The seeds of the Zucchini Fish partnership were sown in 1987 when Carey Marden and Stefanie Valovic sat across from one another during 10th grade art class. In 1999 we resumed our creative process of sitting around together, chatting, eating chocolate, cracking ourselves up and making art.

Zucchini was Carey's pet fish in whose memory ZF was named. A professional photographer and graphic designer, Carey had the idea of starting a card company. At a jack-o-lantern lit table at a mutual friend's wedding, Carey asked Stefanie (who was looking for a way to make art again post art school) to join up. Our first studio was a small room in Carey's Jamaica Plain, MA apartment where we struggled to fend off 5 cats from drying sheets of hand printed wrapping paper.

We signed up for a holiday craft fair in Harvard Square in December of 1999. Eight years, many craft fairs, and a web site later, we have grown a small but devoted customer base. We scrapped the hand printed wrapping paper and focused on cards, square cards, mini cards and now USPS friendly rectangular cards. Over the years we have branched out to journals, prints, and luggage tags. This we are adding baby onesies and t-shirts to our line.

After working the craft fair circuit for five years, in 2006 Zucchini Fish participated spring Boston Gift Show, for the first time, marking our first big step into the wholesale world. In 2007 we went national with our first trip to The National Stationery Show.

Stefanie Valovic studied illustration at Parsons School of Design and RISD for two and a half years, and then left art school to study political science at UMass. Her "real art" is mostly figure work, landscapes and doodles. When not at the Zucchini Fish studio, Stefanie applies her creativity to her work as a public heath communications specialist.

Carey Marden has a degree in Photojournalism and worked for Boston area newspapers for 10 years before cutting loose to work freelance. Her work has recently appeared in Boston Magazine, Black Book Magazine, Specialty Retail Report and in the portfolios of several interior designers. In addition to being a Zucchini Fish designer Carey runs the business of Zucchini Fish.

Our best ZF moment was when a 10 year old girl dragged her dad into our tent (we were at a craft fair) and said, "Daddy, I LOVE it in here!"