Etsy Insights: Cultivating Community | Etsy Success

WashedUpCards · 2024-04-30T13:58:31.938000Z

Hi everyone! My name is Flora, and I'm the founder of Washed Up Cards, a sustainable greeting card shop that helps build community and fight plastic pollution. I started Washed Up Cards during the pandemic. I was living in a new part of London for the first time, living very close to the River Thames, which became a real sort of solace for me. I used to go on beach cleaning walks and I'd take a bag, some gloves and pick up plastic and rubbish. I’d find bigger bits of plastic like bottles and food containers, but it was the microplastic that really surprised me. I found a happy birthday sequin and I made a card for my sister and she loved it. I started sending more and more cards to people incorporating bits of plastic and the microplastic that I'd found on the River Thames into the designs of my greeting cards. Washed Up Cards is not just a card business; it’s also an avenue to spread awareness about plastic pollution, while also bringing people together to help look after our amazing planet that we live on. A big part of what I do is bring people together, building small communities that can make a big difference. Here are a few ways I’ve involved the community through my Etsy shop: 1. When I went out to clean and source microplastic for my greeting cards, my neighbors used to see me coming back muddy and wondering what I was carrying and I started talking to them about it. I thought other people might want to share this with me, and so I started a very small beach cleaning walk with my local neighbors and friends. I eventually became a river action leader, a qualification I received to run beach clean ups safely. I run these beach cleanups as much as I can, about every couple of months. It started with involving my neighbors, but I'm also working with schools and companies to help organize beach cleaning. 2. Buyers and receivers of my greeting cards have joined me on a beach clean, or they have gone and set up their own beach clean up. It gives me great joy that beach cleanups have also become a big part of my shop and that I’m not only growing buyers, but a community of people wanting to get involved and take action for our planet. 3. Lastly, I love meeting and collaborating with people. I think that's a big strength for me. I try to be open about my strengths and my weaknesses because I think it's otherwise ridiculous to have this facade that you're smashing everything when actually behind the scenes you're not. You may find things hard and you're spending ages on a problem when someone else could help you much quicker. There’s things like setting up reports and being more analytical that I find quite hard. I've had help from my brother and my mentor, who guide me and help me to make things a bit more structured with how I manage my shop so I think it's good to be open and involve your own community of people. I’ve found beach cleaning to be therapeutic. While looking for the plastic among the sand, pebbles, and mud, this has become a meditative activity and an important part of my well being. I've had such a privileged life in being able to spend so much time in nature. Like David Attenborough says, “if we take care of nature, nature will take care of us.” At the end of the day, if you're lucky enough to enjoy nature, you're going to respect it and look after it. What role does nature play in your life, and what actions (big or small) are you taking today to become more sustainable in your shop? I’d love to hear your ideas!

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