Artist's card line grows with 40 new design additions

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Jun 27, 2003 by Dickinson, Casey J

SYRACUSE - While business sometimes causes stress, Caryn Joyce turned stress into business. The artist turned the stress of daily life into a line of greeting cards and stationery sold at Wegmans stores and small shops across the country. She recently added 40 new designs to the original 15 cards in her "Kisses to You" line. Marketed by her company, Caryn Studios, LLC, Joyce's cards feature drawings she creates using colored pencils. The cards sell for $2.85 each in stores and online at www.kissestoyougreetings.com.

"This isn't something I planned," says Joyce. "It just happened."

The "happening" began in 2000 when Joyce's family suggested that her quirky drawings might make an unusual line of greeting cards. She followed up the suggestion by selecting 15 of her designs and fashioning them into greeting cards. Joyce secured a booth at the National Stationery Show in New York to see if anyone would be interested in purchasing her designs.

At the show, Joyce struck up a conversation with two attendees who expressed interest in her designs. It wasn't until midway through the conversation that Joyce noticed that the pair's nametags had the name "Wegmans" listed. The supermarket-chain's buyers added the card line to its DeWitt store soon after, and Wegmam now sells "Kisses to You" stationery in more than 60 stores.

Joyce services the card rack at the DeWitt Wegmans, but she's handing that duty off to another company as she expands her distribution to other Wegmans locations. She sells about 500 cards at the DeWitt Wegmans each month.

Joyce has containers for her stationery manufactured by the Jordan Box Company, and Dellas Graphics prints her greeting cards.

Later this summer, Joyce will pursue a wider audience for her cards. She has an interview with QVC to see if the televisionshopping network wants to sell her cards on the cable network. Joyce will have 15 minutes to persuade QVC that "Kisses to You" is ready for prime time.

Joyce's children, friends, and family provide the inspiration for many of her designs. The designs flow from drawings, she says, rather than any effort to design a particular card.

"I don't sit down and draw a birthday card," she says. "I just sit and draw."

Departed friends have returned as angels in one design, and she has even incorporated herself into another.

The "Kisses to You" name comes from the salutation used by one of Joyce's friends who was later killed in a car accident.

"She always said 'kisses to you,' rather than hello or goodbye," she recalls.

Joyce drew what would become the "Kisses to You" logo.

"Within 15 minutes of hearing, I had drawn the logo," Joyce says. Greeting cards sell steadily despite adverse economic conditions, says Joyce. Even in an age where electronic greeting cards are free, people still find the need to send a "real" card. The low-priced items sell even when the economy forces cutbacks in other spending.

"If they can't buy a gift," she says, "they can at least buy a card."