When two sisters with different art skills realized they could combine their talents to start their own business, they did exactly that – and never looked back.

“I was doing hand lettering, and [my sister] was painting, so we put our stuff on Etsy in August 2016,” Mary Elizabeth Entwistle said. “We made everything by hand. Then in January of 2018, we launched our own website, moved everything to our own shop and it has been taking off ever since.”

Sisters Hannah and Mary Elizabeth Entwistle both live in Chapel Hill and run their art business, Hint of Mint Designs. Mary Elizabeth graduated in 2015 and works at the University, while Hannah is still a full-time student at UNC.

Some of the sisters’ work at Hint of Mint include:

  • Hand lettering and calligraphy
  • Watercolor artwork
  • Wedding day signage
  • Stickers
  • Art prints
  • Greeting cards
  • Campus maps

One of their most popular items is their watercolor map of UNC.

Besides selling their products online, one of their favorite things to do is to sell at markets around the triangle.

It’s not just online sales, though. Hint of Mint Designs loves to feature their products at local markets around the Triangle, according to Mary Elizabeth.

“When you sell online you don’t get to interact with people as much, so we love when we get to go out into the community and sell our products at local markets,” she said. “Learning from different people who run small businesses in this area, even if we make different things, we’ve a lot of times gone through the same struggles with trying to build up our businesses.”

The name of their business, “Hint of Mint Designs,” came from a play on words with a little creativity.

“My name is Mary Elizabeth Entwistle and then Hannah Entwistle, so it’s a stretch but it’s M and then the beginning of our last name (M-ENT), and then H with the beginning of our last name (H-ENT),” Mary Elizabeth said. “When we were setting things up we knew that if we moved it on to ourselves no one would be able to spell it, so we wanted a simpler name that we could still trace back to ourselves.”

While Hint of Mint Designs has grown and continues to grow, it’s most important to Mary Elizabeth and Hannah that it can continue to be traced back to the two of them and continues to be a fun project for the sisters to share

“Our other favorite thing is that it’s something we can do together, and we’ve always said we want to keep doing it as long as it’s fun and we enjoy doing it together, and after that we no longer have to do it anymore, if it’s no longer fun,” Mary Elizabeth said.

You can shop online at Hint Of Mint Designs, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to find out where they will pop up next in the Triangle.

Reporting by Bobby Ellis

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