Born from an idea that a gift borne from the heart is often more rewarding than expensive gifts purchased, 35 Thoughts is a way to connect your feelings and relive special moments in your relationships with someone you love in the form of a gift that they can keep and share.
Below is the story of how “35 Thoughts” came to be:
You may be wondering what ‘A gift from the Heart’ is. I came up with the idea when I was struggling with what to give my husband for Christmas one year. We have always been big on making gifts for each other so I started thinking of a way I could create a gift that would make him feel loved and special that isn’t tangible. Memories, is what I came up with. When you share memories, you share something that is unique to only the people who shared that particular experience. I thought of all the good memories my husband and I have shared and how to combine all those memories so he could feel them all at once. I collected objects from special memories and attached a story to each of them.
The items ranged from a bracelet I wore on a special night to the receipt from the jewelry store where we bought our wedding rings. I took all the items attached their stories to them and put them in a velvet bag and that was his gift.
It was during this time of constantly thinking about how to make money that I started thinking about how to take the concept from the gift I gave my husband to a product that would help people personalize a gift with their own memories and thoughts. In place of the items I came up with phrases that referenced a special time or place like,” The best day I ever had with you was..”. The original idea was a book that would have the beginning of a sentence on one page and a blank page on the next for the giver of the gift to finish.
However, I knew from my past research that I could not afford to produce a book. I started thinking about packaging, and how I could get away from something that needed binding. I had a zillion ideas of course, but then I found it. It was perfect! It was a wooden box that looked like a book, with a drawer that pulled out where the pages would be if it were an actual book. The boxes came plain so you could paint them as you wish.
This sounds funny, but I am actually getting excited about this find all over again just writing this. The feeling of finding a way to bring an idea to life with very limited resources is totally thrilling to me. Anyone who had money could have just paid to make it a book. The work that I put my mind through to find a solution to something I wanted very badly could be equated to a runner finishing an amazing race.
I painted the boxes in different ways and tried putting the words on them with several different techniques. It took a while, but I came up with a pretty good system. My husband created a template for the phrases I had written for the book and turned them into cards that I could print and cut. The front of the cards would have the beginning of the phrase and the back of the card would have lines for the person giving the gift to complete. A full set of cards would be placed in the drawer of the book box and bam; I had created my first real viable product.
My husband suggested we list the gift books on Ebay as a way to sell them and bingo! My first sale was to a woman in India, which I thought was very cool, and from there I sold several more. It is extremely rewarding for anyone who has ever created a product to have another person value your idea enough to pay you for it. It validates all of the hard work and gives you that moment that proves your sanity.The day I realized I was an entrepreneur was another day that was a major turning point for me. I will never forget it because it was the day I realized I would never be the same person I had been up to that point in my in my life. It was like meeting my other self. This day will probably seem very small to some people, but for me it was an awakening. I remember waking up and thinking “I can’t take this anymore”. I don’t believe in being a victim in your own life. I am not saying that I haven’t made choices that made me feel sorry for myself because I have. I had reached a point where I said to myself, “I refuse. I refuse to wait for something to just happen. I refuse to believe that this is all there is.”
We had no money because my husband didn’t get paid for a few days and not enough food to get us to his payday. I was desperate to fix the problem.
“ I am smart, strong, capable and hardworking. How can this be happening to me?” I said to myself.I started looking around at the things we had brought. I had an old book collection I had brought because I thought it might be worth something so I threw the books in a box. I also had several of my gift boxes, so I threw them in the box too. I found a used bookstore in the yellow pages, and I was out the door.
I sat in my car in front of the used bookstore and looked over what I had brought to sell. I had brought an old book collection of classics and a several Gift from the Heart gift boxes. I didn’t have the heart to throw them away before the move. I was more willing to sell my favorite clothes and shoes than to give up some silly little thing I made. It sounds stupid, but the gift boxes were like a part of me. I took the gift boxes out of the box and set them on the passenger seat of the car. When I grabbed them at home to put in the box I had been in my frenzy. Sitting there in front of the store, I suddenly felt very nervous. I began having a conversation with myself about how it didn’t really matter what these people thought and the worst they could do was say no. blah blah blah.
