Jill & Leora
In 2003, Jill and Leora met through their husbands who were roommates in college. A few years later, after Jill moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco, and Leora had her first baby, they started talking about a little stationery business. Copper Willow was born in July of 2006 and fast-forward to now, we enjoy a wonderfully busy career playing with paper!
Jill Velez
Jill fell in love with paper while working on her master’s degree in San Francisco. She is now the in-house calligrapher, lead designer, master pressman, and mess-maker of Copper Willow.
From Jill: “When anyone asks me what I do, I try to give brief answers. I make greeting cards. I sell wedding invitations. I own a store. I work with paper. What I would really like to say is that I create and work with my hands on a daily basis to make pieces of art that celebrate the milestones in life. I dream up, design and print cards that make people laugh. I bring artwork to life on machines that are nearly 100 years old. I do all of this while I take care of my children. I am pretty lucky.”
Leora Mauck
Leora’s love for the written word lured her into playing paper in a roundabout way. After earning dual literature degrees, she wafted through a few jobs picking up accounting skills and graphic design tools which are now invaluable to Copper Willow.
From Leora: “I try to think of myself as the person who puts all the pieces into place so that magic can happen. We use a lot of paper here — and ink, and tools, and machinery, and ribbon – and I make sure that it’s all here. Oh, and cut all the paper, pay the bills, and run the foil and digital presses.”
We are working moms
In the midst of production noise, there is often the pitter-patter of little feet. Sometimes more like squealing and running little feet!
Leora has a creative, smart little boy named Ryder. He is always crafting some kind of spacecraft or creatures out of our scrap paper. Leora’s daughter, Delaney, is chatty and rambunctious. She made off with a Sharpie one day and made her mark on the wall in our consultation room.
Jill has a sweet and silly curly-haired little girl named Laurel. She loves cutting and pasting our paper scraps and is determined to drain our stock of scotch tape. Jill’s second little lady, Audrey, is feisty and mischievous. Now that she’s walking, who knows what will happen!