When Martina Calvi designed her first scrapbook stickers two years ago, it was intended to be a side project. “I never wanted to run a business, I just wanted to share my art,” she says. But Calvi quickly gained hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, the orders began to pour in and it turned into a thriving e-commerce business, which is now her full-time job.
Calvi is part of a new wave of craft creators transforming once-niche hobbies like scrapbooking, journaling and crochet into fully fledged brands and media platforms. Fuelled by TikTok tutorials, Instagram reels and Pinterest mood boards, these creators are redefining what it means to be a tastemaker — in some cases, cultivating audiences that rival traditional fashion influencers.
