DESIGN FOR SURVIVAL!
When owning a business, the ebb and flow of revenue can get pretty tricky and around here, Spring and Christmas are expensive! Gifts, entertaining, gardening, decorating etc. Thus, I’m forced to pull ideas out of thin air to supplement our income. As much as I’d prefer to be organizing another event, penning my book, patenting an idea or Netflix and Chillin’, I throw on the SuperMama Cape and hit the streets of imagination.
Without a helluva lot of coin for supplies, slight anxiety and an abundance of hope, I hit the drawing board to conceptualize & create things I pray will sell. It’s important that they’re quality & unusual; cost of materials is low; time is minimal and items are offered at a win/win price point. (EVERYONE deserve nice things at reasonable prices!) A significant factor in the process is always a nod to Mother Earth. Objects no larger than a dresser and no smaller than a brush are built stained embellished assembled pressed- even torched! Every idea has a story too!
Some ideas are flat out duds. Like, what the ACTUAL hell was I thinking when creating my own line of light switch plates?? (1996)
Thankfully, my initiative pays off - most items are embraced...
Personalized hammers for the difficult to buy for dads. 274 of them. Hand scribed. Both sides. Yep. Sold for $35 ea.
Customized pillow cases – both sweet and spicy – Sold for $45 pair
Seasonal Décor Kits ranging from $45 to $75
Spring and Winter wreaths ranging from $35 to $199
2 car loads of CandleLamps. So fidgety. My hands were dotted with glue gun burns. Ever done that? You see stars.
Crochet clothing and accessories. I said yes to the dress! (and the footlets {tanalogue})
Fashion ensembles ~ I’ve met some great people whom I’ve busted following me around stores. So… why not shop for apparel, dress Katie (my mannequin) and sell groups of 4 or 5 outfits? It worked! However – the customer was a completely different animal. They arrived to the house and mistook me for their own personal shop girl. Hard no.
FurnARTure {tanalogue} became the Super Heroes. No one was more surprised than I when realizing that over 50 pieces of antique/vintage chattel had been revived and revitalized. Then again, one of my fathers leisure pursuits was designing and building his own furniture…
This season, I scorched snowflakes (great oxymoron!) and “Christmas” letters. Because there is nothing out there on the market even remotely similar, folks ate ’em up! They were cool… I mean… hot… Whatever – they sold like hotcakes. OK I’ll stop now.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Great story! A lot good tips, examples, knowledge.
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