Recovering from a serious automobile accident, Shannen Schmidlin wanted an activity that would not only help lift her spirits, but also help reclaim use of her hands and wrists.
Schmidlin, 53, who moved to Clay County with her family in 2018, went browsing on social media and asked around before finding Julia Gorham’s “Therapy Card Nite” workshops.
The workshops have given her a new sense of freedom, said Schmidlin, who recently moved to Green Cove Springs and works as a client manager at a security services company.
“Taking these classes over at Julia’s has definitely allowed me to work with my fingers and expand what I can do,” she said.
At the workshops, which happen twice monthly in Gorham’s house in Keystone Heights, a small group of women with a love of both crafting and community come together to handmake greeting cards. The shared activity offers them an escape from their life’s concerns.
“I just called it ‘Therapy Card Nite’ because, for me, a bunch of girls getting together is kind of like therapy,” said Gorham, 53, a research analyst for an insurance company. “You get to talk about whatever’s going on, and it just kind of grew from there.”
Gorham went to her first greeting card workshop in the early 2000s, while she and her family lived in Iowa. Two back surgeries left her with limited mobility and social isolation for seven years. She did get involved, however, with the paper craft company “Stampin’ Up!”
When she moved to Keystone Heights in 2019, Gorham wanted to find the same sense of community, so she started posting about her workshops on Facebook. Typically, six to nine women attend each workshop, which happen around her dining room table.
Schmidlin attends at least one each month.
“This is my downtime from work, from, you know, thinking of the accident and dealing with stuff from the accident still,” she said. “So this is kind of like a de-stressor for me.”
The workshops allow for spending more time with her daughter.
Logan Schmidlin, 23, an account manager where her mother works, gets more out of it as well.
“I have very bad anxiety, and I stress a lot, especially with work, and it’s just time to decompress,” she said.
Since 2020, about 30% of American adults have seen a therapist at some point in their life.
Crafting as a therapy offers a variety of mental benefits, said Andrea Guastello, an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Department of Psychiatry.
Guastello, who works in the fields of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism, said that crafting and any artistic expression can be called behavioral activation.
“We can have senses of accomplishment when we finish a craft,” she said. “We can enjoy the artistic process itself, you know, if we’re doing it with others. We certainly can increase our social interaction around that craft that we’re doing.”
Gorham said “Therapy Card Nite” has helped many other people in different ways.
One girl was only 13 and quite shy when she started coming with her grandmother more than a year ago. Now, the girl’s much more comfortable with herself and others at the workshops.
“She’s really gotten good at stamping,” Gorham said.
Niki Reinshagen, 35, attended her first workshop recently after some reluctance.
“At first, I was like no, I’m not doing it, just because I’m a homebody, and I want to be home,” said Reinshagen, a senior analyst for CVS.
She said it can be hard to carve out quality time to spend with her five children, but the workshop presented a perfect opportunity, calling it “something that was super meaningful.”
Heather Ward moved from Idaho to Keystone Heights in 2024. She said she uses the workshops not only as a creative outlet, but also to meet other women in her community.
“I’ve always liked to learn new crafty things,” Ward said. “It was a new fun thing to learn, and it’s just fun to get together with different random people every time, and do them.”
Gorham said the greeting cards are like “happy mail” for those who receive them.
As for those making them, she said: “It’s like therapy but cheaper, and you go home with something. You know you got something to show for your therapy.”