When you’re thinking of someone, it’s easy enough to dash off a text with a cute emoji. But sending and receiving a handwritten letter in the mail hits different. To elevate the experience, holding Write To Your Mom’s beautiful handmade, recycled paper and cards in your hands feels like a small luxury.
Shannon Settlemyre, of Roanoke, dabbled in making her own paper during the pandemic, shredding old journals, notebooks, printed school essays, and junk mail, then using a blender to make a paper pulp before processing it using a mould and deckle, a frame and screen tool that helps press and flatten the pulp. Since Settlemyre turned her passion for papermaking into Write To Your Mom in 2022, her upcycling ethos has remained paramount, even leading her to creative local collaborations. She’s turned paper clippings from Appalachia Press into textured paper and watercolor paper for artists and recycled pastry box liners from Bread Craft into paper and cards. Settlemyre also utilizes produce scraps, like onion peels and avocado pits to make natural dyes or corn cobs and cabbage leaves to create patterns. She recently created a line of botanical paper using zinnias, peonies and ranunculus from Blue Ridge Flower Exchange, which is especially fitting since bundles are packaged with plantable wildflower seeds.
The results are one-of-a-kind stationery that Settlemyre celebrates for their imperfection. “They’re not cut pages that look like just another sheet of computer paper. Because I want [people] to feel the handmade touch. And for people not to be afraid to draw on them or write on them,” Settlemyre says. And, she says, writing to your mom is only a suggestion. “You can write to your dad, neighbor, best friend,” she says. “Just write to someone because it feels good getting something in the mail whether you’re the writer or receiver.”
