It has only been two months and what a whirlwind it has been...but let me start at the beginning....
All of my family lives out of state. We try to get up to see them at least once a year. This last spring break, my children and I went up to spend some time with my folks and siblings. One thing we always do when we visit my parents house is do crafts with "Grandma" (my mom). Jewelry, hair accessories, homemade cards, sewing, crocheting...you name it and we do it. This last trip my mom and sisters had figured out a unique cutting technique to make scarves out of an old t-shirt. They had seen something similar on a morning show segment. So, my girls and I went to making several scarves for ourselves. It is always fun to do crafts at "Grandma's" home because she has so many items in her craft room that we can design and tweak our ideas to meet our individual tastes. Each of us made our own scarves to take home and were quite pleased with ourselves.
Returning home I wore my scarf out and people began to comment on it. My good friend (who is a brilliant accessory designer) mentioned that she would like to have a couple. I had thought about making a couple more for me and my girls so I bought a couple more t-shirts in neutral and fun fabrics and made a few more for my family and my friend. I started thinking "I wonder if I could make these out of other fabrics?" I tried a couple of beautiful chiffon fabrics and seared the edges. They looked so beautiful! My friend said "You have GOT to sell these!"
A small boutique was coming up and I decided to participate. I picked a name, got a logo made up (by my incredibly talented brother), designed a website, ordered cards, made displays, had some professional pictures taken (from another extremely talented friend). At the same time, I bought beautiful fabrics and made over 120 scarves. It was very time consuming and I was experimenting a lot so I made many different varieties. I made some with lacy flowers, children's sizes, some longer and some shorter (not much consistency at first, unfortunately). Regardless, the scarves were a hit. I couldn't make them fast enough and had to turn friends away so I would have inventory for the show. The show came and I did very well and was actually picked up by a couple of local boutiques. Looked like I was going to make a go of this.
Anyway, things were looking like I could do OK with this product. OK, however, was not what the universe had in mind. People started coming into my life encouraging me to go bigger with my product. Amazing talented people offered their talents and services to move my business forward. Ideas flowed into my head and connections started happening. I realized how blessed I am to have such incredible support in my life. I thought "Why not? Let's do this thing!" So, with the support and the go-ahead from my husband and children the process began.
Up next:
Am I out of my mind?
The evolution of a company
The difficulties of mass producing
The time frame
The problems
No, seriously, am I out of my mind?
The successes
Let's spend money, money, money
Ha ha, let's spend some more money
More blessings from the Universe
A TV spot of my own
The launch of a website
Our first HUGE show
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