I found Felicitas on Instagram and there’s something about her bright colorful style which makes me happy. Her creativity is inspiring and thoroughly evident in all that she makes. She even started her own kit club this year, which just shows how talented she is. I’m so happy to welcome Felicitas to the blog today!

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Tell me about yourself. Hello there, my name is Felicitas, 34, a product designer for the crafting industry and I live with my husband in Southern Germany. I love paper, DIYs & anything pretty and I like to document my creative adventures in photos.  If you search for PAPIERPROJEKT in the web, you’ll find me because that’s what I’m up to: I create paper projects.

What is one weird or interesting fact about you? Uuuhm, I think a weird fact is that I love love love lemons. I peel and eat them like oranges, drink pure lemon juice like any other fruit juice and I can get really angry if someone forgets to buy any… Was that weird enough or creepy already?

What do you do to express your creativity? Well two or three years back, I’d said I craft to express myself. But since I’m self-employed and create projects for a living (exaggerated spoken), sometimes it doesn’t feel like just expressing creativity but more like just work, if you know what I mean. So along with the creativity through crafting and the actual handiwork to create projects or DIYs, I somehow fell in love with photography. I think that’s the reason why I’m not just a little bit obsessed with Instagram: developing how to shoot the pretty stuff on your desk, composing nice photos… that’s fun for me and the expression of my creativity these days.

How did you get started doing this? I started scrapbooking in the summer of 2009 and I blog about it since 2010. One and a half year later, I started my own business and taught German paper crafting online-course, followed by a took-over of a German scrapbooking magazine (yes, a real printed one) and at the end of 2012, I designed my very first crafting collections. As a graphic designer for many years, I always felt the urge to design products while I was creating my paper projects, mostly to fulfill my own needs but also to inspire people to get creative on their own. In 2013 my products (and the magazine) were sold across Europe and in some parts of Asia, Australia and USA.

Then I was forced to take a long break (almost a year) to refill low batteries, to create a more healty work-life balance and to think about what I love most of all the projects I was working on. That wasn’t easy for me and it took a long time to recover.

But if you have time to think about yourself and your life, you get pretty soon to the important stuff. I realized my whole heart is in product designing but I also realized I wasn’t just a (simple) scrapbooker anymore… So I thought about some products to be creative with no matter if you document your life in photos, love pretty packaging or you create some decoration for your home because that’s what I do to make myself happy.

That was the moment when my new label PAPIERPROJEKT was born and at the beginning of November, I was back in product designing and launched my very first creative kit, which is available on my Etsy shop.

What do you love most about what you do to be creative? I love to have time! Since I am my own boss I’m able to clean my schedule to getting totally lost in crafting or photoshooting and nobody cares if I’m off for two hours or six. And right now I am developing new products and materials for my next creative kit and that’s also pretty cool, I guess. Sitting here and choosing new paper qualities or checking if a new product prototype will work as I had imagine it…

Who or what inspires you? I know most people tend to say they get inspired via Pinterest or magazines. But as I mentioned before, I’m an Insta-girl. That’s where I hang out in my lunch break and get inspired by browsing through my feed and the recommendations. I’m always stunned by people’s creative ways to express themselves or share their lives on Instagram. And for myself, I found some great crafty friends who inspire me everyday. And it’s also good to feel connected to that circle of creative people I sadly won’t be able to meet in real life but still be allowed to catch glimpses of their lives.

How do you stay inspired? What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired? I learned the hard way that you can’t force your creativity to be there if you need it. There was a time when I did too many scrapbook pages using products I didn’t really like, to promote companies I was working for. I joined scrapbooking design teams since 2010 (manufacturer teams since 2011) and in retrospection I know now, I work the best or stay inspired when I’m allowed to play with things I really love. I think it’s important not to pressure yourself in anything you don’t feel just because it’s cool or trendy today.

Why do you do what you do? What motivates you to be creative? Well, I love to create things by my own hands. I love to create things from scratch and watch them transform from a simple amount of products or materials into something new and handmade… something that you just saw in your mind before. The actual process of creating / making stuff is something very precious to me.

Describe your creative style. It’s colorful but at the same time bright & light, I think. I like to combine different patterns, colors and textures and when it comes to photography, I tend to shoot all my projects in bright light and with lots of white space.

Name your top five favorite tools or products. Paper! Any kind of paper, it just has to be pretty. Followed by my scissors, my liquid glue, the black ink bottle and my canon selphy printer.

Are you an early bird or a night owl? When are you most productive? Definitive an early bird! I do all the important stuff early in the mornings, work some hours in the afternoon, so I have time for my husband when he comes home in the evening.

What project(s) are you currently working on? I’m working on upcoming new products and I’m also planning to do a December Daily this year and I have to prepare one of the cute little Instagram albums for it.

If you had to be a color in a crayon box, which color would you be? Black or white because they’re basics and match to any other color or gold because it’s shiny 😉

If you could possess a super power, which one would you choose? I’d choose flying or even better: teleportation like they did in Star Trek. That would be pretty cool to beam you up to every place you like within minutes!

What is your favorite quote? To be honest, it changes a lot and it also depends on the mood I’m in, but I always liked the one below!

There’s a not so small percentage of times, in which I’m scared of my own courage and of what I’m doing (due to my work related past). And yes, I doubt myself about my ‘career choices’ and if it’s really worth to do it because there is a great difference between people who tell you they like your stuff and people who are actually willing to spend money in something you sell…

In those times, I try to remember the quote and I convince myself, as long as I’m happy with it and there’s my family who supports me no matter what, I’m a lucky girl and it’s worth to give it a try at least. Because that’s what life is about, right?

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Creative Conversations is a blog series getting to know fellow creatives and friends that I’ve made through the internet. Read more about Creative Conversations here.