Our Story

Let’s face it, when you’re shopping online, it’s nice to know who you're buying from. So without further ado, here’s the story of how two best friends, Mary Ann Varanelli and Ellen Mrazek, brainstormed and perservered to create a business together, despite being more than 1,500 miles apart…
Which is how you’d have to describe our 30-year friendship and the primary reason that Best Friends Studios evolved. We met and grew up together in Webster Groves, a small historic suburb in St. Louis, Missouri. Like many teenage girls, we spent summers at the pool, shared countless secrets, banded together against “mean girls” and even dated two guys who happened to be best friends themselves.

After high school our lives always seemed to follow the same paths whether it was volunteering at the Humane Society or joining the same sorority (Pi Beta Phi) at DePauw University in Indiana. And though we both left DePauw and ended up at different universities—Mary Ann at the University of Kansas and Ellen at the University of Missouri-Columbia—our friendship remained strong.

After college, our careers and hobbies continued to mirror one another, despite the fact that we seldom lived in the same city. Long distance, we shared passions for dogs, gardening, graphics, cooking, vintage paper…you name it. Which is why we always said that if we only lived in the same city, we could start our own company and do the things we love together.

In 2007, we realized that technology had made it possible to run a company together. Using Mary Ann’s dog pillows as a launching point, we plunged forward and began conceptualizing a creative business for the World Wide Web. This was our opportunity and Best Friends Studios became a reality.

Through the years and many life moments—including marriage, kids, the loss of both of our moms—we’ve remained “best friends.” Actually, we are family and regard each other as the best kind of sister one could have. For us, Best Friends Studios is more than a business. It’s a symbol of friendship and a celebration of the animals that are much more than pets to us. We hope you will enjoy our creations as much as we have enjoyed making them.