 It all started with an early morning email.
Well, it was early for us. For the sender however, it was the middle of the day. The email was from the head of Marketing at Annie Sloan Interiors which is located in Oxford, England. Amy had a simple question: would we be willing to coordinate the Chalk Paint® by Annie Sloan retail booth at the Country Living Fair in Rhinebeck, NY at the end of May? Without hesitation, I replied ‘Yes, we’d love to!’ And so it began.
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 I’ve written about inspiration before, and for good reason. Paul and I know that inspiration can come from anywhere so it’s important to keep your eyes open.
A few weeks ago, during one of our Chalk Paint® 101: The Basics workshops, a participant named Barb added a little too much water to her 2nd paint color on the two-color wet distress. She was looking at it and feeling a little disappointed that it didn’t look like the finish created by another participant who used the same color combination. Paul however, was really taken with the finish. ...or You Can’t Always Paint What You Want, You Paint What You Need As we’re getting ready for our next off site market (Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market on Nov. 8th) we find ourselves asking…How did we ever get involved in painting 250 little plastic dinosaurs, jungle animals and sea creatures? Let’s rewind to August. In the furry and determination to actually get a vendor spot at the fall TPRFM, Johanna clicked the box that committed us to providing items for their swag bag that goes to the first 250 people that gain admission. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Well, fast forward to mid September. “What should we put in these 250 swag bags?” That was the question we posed to my daughter Georgia. Georgia creates furniture and other very cool items to our inventory and we thought, since she’s young & hip, she’d have and idea that would resonate with the target audience.  Without a flinch, Georgia whips out here iPhone and hits a Pinterest pin she’s been saving for 2 years. “Let’s make these!” she said as she showed us pics of little plastic animals painted in cool colors and strung onto key rings. “Looks easy enough”… Famous last words. OK, onto Amazon. Find the tiny subjects – Dino’s, Jungle Animals and Sea Creatures, and into the cart they go. Next find key rings, WOW there are THAT many choices? Better find the tiny screw in hooks first. What size works with what? CRAP! Calm down, weed through it get in all in the cart…YES Purchase! 2 days later it’s all here. 300 plastic creatures, 300 key rings, 1000 tiny screw eyes. Now, how do we go about this? Georgia masterminds the effort. Enlist Lyla & Hanna (her sisters). Lyla is in! Hanna needs to think about it.  It’s the last weekend in September and production is in full swing. Groups of creatures are assigned colors, they are strung up on fishing line and dipped into the color that will make them shine. Napoleonic Blue , Florence, English Yellow, Emperor’s Silk, Pure White, Aubusson Blue and so on. There is an Annie Sloan rainbow of plastic creatures dangling on our drying rack.  The Next weekend rolls in and onto more dipping dino’s. Hanna joins this time to pitch in. Things are looking good.  Check the email … Wait! We need them finished by October 27th so we can ship them to the event producer by October 31st!!! No Way… Now it’s October 26th and all our dipped babies are swinging from a pole on the patio getting their sealer applied.
Thankfully it’s nice out. 3 hours later they are dry and ready for final assembly (add the key ring) and packaging (see through fold over bags with our biz card inside).
It’s 7:15PM and the last one falls into the shipping box. USPS click & ship is a beautiful thing.
Tuesday October 27th, 3PM. Let’s do our Starbucks run and drop off the box at the Post Office. Out the door we go for caffeine and… Did you grab the box? Uh…oh.Bat turn at the intersection and back home for the dipped beauties. A quick drive through at Starbuck’s and onto the drop off. 4:02 PM the package is received. Check our tracking. 4:16PM it leaves on it’s way to Trenton NJ. YAY!!! Thank you girls for all your help. Some times it truly does take a village. Paul |
