I think what I love most is giving my customers the feeling of happiness. They have lots of fun, and at the end of the day, they feel like they belong to this family.
— Claudia Squio, ColorWay Arts
“I started ColorWay Arts in 2014—a little bit more than 10 years ago. I was working as a food engineer in Brazil, but I was very depressed. Something wasn’t right. I knew I had more to do, and that I was not living the life I wanted. So during one of these critical times, my husband was invited to come work at the headquarters of the company he was working for and we moved to Indiana from Brazil. I said, “Okay, I’m done being a food engineer, let me do something else.”
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I started doing cross-stitch again. I came back to the crafting I used to do when I was young, and that was so great—it was wonderful. I said, “Let’s do that.” I also had to learn English because I didn’t know how to speak it.
I started crafting more and making things to go to craft shows. So one day I saw a video of someone making a cover for a journal using fabric, cardboard, and glue instead of sewing. It looked fun. When I made the first one, I said, “That’s it!”
“From the journals, I started doing boxes, which is the origin of the cartonnage technique that I teach now. I just fell in love. I started making more and more boxes, and my husband said, ‘ What are you going to do with all those boxes?’
I started teaching classes at a craft store. In the first class, I saw the eyes of the people who came—they were so happy. They started calling me, “Claudia, I want a class, come to my house!” It was so fun. I said, “Okay, let’s keep going.”
In 2015, I was just teaching in shops. My husband got fired from his job, so he found a new one here in Michigan. I had lots of students there in Indiana and had to start all over. I found a shop in Grand Rapids to start teaching, and I started doing videos because my students were still in Indiana and I was here. I started my online school in 2015.”
“Then in 2020, I opened the club, which is a membership program. My house didn’t have space anymore because we make the kits—to make the boxes, we make kits, which is cardboard and all those things. We were doing it in our basement. I didn’t have space. We found this place. It was wholesale. Now we have a space downstairs for production, a space in the back for shipping orders—we have customers in over 20 different countries who are members of our club.
So, back to your question—why ColorWay Arts? When I was in Brazil and working as a food engineer, my life was very much white—from my head to toes—every day. I was so tired of that. When I came here, what caught my attention in fabric was the colors. I’m guided by my intuition and heart, so I thought, how can I name this business? It must be something with color, because my life changed. “ColorWay”—because my life now is a different way. ColorWay is a word, but for me, it’s capital—ColorWay Arts. That was the meaning: it was a way into a new life for me, a colorful life.”
I think what I love most is giving my customers the feeling of happiness. They have lots of fun, and at the end of the day, they feel like they belong to this family. The testimonials—oh my—everybody loves what they do. They feel worthy. They feel happy. They bring this feeling to the whole family. And these feelings of worthiness and happiness is so important in the world.”
