Making a Little Magic
"Winnie's Boutique" – A Customer Highlight
Over the past few months, I’ve written quite a bit about all the struggles our shop has experienced since relocating to the Desert Homestead, along with lots of thanks for the ongoing support (seriously–Thank you!) Let’s break the equipment updates up with something really AWESOME!
Alison J. from our Picture This Clothing design community recently allowed us to be a part of a very special birthday party celebration for her daughter Winnie (despite our slow turn-around during our great era of machines outage.)
Let’s start with a key highlight:
The Heads-Up
Alison reached out to me in December about wanting to use Picture This Clothing as the theme for a two-part birthday party in mid-February:
Part one: The Design Party
Part two: The Design Reveal Party
In order to plan this out right, she needed to know if we could commit to a turnaround time that would allow her to send out invitations with dates for parties part one and two.
The party would be Sunday, February 25th. I would like to do the follow-up playdate for Thursday, March 7th, because the following week is spring break, so a bunch of people will be out of town, and I don’t want to push it out further than that. Would that be safe timing?
At the time, we were still early in our machine-outage adventure, and I had confidence that we’d certainly be up and running again by February.
Little did I know at the time that we would still be working through outages into late April and early May (and at the time of writing this, those timelines may still be optimistic. But what the heck. What am I if not optimistic?).
The almost two-month heads-up is pretty key given our current circumstances, but even when things are operating normally, the notice is super nice and allows us to plan accordingly on the production side.
The Check-in
During the first week of February, Alison checked in with me to make sure all systems were still “go.” She let me know there would be between 11 and 13 kids at the party. Woo-hoo!
I just want to confirm again that if we get them to you the night of the party, February 25th, we can get them back by March 7th for the follow-up playdate.
That evening is the Art Walk at their school so they’re all planning on wearing them there.
Because I had received an excellent runway of notice, I was able to make sure Alison had our image requirements so that the images she uploaded the first time were on point.
She killed it!
I was also able to coordinate with Ken on image processing, and shop-neighbor Jeff on doing a rush turnaround on the print and sublimation, so that we’d have time to sew, pack, and ship ASAP and get things back to Alison ahead of her need-by date.
We did it!
The Follow-Up
Alison tagged me on her social media post and let me tell you - THIS is the magic!
And I don’t mean what we did.
I mean, check out what Alison did! Look at what these designers did!
We offer a “tool” that allows kids the experience of designing their own clothes using a simple coloring sheet. It’s a cool tool, and I’ll always be proud of it, but it’s what our customers do with it that really takes it to the next level.
Alison created a “Winnie’s Boutique” theme. They had a design party.
Then they came back together a couple of weeks later for a design reveal and fashion show party! And it was absolutely incredible!
Alison - THANK YOU for sharing your experience with me!
Our tiny shop is grateful we get to be a part of your MAGIC!
Alison’s Instagram:
As I always say, it’s not a dress (or t-shirt); it’s an experience!
It’s the imagination of people like Alison and YOU that bring it all together. It’s a kid getting to express their unique vision on paper, then hold it in real life and wear it!
I’m grateful for our design community and the brilliance you all bring to this little creative tool we made.
Thank you for allowing us to make a little bit of magic with you!
❤️ Jaimee
Co-founder, Picture This Clothing
Helper, Sam Barsky’s T-shirt Store
Partner to Ken Finney in business and in life
Mom to two amazing daughters and a smattering of rescue pets
Maker of doodles over dried coffee spills on TikTok & Instagram