JOIN USPaper is her medium not to write but to make interesting artworks. As a young girl, Nandhini Subramanya spent most of her leisure time dabbling in art and craft.
Growing up, she got into the competitive world and started working in the Human Resource department. But little did she know that her liking for craft still remained.
The talent that was hidden for a long time came under the spotlight when she decided to exhibit her works at her office on a special occasion. The exhibition was a huge hit and it is this success that gave birth to a unique startup — ‘Craft World’.
Started along with Radhika Rupesh and Archana Anand, ‘Craft World’ is popular among kids as they add colour to birthdays with some unique and bright customised objects. Personalised and theme-based hair clips, tiaras, name boards, pouches...they have a wide range of products that fascinate and delight the younger lot.
‘Chota Bheem’, Barbie, Doremon, Tweety...their creativity with the popular characters from the animated world is a huge hit. “I was always interested in craft and I wanted to groove my career in that. I concentrated on just paintings in the beginning. But now we are quite popular among the kids as we make theme-based objects for birthday parties,” says Nandhini.
They also do artwork for other events like the house-warming ceremonies and weddings. “We customise return gifts for different events. Apart from this, we make customised wall hangings, cushions and pouches,” she says.
And what is unique about this startup is that all the artworks are done using a special fabric called felt. Made of natural fibres, these fabrics add a special touch that makes the artwork stand apart from the usual ones. “I learnt about this fabric from one of my colleagues who used to make hairclips from it. I bought the fabric from a store in the City and started experimenting with it,” she says. But this fabric was expensive in the City. Realising this, the team began sourcing the material from Chennai. The end result created by this fabric worked wonders.
Apart from fun objects for kids, they also provide learning materials such as interactive books called the ‘Quite Book’. These books have velcro attached to them and the kids can arrange the pictures and make learning a fun experience. Taking the basic designs from the Internet, the three put extra effort and modify the designs to make them unique and innovative. “The result is outstanding when three minds work together,” she says.
There are times when they have to work during the late hours and Nandhini says, “Our families have been very supportive and it is one of the reasons that we are successful in what we do. They are also proud of our work.” A successful woman entrepreneur, she wraps up saying, “The job provides complete satisfaction as we are earning our own livelihood.”