Mike and Anita Montgomery sit in their workshop, creating cards and journals at adjoining tables, listening to Christmas music and chatting as they carefully fold, cut and glue pieces of paper.
Like almost everything since they met 35 years ago, the couple enjoys working on paper crafts best when they do it together.
“I loved it when we sang together,” Mike said. “I thought we had something very special when we did that, and we were in high demand down there for a few years. So when we weren’t doing that anymore, we would try to find a craft or something we could do.”
Mike and Anita first met on Nov. 20, 1987 in South Florida. Anita was performing in a Broadway musical revue group, “So in Love.” When Mike came for a visit with his family and saw the show, the pair got set up to meet.
Soon after, they were nearly inseparable. Anita stopped performing with the group to go solo, before Mike’s previous experience performing rock and roll music led him to join her on stage, performing as a duo.
But eventually, the couple started focusing less on music and more on the issue of foster care. In 2000, they moved to Columbus after seeing an ad in a newspaper asking for help around a similar issue.
“I was working with the Florida Baptist Children’s Home, and we saw an ad in the newspaper: ‘Mission-minded couple wanting to work with children,’” Anita said. “That was all it said. So I called the phone number, and I said, ‘First thing, are you stateside?’”
While the ad was cryptic, it brought Anita and Mike to Columbus to work with Palmer Home for Children. The pair worked with the children’s homes and thrift stores until 2008 and 2015, respectively.
After leaving Palmer Home, Anita and Mike began creating handmade jewelry, which they took to craft shows. While the couple enjoyed working on a craft together, Mike said the competition at the shows was fierce, taking away some of the joy of the craft.
But at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Montgomerys found a new passion in paper crafting, which is now their small business and online Etsy shop, Things Celebrated.
“I just started watching YouTube one night and I saw this video about crafting and paper crafting,” Mike said. “And I thought, ‘This looks interesting.’ … And I showed it to her, and at first, she was like, ‘What?’ And it was around Christmas a few years ago … and I bought her a cutter and a few small starting tools. She looked at me and said, ‘So we’re really doing this, huh?’”
The Montgomerys are now entering their fourth year of making paper crafts. This year, Mike said, he and Anita have really found their strengths. She designs journals, prayer journals and recipe journals, while he designs handmade greeting cards and gift tags.
“We work off of each other,” Anita said. “We each have our own niche … but we still coordinate. He has a great eye for color. His designs are different than mine. His designs are more minimalist.”
Anita said Mike’s designs are incredibly meticulous and detail-oriented. If a paper is cut even “1/30th of an inch” off, Anita said, Mike will throw the card away and start over.
Mike’s cards and gift tags (which can also be used as ornaments), including Christmas cards, birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, summer cards and more, are focused heavily on color coordination. Each one can take a few hours to make, depending on how complicated the design is.
Meanwhile, Anita’s journals each tell a different story, filled with intricate details. She made one themed around a girl similar to “Anne of Green Gables,” containing special inserts, flaps, waterfall cards and papers themed with cottages and floral patterns. She also designed another ballerina-themed journal based on her childhood experiences dancing.
The pair is always learning new techniques when it comes to paper crafts, Mike said, helping to make each piece better and better over time. Anita now creates accordion journals, which stretch out and stand on their own to become decor for the season.
But the overall theme of their work, Anita said, is the love the couple has for each other.
“It’s obvious to us that God has given us the gift of crafting or doing something together as a couple, and it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate marriage and celebrate love,” Anita said. “So we can celebrate through this and how we work with each other.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 38 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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