Affordable FLAIR

Milwaukee native helps you decorate on a budget

Latex ink runs in Elizabeth Rees’ family — and likely in her veins. Five years ago the Milwaukee native, whose father is the head of the 80-year-old Milwaukee printing company Kubin-Nicholson, created Chasing Paper, an online company for removable wallpaper. Rees was watching old movies in her rented New York apartment when she noticed the impact wallpaper had on the decorating schemes in the rooms that were depicted. Painting a rental can be costly and is sometimes prohibited by landlords. Permanently attaching wallpaper to customize a room seemed out of the question. With Chasing Paper, Rees invented a peel-and-stick wallpaper that would come off as quickly as it went on. She lined up artists and designers, including Milwaukee designer Allison Beilke and HGTV star Sabrina Soto, to design the prints, and she used Kubin-Nicholson, which specializes in large-format printing — the kind that can be wrapped around a bus — to make the wallpaper.

The same practical inspiration came to Rees when she was looking at large-format prints to add style to her decor. She looked for pieces online at art.com, etsy.com and minted.com, but she just couldn’t pull the trigger.

“It all felt very overwhelming,” Rees said. She would see prints that were large and had visual impact but found that the cost to buy and frame them would be prohibitive.

What if she changed the look of the room? What if she got tired of the piece? Large framed pieces required a financial and emotional commitment Rees wasn’t sure she could make.

So she created Print Shop, which offers large-format prints or graphic designs at a price she calls affordable. Rees went to the same graphic designers and artists she was using for Chasing Paper to create looks that could stand on their own or be highlighted against a wall with a frame.

“We have such a great pool of artists and designers we work with every day,” Rees said. For this venture she turned to them to come up with eye-catching graphic designs, photography and illustrations.

Pieces displayed at Print Shop’s website run from graphic designs of crashing waves to simple designs featuring the words of author Margaret Atwood. Pups and Plants, a design sketch of a dog with a planter on his head, comes from Brooklyn designer Danielle Kroll. Ampersand Design Studio in Kansas City created the Come Together print, a bright and colorful arrangement of the words spelled out on three lines.

To cut costs, Rees returned to the family business, Kubin-Nicholson, for the printing work.

Rees calls the end result a hybrid of “our Wisconsin roots and New York sensibilities.”

In fact, Rees found herself coming back so often for Chasing Paper that she bought a house in Walker’s Point and began looking locally for a partner to frame the prints and help get them out to customers.

During that process Rees and her brother, Michael Rees, took a meeting with John and Adrienne Grunau, owners of Creative Enterprises at 5227 W. State St. That was followed by another meeting. And another — this time to share family stories over beers.

Rees and the Grunaus were on the same wavelength immediately. “It went from a business to almost a family conversation,” John Grunau said. Creative Enterprises got the job.

It works like this: Customers go to chasingpaper.com to reach Print Shop. There they choose from among the 25 available art designs, and the print is created on demand. Shipping materials and shipping data, as well as the art itself, are sent to Creative Enterprises, which specializes in framing prints and photos for commercial clients. The art is framed and shipped from there.

The Grunaus are in the process of taking over the framing company Creative Enterprises from Tammie and Keith Heinze, who have owned the business for more than 20 years.

Prints, which are printed on an archival matte paper, are sold in two sizes: 16 inches by 20 inches for $45 or 24 inches by 26 inches for $95. They can come framed in 1 1⁄4-inch black or white frames for an additional fee — $45 for the small prints; $95 for the larger versions, so double the price for an unframed print.

Creative Enterprises frames the prints with ecofriendly wood and uses plexiglass over the print for more stable shipping. Plexiglass also offers better UV protection. Prints are mounted so that nothing will slip during transit or when they are hung.

As the business grows, Rees plans to keep adding to the selection of prints for sale.

CHASING PAPER CHASING PAPER Milwaukee native Elizabeth Rees created her Print Shop business to offer large-format prints and graphic designs at affordable prices. Print Shop prints can be framed in black or white, as with this photo of crashing waves.

CHASING PAPER Moonrise Kingdom is a print available from Print Shop, a new business from Chasing Paper creator Elizabeth Rees. Rees is a Milwaukee native now based in New York. More photos at jsonline.com/fresh.

RICK WOOD / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL John Grunau, owner of Creative Enterprises, staples glued pieces of frame material together. Creative Enterprises assembles items for Print Shop.

CHASING PAPER Ampersand Design Studio created this print called Peace.

CHASING Ampersand Design Studio in Kansas City created this colorful Come Together print for Print Shop.

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL RICK WOOD / Debbie Desbouillons packages a Print Shop print for shipment at Creative Enterprises.

CHASING PAPER Eye-catching prints like this one, called Hangin' Out, by Emma Darvick, can be left unframed or framed for an extra fee.

CHASING PAPER This large Print Shop print is called Got the Blues

RICK WOOD / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL Special solid staples hold the glued joints together on the frames used on the large Print Shop prints assembled at Creative Enterprises.