It seems to be happening again! As you know, Mabel has been celebrating her 5th Birthday. It has been a huge time for us. Wonderful cards and emails have been pouring in from fans, friends, customers and strangers. Check out the amazing hand-made puppet sent to us by our dear friend Linda Leffler of Nova Scotia! Thank you Linda!! We LOVE her! “Flat Mabel” is going to start travelling with us. We’ll send you updates!
Five years ago today, we had our first production day. We spent more than a year researching how to make labels, but when we finally had orders to fill – that was the real thrill! It seems hilarious looking back. Everything was an experiment. Our idea of “busy” was hilarious. We’ve definitely learned a lot. These are some of the things I’ve learned:
If you don’t love it – don’t do it. If you don’t LOVE a design, a product, a sales pitch, a colour, a sentence, a photo.. anything – don’t do it! There have been times when we thought “I don’t really like this, but some people might like this”. Turns out – we are our best test market and we can’t stand behind anything we don’t love.
Authenticity can’t be faked. We know this is true because as consumers we can spot it in other companies. Being honest, being true and being authentic has served us well.
Sleep is a waste of time, but so precious. Should have learned this as a student. Should have learned this as a Mom. But babies + growing business brought us a whole new perspective on sleep!
Women ROCK. We are still amazed, warmed and propelled by the power of women to support each other. Bloggers, journalists, our staff, teachers, friends, moms, mompreneurs, retailers, strangers… we owe everything to the power of Women and their kind word-of-mouth.
Quality will get you everywhere. That’s just so obvious – but so many companies miss the mark!
There is a lot of Karma in business. Can’t explain it. There just is. It works for us every day. This is a lesson learned for me, because I really didn’t understand Karma before starting this business and meeting with so many incredible opportunities.
There are many more things I’ve learned, but these are the things I need to keep learning and keep practicing (along with ‘how does Google work?’ and ‘how do I get on Oprah‘?).
Do kids get presents at Easter? My three year old needs a new bike this year..Her little red trike won’t fit her this year. But she’s getting to an age where she notices ‘buying’. It seems weird to just buy it.. but also weird for her to think the Easter Bunny brings big presents like that?? I’ve noticed some of my friends buying a LOT of stuff – including scooters, toys, bikes.. I’m all confused? I thought he just hid some chocolate? And if my EB only brings chocolate – and ‘kid down the street’s’ EB brings a bike… ?
The politics of it all! What do you do? She’s been ‘wishing’ to the EB “please, I wish you will bring me a chocolate egg”, and last night she asked if the EB lived with Santa in the North Pole!!
Mabel is a great name. It’s easy to spell, it’s uncommon – yet known. We love the name Mabel. We received this note from a customer in the UK this week that is overflowing in MabelLove:
“Just have to tell you that when we were deciding what to call our little girl we looked all the names up on the web to see what came up and when we searched for Mabel yours was one of the first sites that came up. It was such a lovely site and had such cute pictures that we decided to call her Mabel and knew that when she went to preschool we would have to get her labels from you!”
Little Mabel in Portishead UK, a lovely package of Mabel’s Labels (that makes me smile) are on their way to you! Isn’t that just so cute?
Wonderful cards and emails have been pouring in from fans, friends, customers and strangers. Check out the amazing hand-made puppet sent to us by our dear friend Linda Leffler of Nova Scotia! Thank you Linda!! We LOVE her! “Flat Mabel” is going to start travelling with us. We’ll send you updates!
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