Between her responsibilities as class president and M-A’s Dance Team co-captain, senior Lainey Egnal juggles her own small business, Lainey’s Cards & Creations. Known for her stellar Cricut skills, 3-D cards, and graduation caps, Egnal is always booked and busy.
Egnal began her business in seventh grade. “For my Bat Mitzvah, I got this machine called a Cricut, which lets you design whatever you want through their online program. I made a baby gift for someone, and everyone really liked it,” she said. “I realized that I really liked making them too.”
Egnal’s affinity for card-making quickly gained recognition from those around her. Her eighth-grade English teacher, Kelly Slaughter, supported Egnal from the beginning and still orders from her now. “She saw that I made cards and hired me to make 50—my first bulk order. From there, I made an Instagram account and just started selling them more often,” she said. “Ms. Slaughter really led to the start of my business. She really believed in me and helped me believe in myself, which is how I got this all started.”
However, being an entrepreneur is not without its challenges. Egnal’s creative process is incredibly time-consuming, with cards and graduation caps taking up to four hours apiece. Fulfilling an order—from design to refinement—is no simple task.
“My sophomore year, I was making a bulk order of either 50 or 100 cards. I saved it all to make over the course of one night, and I stayed up until two o’clock in the morning so that I could get it to the customer on time. That really taught me the importance of managing my time wisely,” Egnal said. “It feels really good to start a project and finish it all in one setting, but that’s not always the most realistic with my busy schedule.”
As a perfectionist, Egnal maintains strict standards and never lets errors impact her work’s quality. “I always make sure I feel good about the work I’m putting out, regardless of what the project is. If something doesn’t look good, I redo it and make it into something that I like and that I think the customer will appreciate,” she said.
Egnal is best known for her custom graduation caps. “Freshman year, my Dance Team captain at the time asked me if I could help her make her grad cap because she had seen what I did with cards. I did, and I did it for a couple of other seniors that year as well. The next year, other seniors started asking me to make them, and it’s just grown from there,” Egnal explained.
As summer approaches and excitement builds for the class of 2025, Lainey’s Cards & Creations is already in full swing. In spare moments during the school day, Egnal can be found designing graduation caps on her laptop. “Currently, no one has their actual physical grad caps yet, so I can’t glue anything down. I’ve started cutting out pieces for each cap so that when we get our caps, I’ll be able to just glue down a bunch in one sitting,” she said.
Graduation caps are Egnal’s favorite—and most rewarding—projects. “With cards, I don’t really get the reaction of the person receiving cards because it’s coming from someone else,” she said. “With graduation caps, I get to see the person’s face when they get it and how excited they are. It is really fulfilling.” Egnal is now creating a cap for herself, and she’ll proudly be wearing her own work on graduation day.
To order a graduation cap from Egnal, fill out this form, and for all other inquiries, message her on Instagram.
