Glen Ellyn Mom Expands Online Greeting Card Business

Tucked away in an alley off Duane Street in downtown Glen Ellyn is the warehouse for an online greeting card business that caters to customers around the globe. 

11 years ago, PJ Cardona's close friend asked her to design her son's birthday invitations. As a creative and computer savvy lady, Cardona gladly accepted. Overly pleased with the results, Cardona's friend casually said, 'you could turn this into a business.' That little suggestion planted a seed in Cardona's mind and soon enough her business plan grew and she opened up shop on the World Wide Web, first selling personalized cards through her site PJ Greetings. 

"I would shrivel up and die if I couldn't do this," explained Cardona. After finding success running her own business by selling products she designs, she feels she finally found her place in the work force. Although successful at previous sales jobs, she wished to find a niche that would suit her and now she has. "If I couldn't do this I would be very sad." 

As time went on, the digital age boomed and Cardona began noticing that less and less people were taking the time to pick up a pen to write a heartfelt note to a friend, or even a thank you card. So when she heard Pat McCluskey, a math teacher at , makes students write a hand-written letter once a month to family and friends, she wanted to donate some of her cards and stationery.

For more than two years McCluskey lived far from his loved ones in South Africa serving in the Peace Corps. Every week his mother would send him a card.

"It was like gold when I would get a letter from back home," said McCluskey. 

Even though he's a math teacher, he said it's his mission to bring back the hand-written letter so once a month he and his students write to various individuals in their lives. 

Cardona is hoping the rest of the world will again fall in love with snail mail like McCluskey but she isn't naive. Watching the trends, she began to see more people turning to the Web for just about everything; paying bills, gathering information and communicating. To compete with the new ways of the world she expanded her brand of personalization. Now she offers an array of personalized gifts from wedding invitations, stationary to platters and even stamps.

As Cardona's personalization niche grew, her products crept into 800 boutique-type stores something she never imagined would happen. Explaining her story, Cardona smiled in amazement that she could hire three employees to continue growing a profitable business, essentially owning a small slice of Internet commerce. In the last five years, her business grew enough that she needed more help with inventory, logisitics and banking and that's when she hired her husband, who left a stable banking job, to work full-time. 

"The world is our oyster," said Cardona. 

PJ Greetings, located at 501 Duane St., will be offering a reduction on warehouse inventory from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 8-9; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 10. Those interested are invited to peruse through PJ Greetings headquarters.