A Little Light in a Sometimes Dark World 🐾

Hi, I’m Hillary, the person behind Paws & Prints.

If you asked me why I started this little business, the easy answer would be, “Because I love animals.”

But that wouldn’t really tell the whole story.

Animals have been more than family to me. They’ve been my safe place.

I experienced severe trauma in my life, and for as long as I can remember, anxiety has had a way of following me around. But there has always been one place where my mind seemed to quiet down and I could simply be.

With animals.

I think they gave me a sense of peace long before I was old enough to understand that I was searching for it.

When I was a teenager, we lived on a farm, and I apparently decided that enormous cows should be my friends.

I would take a five-gallon tub of cow pellets, sit right down in the pasture and let these massive cows surround me. I called it “breaking” them. 😂

Looking back, I’m not entirely sure who was training whom. They probably just thought, Here comes the weird little human with the snacks.

But I loved every second of it.

And then there were the strays.

If an animal needed somewhere to go, apparently my solution was that it should come home with me. I was forever bringing animals home, taking care of something or finding another creature that clearly needed to be fed.

Especially ducks.

At one point we lived on a lake where my dad liked to fish. Unfortunately for him, I had also made friends with the local duck population.

And every day I would eventually hear him yelling from outside:

“HILLARY! QUIT FEEDING THOSE GD DUCKS!”

Because, naturally, my well-fed little duck army had decided that his favorite fishing spot was also their favorite bathroom. 😂

Sorry, Dad.

But those stories say something about me that is still true today.

I have always felt deeply connected to animals. There’s something about them that asks nothing complicated of us. They don’t care about our past, what we look like, whether we have everything figured out or whether today is one of the days when simply getting through it feels hard.

They just meet us where we are.

And throughout some of the most difficult periods of my life, animals have given me a kind of peace that I struggled to find anywhere else.

Years later, that bond became even more meaningful with my own dogs, Winston and Molly.

Losing them broke my heart. But eventually, that grief also made me think about just how much happiness these little creatures bring into our lives—and how badly I wanted to create something from that love rather than only feel the loss.

That is part of how Paws & Prints came to be.

I’m an empath. I feel things deeply—sometimes probably a little too deeply. I notice sadness. I carry other people’s stories with me. And when I look at the world today, there are times when everything feels incredibly heavy.

I can’t fix all of that.

But I realized I don’t have to change the whole world to put something good into it.

Maybe someone who’s having a terrible day sees a ridiculous chonky cat and laughs.

Maybe a dog mom drinks her coffee from a mug that reminds her of the goofy little face sitting at her feet.

Maybe someone who has lost an animal they loved sees something that brings back a beautiful memory.

Maybe somebody scrolling through their phone stops for five seconds because something I created made them smile.

I think those five seconds matter.

That’s what I want Paws & Prints to be.

Yes, I make pet-inspired mugs, shirts, sweatshirts, artwork and gifts. But I’m not interested in simply putting another product into the world.

I want to put a little happiness into it.

I want Paws & Prints to be a warm, funny little corner of the internet for people who love animals with their whole hearts. The people who talk to their pets like humans, have thousands of pictures of them on their phones, rearrange themselves rather than disturb a sleeping dog or cat, and understand that sometimes four paws can provide a kind of comfort humans simply can’t.

I’m still building this business. I’m learning as I go, experimenting, creating, changing my mind and occasionally spending an absurd amount of time deciding whether a cartoon animal looks sufficiently chonky. 😂

But every design has a little bit of me behind it.

And every person who visits my shop, follows my page, shares something I’ve made, leaves a kind comment or chooses to buy something means more to me than they probably realize.

Because Paws & Prints isn’t a big, faceless company.

It’s me.

The girl who sat in a pasture surrounded by cows.

The girl who couldn’t stop bringing home strays.

The girl who kept feeding the ducks even though she was repeatedly—and rather loudly—told to stop.

And the woman who still finds her greatest sense of peace sitting beside an animal.

So if you’ve found your way here, welcome. ❤️

I hope something you see makes you laugh.

I hope something reminds you of an animal you love.

I hope you feel a little bit of the joy that animals have given me throughout my life.

And most of all, I hope this little business can add a glimmer of light to a world that sometimes feels far too dark.

Because I know what it feels like to need that light.

And if Paws & Prints can give someone even a tiny piece of it…

then I’m doing exactly what I set out to do. 🐾            
 
     ~Hillary, founder, Paws & Prints