Daria Artem decorates a giant fortune cookie at Lady Fortunes, the Canoga Park business she founded after receiving a fortune of her own at a Chinese restaurant. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)
CANOGA PARK -- Daria Artem won't forget the night 10 years ago when fortune smiled on her.As her birthday dinner with friends at P.F. Chang's in Woodland Hills wound down, Artem cracked open her fortune cookie.
"You will be successful in business," the little slip of paper said.
"I said I wish it was bigger because I want to share my fortune with everyone," Artem recalled telling the group. "One of my friends challenged me to make a fortune cookie as big as a cake that we could share."
And so she did.
It wasn't long before Artem -- whose 33rd birthday is today - was turning out supersized fortune cookies and other confectionery treats in the kitchen of her Bell Canyon home. She called the startup business 
Fortune cookies are big -- and bedazzled -- at Lady Fortunes in Canoga Park. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)
href="http://www.ladyfortunes.com">Lady Fortunes Inc.Today, Lady Fortunes operates out of a 5,000-square-foot bakery with 27 employees in Canoga Park. It turned out 5 million to 8 million cookies last year and generated $4.5 million in sales, said Artem, the company's CEO and Chief Confectionery Officer.
And the treats have gone from her modest warehouse to the White House.
In 2006 Artem was selected to bake 300 cookies featuring the presidential seal for the Presidents Day Party hosted by then-first lady Laura Bush.
The catch? Protocol deemed she had to pay her own way to Washington and bake in the White House kitchen.
Was she ready for the challenge? You bet.
"There is nothing to describe it," Artem said of the experience. "You just feel so proud. It's an honor. It doesn't matter if you are a Republican or Democrat. You are at the heart of the country. You get goosebumps."
Two years later she baked some cookies decorated with Barack Obama's picture for a couple of his presidential campaign fundraising dinners.
It was a fast ascent for a company born from a challenge made during a birthday dinner.
"I jumped on the Internet and looked up recipes for fortune cookies. Martha Stewart happens to be my idol so when I saw she had a recipe I grabbed it and adapted it," said Artem, who had formed a public relations firm, Artem PR, after graduating from California State University, Northridge, in 2001.
It took about two weeks after that P.F. Chang's dinner to come up with a big fortune cookie that was identical to the smaller ones.
But what can you do with a giant fortune cookie?
Artem dipped her oversized treats in chocolate and gave them to prospective and current clients of her PR firm.
Inside was a fortune that read, "You are one smart cookie when you work with Daria."
"One (client) said `Where did you get this. I want one.' And when a client asks for something you don't
CSUN graduate Daria Artem shows off the product at Lady Fortunes in Canoga Park. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)
say no," she said. "I thought it was a fluke."But more orders started coming in, and then while Artem was working on the Honda Insight marketing campaign, the company ordered 120 big fortune cookies.
Bingo. A business was born. The kitchen of her Bell Canyon home became its headquarters as she turned out private label novelties for a variety of online sites.
"I was sleeping three hours a night. It was very hectic and didn't leave me any time for myself or my family. Saturday and Sunday are family days and I pretty much worked them back to back," she said.
Making a giant fortune cookie is just like making a regular one, only on a bigger scale, Artem said. The trick is folding the cookie into its distinctive shape. Only about six out of 10 make it off the production line to market.
Her confectionery catalog also includes a variety of products that can be customized with sprinkles -- she has a huge collection at her factory -- and promotional themes like company logos, slogans and pictures.
The latter are edible and done with a proprietary scanner that captures details fine enough that the image looks like it's printed on paper. The culinary artwork is made from fondant, a sugar-based product, Artem said.
By 2004, orders were coming in at a rapid enough clip that Artem and her fiance, Yasser Emeira, decided to invest the $20,000 they were going to spend on their wedding to lease a facility for baking, supply storage and the management of the company. They tapped a second round of self-funding -- $25,000 that was the honeymoon stash -- to buy equipment.
She signed the lease on Feb. 13 and got her big break later that year at the Fancy Food Show in New York. She basically snowed buyers for Sam's Club and Wal-Mart into believing that Lady Fortunes was bigger than a one-woman operation. They signed contracts a month apart to feature her products on their websites.
Others eventually followed suit.
Eighteen months ago Artem made a successful pitch to the site 1-800-Bakery.com based in Winchester, Mass. Company CEO Stephen Pazyra signed up for some Lady Fortunes products -- including the big cookie -- after a vetting process.
It included a taste test by his four bakers with more than 100 years experience, collectively. But Pazyra was also looking for something else.
"The first thing we do is have them ship us product so we can do a quality check on the items and also how it ships. When you are an online business you have to make sure the product is going to arrive in top quality shape," he said.
Artem and her crew got high marks from Pazyra and his crew. Now she gets about 50 orders a week, he said.
Pazyra said Artem's cookie bouquets are very popular and keyed to seasonal themes. For example, at Halloween each cookie will have a different scary picture.
"It's the looks and the quality of the design," he said. "She also does a good job with corporate logos on the cookies."
And that is important when a big chunk of your revenue is business-to-business sales.
Turns out Artem's formula for success sprung from a tiny slip of paper and a simple recipe of sugar, eggs, flour, hard work and unwavering belief in a dream.
And one big cookie, too.
"It's definitely different, and a lot of fun. People who see this think it's the bees knees," she said. "You can't go into anything without being 100 percent invested. I went into it with a lot of confidence and giving it all of my self."
Lady Fortunes Top 10 Fortunes
1. I am so "fortune"-ate to have you in my life.2. You are my sweetest cookie and my greatest fortune....You make my heart crumble!
3. Confucius says: a bundle of good fortune is on the way!
4. The "perfect diet" is a cookie in each hand!
5. Lady Fortune will smile on you
6. You are one sweet and smart cookie!
7. The fortune you seek is in a giant fortune cookie!
8. When good fortune does not knock -- build a door!
9. Hard work is the mother of good fortune
10. Good fortune favors those who eat cookies!
greg.wilcox@dailynews.com
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