Heidi has turned her passion for paper into Botanical PaperWorks, a business guided by environmental sustainability and practices. The company makes and markets eco-friendly, plantable paper that grows into flowers when placed in soil. As president and co-founder, Heidi has overseen company growth from the ground up (pun intended) as Botanical PaperWorks went from start-up to international success story in only 13 years. Botanical PaperWorks produces plantable paper products for companies large and small, including, Starbucks, Pepsi, National Geographic and Cirque du Soleil, as well as personalized invitations and favors. Most recently, Botanical PaperWorks has been showcased in Fast Company, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour and Martha Stewart. When not pushing paper, Heidi can be found spending time with her husband and two daughters.
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Plywood People-Andre Shinabarger: Your paper and stationary are amazing, but what gave you the idea to plant the paper and have your paper bloom into beautiful flowers?
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Heidi Reimer-Epp: I have always loved paper and stationery and, in 1997, my mom, Mary Reimer, and I started Botanical PaperWorks with a vision to make our own paper with locally-sourced materials. We also had a creative idea to include natural elements in the paper-making process and originally, we made papers with prairie grasses, leaves and flower petals harvested from our gardens and the beach at our cottage.
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It was a bit of an experimental process and, in writing our first book, 300 Papermaking Recipes, we had an opportunity to try many different inclusions, one of which was to add seeds to the paper. It was a short jump in our thinking from “Let’s add petals to the paper to” to “If we can add the petals, could we add the seeds?” but it was a breakthrough in the sense that the product evolved from one that was beautiful and creative to one that was also experiential for the recipient.
Once we began working with the seeds in the paper, we went wild with the limitless uses for plantable paper.
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Plywood People: What made you want to start this unique paper business? What was the passion behind this?
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Heidi: After I graduated with my business degree majoring in marketing, I had the chance to work in manufacturing and loved the process of creating a tangible product. My work there was in international marketing and it very left brain, and while I loved the project planning and number crunching, my right brain (that special, creative side) was craving some attention.
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My mom was using papermaking as a teacher, and together we designed a line of handmade greeting cards and stationery. When we shopped it around to local businesses, they loved what they saw and each store placed an order. We took this as a good sign, and launched the business full-time in May 1997.
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The passion behind the business continues to be a desire to create products that are hip, fresh and non-destructive for the environment. All of our papers are made from post-consumer waste and are embedded with seeds so that when the greeting card or calendar or bookmark is planted, it recycles itself into flowers!
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Plywood People: You create a variety of paper products–can you tell us about the different types you sell?
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Heidi: Many of our products are made with wildflower seed paper including wedding invitations, eco-friendly party favors, greeting cards, journals, calendars and birth announcements.
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Other cards, like our Yummy Card line, grow herbs when the paper is planted. And some of our Holiday products grow spruce trees. Further more, we create custom-made papers for companies including dill, carrot, tomato, mint, and so much more!
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Plywood People: How did this “dream job” for you become a reality?
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Heidi: This dream job became a reality when I took the bold step of quitting my full-time job and starting the company in 1997. From there, the company has continued to evolve as we spot opportunities in the marketplace and jump on them. For example, several years after founding the company, we saw an opportunity to launch a line of plantable wedding favors. This line quickly became very successful and we were glad to get into the market on the ground floor. As President, I want to be actively looking for new opportunities and assisting the company capture them. That’s an important part of my job.
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Plywood People: What is your favorite part of the Botanical Paperworks business and day to day activities?
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Heidi: My favorite part of working at Botanical PaperWorks has to be the variety in my job. On any given day, I get to interact with amazing people, both customers, staff and vendors, plus help the company move forward with expansion strategies, new product development and social media plans. It’s an amazing set of responsibilities that keeps every day interesting. I couldn’t ask for a better job!
