ABOUT US

Mahika Paper is founded and owned by first generation Filipino-American, Andrea Sarmiento. Sarmiento wanted to start a journal company because of her love for writing and documenting life's small moments. Sarmiento grew up in Cape May, New Jersey with her older sister, younger brother, mother, and father. She was always a creative spirit and has had many phases of wanting to pursue careers from fashion design to being a published author and everything in between. Her passion to create influenced her to start her first YouTube channel when she was 13-years-old and attend NYU's Future Filmmaker program at 17-years-old while in High School. 

Sarmiento currently resides in Philadelphia which has influenced her business choices for wanting to produce sustainable products and prioritize plastic-free packaging as waste has always been a major issue in the city. This also extends to her love for travel, having been to 13 countries and counting, and recognizing that the amount of waste produced by many large companies and businesses overall negatively impact and expedite the Earth's environmental crisis.

Sarmiento was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 25-years-old in May 2023 of which she has made a full recovery and completed chemotherapy treatment at the end of December 2023. Throughout chemo, she was working less and therefore began taking action on her vision of starting a business. Mahika Paper is her very first business venture and could not have brought this dream into fruition without the support of her friends, family, and boyfriend, Patrick.  

The name Mahika Paper comes from an aspiration to root the business in culture and community and reference her Filipino background. Mahika, meaning "magic" in Tagalog (the national language of the Philippines), enforces the idea that journaling is magic on paper. For many people, a blank page may seem intimidating because they do not know where to start, they do not know what to put on the page, or that they do not want to mess up. The beauty and the magic of journaling and what is produced often begins from nothing.
 
Mahika Paper wants to encourage its community to express themselves in any way that feels good to them. There are no rules to journaling and remember to be bold, be loud, and be yourself. You are magic!
  

 

"There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about."
- Helen Frankenthaler