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(a) “Great locations engender growth,” she says of her
top-selling Georgetown shop in Washington, D.C. (b) Paper ladders are standard
installations in Susan’s stores, showcasing papers from all over the
world. (c) Susan’s father designed the Paper Source font and logo, nature’s
papermaking wasp. (d) Susan huddles with colleague Cindy Prangl, whose specialty is “making
things happen.”
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Text by Judith Stern Friedman
“Do something creative every day” is the motto of Paper Source, a ravishing
retail paper chain and idea factory founded by Susan Lindstrom. “The whole
notion of making something yourself is fundamental to who we are,” she says. So
her stores offer a spectrum of decorative papers, card stocks, and journaling
and bindery supplies through which people can express their inner artist. From
paper-covered diaries and paper flowers to hand-stamped stationery and enticing
invitations, Paper Source feeds the creative appetite.
Susan opened the
first Paper Source in 1983 after attending an international paper show in Japan.
Inspired by 10 days of paper-making workshops, she sold her frame shop and
opened a store in downtown Chicago. Though people were awestruck by the pretty
patterned sheets she offered, they didn’t understand how to use them. So with
help from shop manager Cady Liederbach, she began teaching workshops in
bookbinding, invitation making, rubberstamping, and other paper
pretties.
“When you’re passionate about something, you just keep taking one
step at a time,” Susan says of how she grew her business. Some of those steps
included inventing a more functional, deep-flap envelope, creating invitation
kits, buying paper direct from paper mills, and building a signature color
palette. Now with 20 shops and 400 employees across America—and adding three to
five locations yearly—Paper Source has always been at the leading edge of the
crafts resurgence.
A Passion for Paper page
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