My Story

Sometimes a story takes thirty years to come full circle.

When things come full circle, you don't always recognize it right away.

And when that circle takes three decades to complete, it's harder still.

Sometimes it feels like you're looking back at another lifetime.

Because, well... you are.

And yet here I am.

Thirty years later, I'm back where something very precious began—with heartfelt words, beautiful images, and the simple desire to help people express the love they carry for one another.

Only this time, I have technology on my side.

And a whole lot more life behind me.

Here's how I got here.

The short version

I took something I loved and turned it into something really special.

A friend, because she believed in me, helped me make it bigger.

Then, unexpectedly, I gave it all up.

And somehow, three decades later, I found my way back.

The long version goes like this...

1996 was a tough year.

It was the year my father died unexpectedly.

The kindest, most vibrant man I loved was gone at 56.

I was devastated.

And his death came directly on the heels of four other deeply felt losses during the previous two years. I was emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed, and very lost.

I was struggling to make sense of life.

Work had lost its meaning. I walked away from anything that took me away from my precious babies, who were just 2 and 7 years old. I let go of things I'd been working toward and began looking for some kind of outlet for the emotional storm inside me.

Then two casual comments from dear friends, left on my answering machine, changed everything.

Both had received heartfelt messages from me that summer.

Both said essentially the same thing:

“You should be writing greeting cards.”

The light bulb went off.

Maybe so.

What did I really have to lose?

So I sat down at my kitchen table and wrote 72 greeting card verses.

And it wasn't hard.

My grief—and years of emotional backlog—was pouring out of me.

But something else happened as I wrote.

I began realizing just how many souls had already touched my life in profound ways. Every verse became a kind of grateful tribute to the people who had opened my heart, shaped my life, and made it richer.

Writing was cathartic.

It was helping me heal.

And, little by little, I was beginning to find joy again.

When no one said yes...

I was proud of those verses, so I sent them to every major greeting card company I could think of.

One by one, they came back.

No thank you.

At first, I was crushed.

Then something fierce rose up inside me.

I'm not particularly good at letting other people determine my path.

So I decided to create my own greeting card line.

And CreativeVersetility, LLC was born.

They were boutique-style cards, fashioned on thick watercolor paper and crafted one card at a time. Original painted artwork. A Victorian-edged, self-closing design. My own self-styled stamps.

And, of course, my words.

At first, I sold them directly by creating little card boutiques in people's living rooms and kitchens.

It was exhilarating.

And it worked.

Within a year, I was selling so many cards that I simply couldn't keep up with the demand by making every card myself in my kitchen.

I knew I had a choice.

Give it up...

or go bigger.

The problem was, I had no idea what bigger was supposed to look like.

So I decided to ask for a little help from the powers that be.

“Show me a sign. Send me a message. Make it clear.”

That was my request.

And the answer came remarkably quickly.

In a church hall, of all places, one of the very friends who had helped light the original spark came up to me.

She asked if I'd ever considered taking my card business to the next level.

Then she offered to finance the growth.

I was flabbergasted at how quickly the answer had arrived.

And gratefully, I said yes.

And suddenly, it was real.

A year later, thanks in great part to my friend's belief in me, we had all the pieces in place.

A die-cutter for my patented card design.

A printer.

A distributor.

A sales representative.

Soon we were traveling to trade shows and seeing my cards in stores all along the East Coast.

I was a happy girl.

Then came one of those moments you couldn't possibly plan for.

At a trade show, my work was seen by one of the major international greeting card companies that had originally rejected me.

They wanted to meet with me.

That meeting resulted in a contract to write for them.

Me.

The woman who had sat at her kitchen table writing 72 verses because she was grieving.

The woman who had received rejection after rejection.

Now I had a contract to write for an international card company.

Signing that contract was one of the proudest moments of my life.

And write I did.

My words eventually found their way into greeting cards, calendars, and coffee-table books produced by the company.

It was a wonderful chapter of my life.

But even wonderful chapters sometimes come to an end.

And then life changed again.

During the eighth year of that contract, I became ill.

The illness affected my thinking—and, most painfully, the creativity I had always treasured.

My brain felt stifled.

The words weren't flowing.

I didn't know whether I would recover, or how long recovery might take.

When the paperwork arrived to extend my contract, I couldn't bring myself to respond.

I quietly buried it in the back of my files.

My writing had stalled.

My future felt uncertain.

My priority was simply to heal.

And once again, I was heartbroken.

If I'm completely honest, I never thought I'd write again.

And I certainly never imagined I'd end up here...

with you.

Thirty years later...

For the last two decades, as I healed myself, I devoted much of my life to helping other people heal themselves.

That work has been deeply fulfilling.

But somewhere inside me, there was still a little voice whispering that I wasn't finished creating.

I still wanted to share art.

I still wanted to share words.

And I still wanted those words to reach farther than my immediate circle.

Then technology changed the world.

And somehow, thirty years after sitting at my kitchen table, the constant pull toward my creative roots became impossible to ignore.

The door opened.

And I walked through it.

And here we are.

What you're seeing now is my way of resurrecting those heartfelt messages—and giving them a new life.

But there's something else here, too.

Over the years, I've been blessed by incredible women and beautiful friendships. I've learned how deeply relationships matter. I've learned that sometimes the smallest message arrives at exactly the right moment.

A simple I'm thinking of you.

A You can do this.

A I love you.

A I'm here.

A You're not alone.

Sometimes a few heartfelt words can carry more weight than we ever realize.

That's what inspired me to bring these cards back.

What you see here is joy in play.

It's creativity coming home.

It's thirty years of life, love, loss, healing, friendship, and experience finding its way into something new.

And it hasn't been an easy project to bring forth.

But it has been one of the most meaningful.

I hope that when you send one of these cards, you feel some of the love that went into creating it.

And I hope the person receiving it feels something, too.

One last thing...

I did defy the odds.

I recovered from the illness that once threatened to take my creativity away from me.

And through the many experiences that helped me heal my body, my heart, and my life, I discovered something I know now that I didn't know then:

Sometimes what you think you've lost is simply waiting for you to find your way back to it.

Thirty years ago, I wrote words because I needed to heal.

Today, I get to offer those words—and new ones—to you.

A way to reach across the miles.

A way to say what sometimes gets left unsaid.

A way to remind someone you love that they matter.

Welcome to the circle.

I'm so glad you're here.

Lisa💜