Paper Wizard was founded by Bonnie Smith in the fall of 2000. Bonnie loves to scrapbook but more than that, she loves the purpose behind scrapbooking in addition to the craft. Keeping a family history and documenting life is something she has always believed in doing and has been doing since she was a young girl. Bonnie has journals she kept dating back to the 1970s, including journals in which she added stickers, mementos, drawings & cards. Essentially, she has been creatively scrapbooking since she was about 10 years old.

In her 20’s, she became an attorney and worked as a Deputy District Attorney for the Orange County District Attorney’s office. After she had her first child, she chose to stay home with him and then his brothers. It was during these years that her interest in scrapbooking was rekindled. As she tried to find a way to fit it all in, she realized that pre-cut letters and shapes were very helpful, especially titles for her pages. She would often hire a babysitter and go “camp out” at a local scrapbook store to die-cut titles and shapes for her planned pages. She soon realized that if she could just own her own alphabet set, she could sell some of her titles to a local store and set out to do just that. Seventeen years later, she is still creating new titles and embellishments every month, if not every week. She finds joy in all of the stories she hears from scrapbookers across the nation as she travels and teaches classes at the shows in this country.

Eric Smith, the artist of the team, was raised by his oil-painting mother to see and appreciate the artistic details in life. As the child of a Major in the Army, he traveled and lived all over the country and abroad, played in WW2 bunkers in Germany, and attended over a dozen schools, playing baseball and basketball whenever he could. After his college graduation, he obtained a sales position with Converse, Inc – the same company whose shoes he wore when his wild card HS basketball team won the Texas State Championship in 1976. (March of the Troopers is a documentary film made about that team. You can see Eric in it.) Later, he held VP and management positions for other sports shoe companies as well. In the summer of 2002, he found himself out of a job as one after another, the sports companies began to experience lay-offs and closures. The day he was laid off, he came home to find that Bonnie had created 5-6 new kits, called all of her best accounts and sold $2500 in new orders. He knew then that they were on to something and began to work with Bonnie full-time at Paper Wizard, acquiring their first laser machines and moving the company out of their garage and into an industrial warehouse in Southern California in the fall of 2002.

Drawing and creating their art together has not always been easy and is definitely a labor of love. Eric & Bonnie have always been committed to high quality, excellence and keeping their product made in the USA. With determination and single-mindedness, they have sought out the best and finest papers and suppliers and have learned to work together to create the best possible products for their customers. From the custom school programs they created in the early 2000s to the PKC kits they bring out each month now, you will always get their best work. When you purchase a Paper Wizard product, you not only are purchasing a small work of art, but you are helping to support about 20 families here in the USA.

Join The Paper Wizard at Stamp and Scrapbook Expo in person or online!

Join The Paper Wizard at the Show!