Ep 192: From Paper Flowers to Paper Lips: Laura Richey on Reinventing Your Creative Business

In this episode, Quynh, Jessie, and Sara sit down with Laura Richey, the Ontario-based artist behind Pucker Up Paper Lips and 2 CLVR Designs. Laura has been in the paper flower world for over 12 years, creating everything from thousands of card stock roses for Lancome to sculptural paper lips that have caught the attention of celebrities including Britney Spears.

Laura opens up about how COVID upended her thriving wedding flower business, which had grown to 60 to 100 weddings a year, and how a pair of paper lips sitting in her living room sparked an entirely new creative direction. After a famous lip artist spotted her work on Instagram and invited her to collaborate, Laura’s paper lip art took off in ways she never expected.

 

"Anything 3D grabs attention. Anything that comes off the wall, people seem to gravitate towards." — Laura 

 

The conversation covers the realities of running two brands, managing massive production orders as a solo artist, and the physical toll that large-scale paper crafting takes on your hands, back, and mental energy. Laura, Sara, Jessie, and Quynh get into the details that only paper artists understand: how many flowers you can realistically assemble in a day, why Cricut mats wear out faster than you think, and how chopsticks became Laura’s most essential tool.

 

"At this time in my career, it is okay to say no and it is okay to give them your feedback." — Laura

 

They also discuss the challenges of working with marketing companies and event coordinators who often reach out with unrealistic timelines and tight budgets, and why paper artists deserve to be brought into projects early rather than treated as a last-minute addition.

  What You’ll Hear in this Episode:

• From wedding florals to paper lip sculptures and how Laura's 12+ year journey in paper flowers took a turn she never saw coming
• The Instagram DM from a celebrity lip artist that changed everything
• What it actually looks like to work with major brands and the difference between going through a marketing agency versus landing a direct brand partnership
• The reality of large-scale production: 600 lips for Too Faced, 4,000 roses for Lancôme, and what it takes to pull that off
• The physical and mental toll of making the same thing hundreds of times 
• Running two brands when one is your passion and the other pays the bills and what happens when they start pulling in opposite directions
• Card stock versus crepe paper: why the medium you work in matters more than you'd think
• The tools Laura can't live without: chopsticks, Cricut machines, vinyl picker tools, and kebab sticks (yes, really)
• Cricut mat maintenance, buying in bulk, and building a machine workflow that actually holds up under pressure
• Laser cutters versus Cricut machines