Decoupage chest, "Beloved Guadalupe"

"Hi. I'm Ana Maria González, and for as long as I can remember I've been in contact with arts and crafts. My whole family produced them in one way or another and whenever we'd visit our relatives, my cousins and I would end up making something for fun.

"After I married, my husband and I created various kinds of handicrafts, but the need to make something different led me to launch my own line of designs. I began making decorative boxes, painted by hand with different finishes. Today I create boxes with antique motifs.

"First we craft the box of pinewood. We sand it and then decorate it. Currently, I am working in decoupage, adding an antique finish with a special formula I mix myself.

"My designs reveal a tiny bit of Mexico that I carry in my heart.

"My husband Ariel and I have worked together with Novica since 2004. We began right after moving from Matamoros.

"We discovered Novica at a craft show where we were exhibiting our work. At first, we experimented with several different crafting techniques such as stoneware ceramics. We wanted to see if we could grow with each technique. This is how we eventually arrived at decoupage.

"Decoupage isn't complicated, which lets us focus more on quality and increase the variety of our designs. In this way, our workshop achieved a great workflow and, with Novica, our income began to grow.

"For us, Novica is a word-class marketplace that we appreciate and is, in fact, the basis of our day-to-day work.

"Through Novica, our vision was transformed and we were able to climb to greater heights in the quality of our designs.

"A challenge that arose was our capacity to create what we'd imagined, but we entered into a pact with our assistants. We needed to provide them with more training and help them feel an enthusiasm for their work each day.

"It was Novica that taught us about the needs of international shoppers and helped us reach that level of quality."