It’s the most wonderful time of the year and as the holiday comes in full force, this entrepreneur is on a mission to ensure that your gift wrap is reflective of your family and all of the shades that make them up.

“My family is a blended family and we have four children all together, and when I was shopping a few years ago, for wrapping paper, I would see either no representation in wrapping paper or the ones that were available were kind of like vector art, like GIFS of Black Santas and not anything really beautiful,” Chanell Angeli told aspireTV during her MKTPLC feature interview.

The graphic artist and photographer turned fine artist has always loved to create and it’s in her nature to create digitally as well, which led to this entrepreneurial endeavor of selling gift wrap along with the art she is often commissioned to design.

“I was like, ‘You know what, I’m gonna just create my own and, like with most things, I did and I posted it on social media,” Angeli recalled. “And the response was so amazing that I just decided to offer it as well as my art and it sold out in the first year. This year is doing really well, too.”

While most artists can recall picking up a paintbrush or art supplies at a very young age, Angeli’s story is a bit different.

“My art was honestly born because I am an introverted person and so I was a writer and I wrote two books,” Angeli explained. “One was a poetry book, and then during the George Floyd riots, I hit such an intense writer’s block, also within the pandemic, but I also had a lot of feelings, a lot of rage, a lot of hopelessness like many Black folks had at that time and my friend was just like, ‘You know, your words are so powerful, you should put them on Canvas because they’re so affirming to people of color that someone would love to pass by that and see it.’”

She continued: “And so I did and that’s when I fell in love with mixed media art. Where I can really bring in all of the different realms and mediums that I work into one place.”

Like most creatives, Angeli knows that making art is something she could do in her sleep, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t need any.

“I learned that I do need to rest,” she said of the biggest lesson being an entrepreneur has taught her about herself. “I’ve learned that rest is really important and not to feel guilty when I do because you might know that with entrepreneurs, we don’t work a 9 to 5. It’s like a 24/7 type of thing and you get so used to feeling like, ‘Oh, well if I’m not doing anything, then I’m not being productive or whatever.’ So, that was one of the things for me to kind of grasp and take hold of. I have to make myself be on my own clock too and that includes rest.”

When it comes to challenges faced with sharing her gift wrap with the world, Angeli says she is lucky to have been able to enter the industry with smooth sailing.