Chandana combines beauty with business

Ruwanthi Abeyakoon

CREATIVE: His fingers play with the colourful ribbons and codes creating fancy cake boxes. Proprietor, 'Fashion Box', Chandana Fernando, is a wizard at making hand-made wedding cards, cake boxes, jewellery boxes, greeting cards and decorations. Haling from Payagala North he commenced this business four years ago.

Realising the creativity in him, he started the business as a self-employment venture. "I wanted to use my talents. So I started this business. First I made cake boxes. I used to do it at home and supply a shop in Maliban Street. The shop owner said that there was a good demand for the cake boxes. Then I continued my business and did it full time," he said.

"I made contacts and got many orders. Mostly Muslim customers approached me. As the business expanded my family started assisting me. My sister, mother and wife all joined in the business and helped me. At present I employ eleven workers. I have my workshop at home. I expanded it and now I have all the machines and facilities to do cake boxes, wedding cards and greeting cards," Fernando added.

The shop and office

A worker in his press making cake boxes

He hopes to expand his business further and go for exports in the future. " I hope to buy cutting machines to expand my business. I do uncommon designs. I also design the way the customers want. I take foreign designs as examples and create boxes. I use paper flowers, weeds, gold dust, silver dust, buttons, codes and ribbons to do the designs," he explained.

He buys paper material from several places in Colombo. Fernando says that he didn't invest much in the business. "This business does not require a big capital. Creativity is the key factor to develop the business. I have been doing this business for four years and it has been very successful," he said.

This energetic businessman plans to be a wedding planner in the future and bring out the creativity in him to make wedding ceremonies memorable. "I want to be a wedding planner and handle everything such as flower arrangements. I hope to increase the quantity. Earlier I used to buy paper flowers from Bangkok. Then there were a lot of expenses. Then I started doing the paper flowers on my own. It helped in cutting down the cost," Fernando said.

"I have my own designs. I try to be innovative and for a day I complete about 500 cake boxes.

There is a good demand for my products. If I have machines I can do more. The Chamber of Commerce supported me and created the demand for my business. Business for Peace Alliance also helped me.

The exhibitions I participated in at the BMICH and the Convention Centre exposed my products and it opened up doors to make new contacts," he said. Fernando has had many difficulties in reaching the present standards. Tsunami affected his business and destroyed everything. "I restarted my business in a small shed near my house. Now I have developed it.

Recently I started creating jewellery boxes. I supply them to a few shops in Colombo. I can take any challenge and am ready to create new things that will suit the society. My aim is to beautify their special occasions with my creativity," he said.