Sheryl Woodhouse-Keese founded Twisted Limb with the environment in mind. A former environmentalist who had just settled in a new town; unable to find work in her field, she decided to fuse her love for the environment and artistic skills into a business plan. The result was a recycled paper goods company, which was initially a one-woman show.

Woodhouse-Keese she started out just selling her journals and handmade paper gift bags and bowls, origami flowers on twigs, quilted bookmarks and stationery at art shows around the Midwest. But she says, “We are now a group of 5-7 artists making custom invitations and accessory stationery items through on-line sales as opposed to me as an individual artist selling gift items at art shows. We have branched out from invitations to include business promotional items, holiday greetings, school fundraising products, and memorial cards through our brand Remembrance Tree Papers.”

The business is 100% carbon neutral and offset their usage from running their facility to their daily commutes by investing in renewable energy through Native Energy. They use Post Consumer Waste (PCW) as the “ingredients” in their products, which includes a combination of junk mail, recycled office paper and cardboard boxes. Not to mention the use of flora (flowers and grass) found on the studio grounds. There are no dyes used to tint during production, instead the colors are garnered from the color found in the materials they recycle.

And how exactly is PCW turned into beautiful and elegant paper products? Woodhouse-Keese explains, “We collect used colored office paper from various local businesses and sort and shred the paper. We mix the colors in various combinations the way you would mix paint to get a new color in a machine called a Hollander beater. The Hollander turns the paper and water into an oatmeal-like pulp, which goes into another vat with water and flowers. We use screens to pull this pulp into new sheets of paper, which dry on larger screens before getting pressed, cut, and stitched into our invitations.”

Interesting! And what about customization for items such as wedding invitations?

“Our custom wedding invitations account for two-thirds of our business. We have so many paper colors, flower inclusions, invitation styles, ribbons, raffia, fonts, graphics, printing colors, etc. that we can truly customize someone’s invitations. We’ve done the math and like to say that we have four trillion design combinations.”

The company goes to great strides to be eco-friendly and when questioned about the importance of this and running Twisted Limb, Woodhouse-Keese expressed, “I make my living as a businesswoman but I am an environmentalist at the core, and wouldn’t operate a business any other way.”

She continued, “ I believe it is the right thing to do—a necessary thing to do in order to leave a beautiful and healthy planet for the generations that follow us. In addition to making a 100% recycled, processed chlorine free product, our facility and operations are carbon-neutral, we are moving towards growing all of the ferns and flowers going into our papers, we recycle the water from our air conditioner and dehumidifers into the papermaking process, use a programmable thermostat, print on 2-sides of the paper, use file folders until they wither away, and ethically source (organic, 100% recycled, fair-trade, natural) supplies and materials as possible from coffee to pens to cleaning supplies.”

The business also partners with the community of Bloomington in many ways: They donate 22% of their profits to environmental and community groups each year, 10% of that is cash and 12% is in-kind donations such as fundraiser invites or silent auction prizes. They also have an organic garden on the property for the employees and a portion of each harvest is donated to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.

When asked if being in semi-small area such as Bloomington was a disadvantage to them as a business, Woodhouse-Keese exclaimed that is was actually a “tremendous advantage to the company.” She explained that the overhead is low and their proximity to Indiana University allows them a large pool of very talented art students looking for meaningful creative work. “The Bloomington community is also very progressive and supportive of the arts and environmental initiatives,” she said.

As the saying goes, ‘If you build it—they will come’ this definitely seems to be the case with sustainable businesses, everywhere. Woodhouse-Keese offers the following words of wisdom to others pursuing the idea themselves: “Build your sustainability initiatives into the business, your policies, products, and prices from the start. If you can’t initiate everything you want to at first, set goals to incorporate one or two new things a year. Learn discipline and how to keep control of your mind. Stay positive, focused, don’t give into your fears or others’ negativity, learn to visualize what you want, and how to manage your time. Write your manual from day one. Test, measure, and record everything, and then act accordingly. Be good to everyone you deal with—employees, customers, vendors, the community. Read as much as you can and get a business coach.Above all, stick to your values!”

Twisted Limb supports the following eco-businesses in and around their community and encourages you to please support those in your region as well:

Sycamore Land Trust

The Center for Sustainable Living

Bloomingfoods (local foods movement/healthfood co-operative)

Local farm markets and the new B-line bike trail

GreenDrinks Bloomington (the first annual was this year)