I’m honestly just most proud for taking the leap! I never thought running a small business would be in the cards for me. I always struggled putting myself out there and not wanting to fail. This was the best decision I could have made for myself. I still have a lot of growing and learning to do, but there is no limit to my potential, which is so exciting.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect is having the ability to create whatever I want to create. My possibilities and potential are limitless. I also truly enjoy getting to make my own products and seeing customers pick them up and smile, laugh, or say how relatable they are. As a Chinese American artist, much of what I create reflects AAPI culture. It’s really awesome seeing that resonate with others in the community.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Connecting with customers, students, and clients in person helped me build my audience on social media. I think being authentic and showing up consistently on social media helps people on the other side of the screen connect with you. People love seeing behind the scenes, the face behind the small business, and content that they can relate to or learn from.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.peachandpaperie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peachandpaperie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peachandpaperie
• Other: https://sipandscript.com/organizer/shannon-ho/

Image Credits

Manali Photography