CalmNCalculated is a small shop I'm starting, to make planning tools for the big moments and the ordinary ones — a wedding, a baby, a move, the monthly budget, the running of a house. I've drawn and sold printables for ten years. These will be different: planners that work things out for you, bought once and owned outright.
Who is behind CalmNCalculated?
My name is Surabhi. I'm an illustrator, and I live in Gurugram in India.
I didn't start out in art. I majored in insurance and risk management and worked in banking and investment before I changed direction. I draw with fineliners — intricate work, mostly mandalas and fine linework. I make my own coloring books, I take workshops, and I have two children.
I've also been selling digital downloads on Etsy since 2015, under my own name, Intrikate Ink. More than 700 orders and over 80 five-star reviews, all of it printable art. That shop is where everything I know about selling a file to a stranger came from.
Then came Ambiyaa, where the drawings turned into real things you can hold — notebooks, wall art, gift wrap, all made in India. This is the third. Intrikate Ink taught me to draw for other people, Ambiyaa taught me to make and ship, and CalmNCalculated is what happens when I point both of those at a problem I keep having myself. Three ventures in, and I still get the same nervous feeling on the first day.
Why am I starting a planning shop?
Because after ten years of selling printables, I keep running into the same wall. A printed page cannot add up.
I know printables very well. They're lovely things. But there's a fixed limit to what they can do, and every seller of them knows exactly where it is. A printed budget sheet can't total your column. A printed checklist can't tell you that you've done nine of twenty-four things. A printed countdown can't count. You do all of that yourself, in your head or on a calculator, every single time you sit down with it.
For a coloring page that limit doesn't matter at all. For a planner it's the whole job.
So the ones I'm making will add up. You tick a thing and the number moves. You put in what you spent and the month works itself out. It's the same care I put into a drawing, pointed at the one thing a drawing could never do.
What am I making?
Planning tools for the big, messy moments — a wedding, a baby, a move to a new house.
But not only those. The big occasions get all the attention, and then you're left with the quiet, endless ones nobody makes anything nice for: the monthly budget, the running of a home, the small admin of an ordinary week. Those don't announce themselves. They just come round again every month, a bit heavier than they need to be. I want to make something for those too.
I'm not going to list what they do yet. Half of it is still on paper, and I'd rather show you a finished thing than describe an unfinished one. But I've set myself two rules, and those I can tell you, because they won't change.
It has to feel calm. That's the whole brief, and it's much harder than it sounds. Planning tools have a habit of adding to the very stress they're sold to reduce. They ask for more than you have, they show you everything at once, and they make you feel behind on the day you start. I want the opposite — something that holds the mess quietly and shows you the next thing, not all the things.
You will own it. Not rent it. You'll buy it once and it will be yours, the way a book is yours. Nothing to renew, nothing to log into, and what you write in it stays with you. I've thought about this more than any other part, and I'm not going to change my mind.
Buy it once and it's yours, the way a book is yours.
Am I doing this on my own?
No — and that's the part I'm most pleased about.
My son Vrishank is joining me as my first intern. He's just starting college, at exactly the age where everything is beginning at once, and he's taking on the things under the hood — the parts that have to work properly for any of this to feel effortless.
And Amit, my husband, who has been pushing me towards this for longer than I'd like to admit. He's the one I take every half-formed idea to, and he tells me the truth about it without talking me out of it. A good deal of what's sensible about this plan is his.
So it's a family thing. That's not a marketing line, it's just what's happening at our table most evenings.
Why am I telling you before there's anything to buy?
Because it's more fun this way, and because I've never much liked the version where a shop appears fully formed and pretends it was always there.
This one isn't fully formed. It's three people and a pile of sketches, and a lot of it is still on paper. Some of what we're planning will probably turn out to be wrong, and I'd rather find that out from you early than politely discover it later.
So if you're in the middle of one of these — getting married, expecting, moving, or just trying to get your money to behave — I'd genuinely like to hear what's driving you mad about it. The easiest way to reach me is to send a message through the Etsy shop. That's the most useful thing anybody could send me this month.
I left a career in banking to draw, which looked like a slightly mad thing to do at the time. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made. This feels like that again, and I've learned to trust the feeling.
So: welcome. Come along and see where this goes. I'd love the company.
Common questions
What is CalmNCalculated?
CalmNCalculated is a small shop making planning tools for the big moments and the ordinary ones — a wedding, a baby, a move, the monthly budget, the running of a house. They are bought once and owned outright, not rented by the month.
Who is behind CalmNCalculated?
Surabhi Kuthiala, an illustrator based in Gurugram, India. She left a career in banking and investment for art, and has been selling hand-drawn digital downloads on Etsy since 2015, with more than 700 orders and over 80 five-star reviews on her art shop.
Is it just you?
No. My son Vrishank has joined as the shop's first intern, working on everything under the hood, and my husband Amit is my sounding board and guide. It is a family venture.
Is this the same person as Intrikate Ink and Ambiyaa?
Yes. Intrikate Ink is the illustration shop I have run since 2015 — coloring books, mandalas, printable art — and Ambiyaa is where those drawings become physical things made in India. Both are still going. CalmNCalculated is my third venture, and a different kind of work again.
Why planners, when you draw mandalas?
Because a printed page cannot add up. After ten years of selling printables I kept meeting the same limit: a printed budget sheet cannot total your column, and a printed checklist cannot tell you how far along you are. For a coloring page that does not matter at all. For a planner it is the whole job.
Will there be a subscription?
No — and that is a decision, not an oversight. You buy it once and it is yours, the way a book is yours. Nothing renews and there is nothing to log in to.
Surabhi’s other work
If you’d like to see where this came from, everything else I make lives here.
Have a look around
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