As other teens were glued to their PlayStations or focused on racking up friends on their MySpace pages, a young Shannon Ho was discovering her passion for greeting cards.
“My love for snail mail started back in middle school,” says Ho, who grew up in Olney and attended Farquhar Middle School and Sherwood High School. “My friends and I would always be the ones in charge of making cards for the graduating seniors in our youth group, and I always thought it was so special to be able to create and give from the heart.”
Fast forward to 2017, when Ho put her career in public health communications on hold to start Peach & Paperie, a wedding stationery company. Three years later, she expanded her product line to include greeting cards. “Peach” in the company name is a subtle nod to summertime—seasons spent with best friends creating those cards.
“I think it is kinda fun and unexpected to receive a card in the mail these days, especially with technology,” says Ho, now 32 and a calligrapher and stationery designer who lives in Gaithersburg. “My cards are meant to bring a smile to whoever sees them.”
Peach & Paperie’s products offer lighthearted messages, often with puns, and original, whimsical art (picture a graduation card with a grinning llama wearing a mortarboard and diploma, along with the words “Congrats on Your Dip-Llama!”). There are cards for birthdays, holidays, graduations, thank yous or just because. Even a get-well card emblazoned with a frowning waffle wearing a hot water bottle and the message “Sorry You’re Feeling Waffle.”
“My most popular one is probably a birthday card that has a corgi on it that says ‘Go Shorty—It’s Your Birthday,’ ” Ho says. “People also love a baby card that says ‘Congrats on the Little Dumpling’ and it has a picture of three little dumplings.”
Though she never studied art formally, Ho says it was always a creative detox from her 9-to-5 jobs. Many of her cards revolve around her Chinese culture, with a number of her illustrations based on Asian food, such as sushi stickers on a sheet titled “That’s How We Roll,” and sushi notepads that say “Soy Many Things To Do.”
Juggling her daughter, Millie, who was born in June, Ho works alone out of her home, first compiling ideas for products and sketching out illustrations on her iPad. Next, she uses Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to lay out everything on her computer before sending it to her printer.
“My husband usually helps me behind the scenes and at the [craft] markets,” she says of Joe Ho, her spouse of five years. “He’s also the pun approver of the business.”
Peach & Paperie products are available at Gaithersburg’s Locally Crafted store, at the website peachandpaperie.com, at online wholesale marketplace Faire, and in various shops across the country. The company sells about 1,000 cards a year, and Ho hopes to expand to more shops across America in 2024. In addition to greeting cards, wedding stationery, notepads, gift tags, magnets and stickers, Ho offers watercolor paintings of homes and customized stationery. Cards cost $5 each, and bundles of six can be purchased for $25.
Look for Ho’s cards at the Locally Crafted Makers Market on Nov. 11 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Rio in Gaithersburg. Peach & Paperie will also have a booth at outdoor markets at Mosaic in Fairfax, Virginia, on Nov. 18-19 and Dec. 16-17.
“People just pick them up and giggle—they think they’re adorable,” says Heather Luxenberg, co-owner of Locally Crafted. “They’re punny without being offensive.” Adds co-owner Stacey Hammer, “Customers smile when they see her products.”
This story appears in the November/December issue of Bethesda Magazine.