| WHO: | Grace Burski of Little Rocks Design | ||
| SIGNATURE PRODUCTS: | Waterproof Stickers, Notebooks, Wrapping Paper, Magnets, and Mugs | ||
| WHERE: | Duluth, MN | ||
|
CONNECT: WEBSITE: |
By Millie Frankel, Staff Writer at Meet the Minnesota Makers
Grace Burski grew up with the natural world of Minnesota as her playground. “We grew up on quite a few acres of land, so most of our days and weekends were spent doing farm chores, taking care of our animals, gardening, and then going around on four wheelers,” remembers Grace. Summers were spent at her family cabin up north, playing on fallen trees and collecting agates with her older brother, or learning to trout fish with her grandfather in Southeastern Minnesota.
Grace also grew up with a pencil in her hand. It’s her artistic eye and attention to detail that allow her to transform her experiences outdoors into stunning hand-illustrated stickers, wrapping paper, and notebooks for her company Little Rocks Design. Whether as inconspicuous as a mushroom or as magnificent as Lake Superior, which Grace can see from her window in Duluth, anything can become a sticker to commemorate the environment of Minnesota in particular and the Midwest in general. “The other night, on my daily walk, I picked up a giant pinecone. The inspiration stopped me in my tracks. 
That night, it was painted in my sketchbook.” says Grace.
The trout remains Grace’s favorite design, due to the mix of fishing memories and the unique pattern and iridescence of their skin, which she created with layers of gouache and pencil. All of her fishing designs are influenced by her family. “I have a whole collection of fishing designs, and they’re all of my grandpa’s fishing lures,” says Grace. She sends her fish illustrations to her grandfather and uncle, both avid fishermen, before turning them into designs. When she created her walleye illustration, the fish didn’t have the distinctive white tip on the tail fin, and her family members were quick to help Grace correct the mistake in order to depict the fish accurately.
Unusual Commissions and Local Partnerships
While Grace’s designs are inspired by her own experiences, she frequently receives commissions that have allowed her to work with a number of fascinating clients. One of them is Horace– who only gave Grace a few days to complete her illustration.
The corpse flower at the Como Zoo Conservatory, also known as Horace, only blooms once every few years for 24-48 hours at a time. This June, the zoo commissioned Grace to create a sticker to capture the excitement of this year’s bloom. The day the flower opened, she rushed to hand-deliver the stickers to the zoo. “Within a few minutes the stickers were out on display and people were buying them. That day they had over 4,000 people going through the line. It was so neat
to see,” remembers Grace. “It was very exhilarating, and I was honored to get asked to draw it.”
Recently, she also created an Edmund Fitzgerald sticker to be featured at the 50th anniversary of the shipwreck at Split Rock Lighthouse and the William A. Irvin ship in Canal Park. She completes commissions from parks and businesses all over the Midwest– if you pick up a sticker as a souvenir at a park in the Midwest, there’s a chance it is one of Grace’s designs.
Little Rocks Design Grows
“I was very shy as I was growing up,” remembers Grace. “I was born a sole-surviving triplet at 24 weeks. When I was very young I had contact with a very limited group of people to protect my immune system.”
Grace was only seventeen when she began selling her designs at the Elk River Farmers Market in 2020. Telling each customer the sticker prices was Grace’s way of learning to talk. “I would say, ‘hand-drawn stickers here, 4 dollars, or 3 for 10.’ And I would just repeat that over and over,” remembers Grace. “At first it was very scary because I truly didn’t know how to talk to strangers at 17, but now it’s just second nature.” Connecting with customers and other makers at markets is now Grace’s favorite part of the job. She honors her siblings in the logo for her company: a cairn of three rocks symbolizing the triplets.
Grace attended University of Minnesota, Duluth, where she studied graphic design and photography with a studio emphasis. An art trip to Denmark and Sweden opened her eyes to patterns and textiles, which she incorporates into her notebook
and wrapping paper designs.
“Now it’s 2026 and I have a little over 400 designs in my current collection and probably over a thousand designs total, including custom designs,” says Grace. Little Rocks Design has a showroom at the Minneapolis Gift Mart where retailers shop for their stores for the upcoming season, and Grace attends several shows a year, travelling to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, and Michigan.
Outdoor Experiences Forge Connection
“A lot of people share the same joy for being outside,” says Grace. “It’s inspirational to talk about wildlife, what lakes we’ve been to, and fishing stories.” But Grace didn’t always know that she wanted to make art about nature. For most of her life, nature and art were two things she loved separately. “Later on I realized this is what I’m passionate about, and I’m passionate about art, so I can combine the two,” reflects Grace. “I think that helps it stick with other people too.”
At a market one day, a woman approached Grace with a cattail sticker in her hand and tears in her eyes. “She mentioned how the cattail is significant to her because her dad couldn’t afford flowers on her birthday or significant days, so he would pick her a bouquet of cattails,” remembers Grace. “When you pick cattails, they don’t really die, they dry out in a really beautiful way.” Common plants, like cattails, that people see every day around the lakes of Minnesota hold unexpected meaning for people, and Grace’s drawings spark moments of connection. The hours and days that Grace spends observing the outdoors are present in her artwork, through her capacity to notice an unassuming plant like the cattail and in her knowledge of the local flora and fauna, which allow her to capture the plant in detailed, accurate hand-illustration.
In a world where art and design is increasingly threatened by AI, it’s critical to Grace to create art by-hand with a human experience behind it. “It’s important to me too, to go to shows and show the face behind the art and show that they are my drawings,” she says. Little Rocks Design begins with Grace’s experiences in the outdoors of the Midwest and in her upbringing in the woods of Minnesota, but its success is found in its ability to connect with others through a shared love of the outdoors in the region they call home.
Get in Touch
Visit https://littlerocksdesign.com/ to order your own Midwest-themed nature memorabilia or contact Grace for a commission.
Follow @littlerocksdesign on Facebook and Instagram for an insight into the outdoor adventures that inspire the art.
Visit meettheminnesotamakers.com or follow @meettheminnesotamakers on Facebook and Instagram to discover the small business owners leading Minnesota on a tasty sustainable path forward. Meet the Minnesota Makers is a news site that connects you to the local food, farms, artists and artisans that make Minnesota thrive.