When I went into the store the woman at the counter was on the phone, saw me with the box, and motioned for me to set it on the counter. When she got off the phone I explained that I had an old book collection I wanted to sell, and that the other items were a gift idea. She said she needed to look up the other books and it would take a bit. The phone rang again, and she began punching the titles of my books into her computer while she talked on the phone. I felt weird just standing there, so I wondered around the store looking at stuff and pretending to be mesmerized by all the old books. When I made my way back up to the counter, a customer was holding one of my gift books in her hand asking the sales woman how much they were. The gift books had been stacked by the register while the saleswoman was checking the value of my other books, so the customer simply assumed they were inventory that was for sale.
When I left he bookstore I had $17.00 in my pocket, the book collection the store didn’t buy, and a smile on my face. The customer ended up buying two of my gift boxes, and the storeowner bought the rest. Some people might find the fact that I only made $17.00 discouraging, but when you’re poor $17.00 can be food for several days. What happened to me that day was life changing. It was as if I had been trapped in a cave, and by moving just one rock , a sliver of light from the other side was revealed. When I saw that there was a way out, it didn’t matter how many rocks I had to move to get there. I saw there was a way out. I remember thinking this is the person I am supposed to be. I realized that day that the current circumstances I found myself in would not determine my future.
When I got home my phone rang.The phone call was from the bookstore asking for more of my gift books. They were already gone, which is insane because the store wasn’t a place you would call super busy. I had gone through my whole thought process in the car on the way home about my new identity and getting that call at that moment was like a sign. Seriously, what are the odds the gift boxes would be sold before I even made it back home?
What did I learn? I learned the person that I really wanted to be was real. I learned that fear was my biggest obstacle, and if I could find a way to keep it from controlling me, I could probably do anything I wanted to. I learned to follow my gut even when it seems silly.Those gift books saved my life. Suddenly, I had a direction and a desire that was unstoppable. After the bookstore took on the gift boxes I started thinking about the bigger picture. I realized that no matter how much I loved the boxes, it was unrealistic to think that I would be able to keep up with production, if I ever wanted to get into mass distribution. I started playing with different ideas of packaging again. I spent hours in craft stores, just wondering around, waiting for something to jump out at me that would make it easier for me to produce the cards, and package them faster. It is a challenge to make things cost effective when you don’t quite have enough money to buy things in bulk, and you just have enough money to get a smaller amount, but at a higher price. I had to find something that was less time consuming, but also within my budget. I really liked the idea of putting the cards in little canvas bags that would have the name screen printed on the front, so I visited various screen printers and contacted other companies online, but the cost was just too high. I also found these adorable fabric envelopes, but again, it was way over my budget. I finally settled on organza bags because the bags were inexpensive, and I could afford to purchase them in large quantities. I could slip the cards into the bags quickly, and because they were transparent, the front card was visible, so no printing was required. I sewed heart charms on the front of the bags after trying several gluing methods that didn’t hold up.
My days consisted of waking up early, getting my husbands food ready for the day, sewing charms on the bags, and printing and cutting cards while I listened to Earl Nightingale. I just love him! My husband and I listen to several different speakers and he prefers Bob Proctor, but we both like Tony Robbins. Say what you want about motivational speakers, but I highly recommend taking the time to find one that works for you, especially if you don’t have a mentor. Some of the information is about business, but really most of the information these speakers provide can be used in all areas of life. The other reason I believe listening to a motivational speaker is valuable, is that it gives you an internal dialogue that is goal focused, until you can create your own.
My desire to be a person of action, and a person my son could be proud of, took me over, and nothing could stop me. After my husband left for work, I would put the cards in the bags, standing at the tiny kitchen counter, while Cole ate his breakfast. If you have kids you understand how challenging it is to work on something without your toddler getting into it, and also how hard it can be to keep them occupied so you can get anything done. After breakfast we would go to flower shops, lingerie shops, coffee shops, and anywhere else I could think of to sell the cards. I would listen to Earl in the car to get my confidence up before going in to make my sales pitch. I had Cole with me, so it was a bit challenging, but I made up the joke that he was my not so silent business partner, and we made it work. In the afternoons, when I could get Cole to take his nap, I worked on display stickers using what I learned from when I made posters for my braid business. I also used my previously acquired knowledge of how to write a press release to write to the local newspapers. We would go to the park everyday, and I would try to get some kind of a workout in every day. I kept a notebook in the bottom of the stroller for ideas, and new versions I was working on. We were busy all day.
It was during this time that the local paper decided to do an article on my cards for Valentines Day. While writing this I realized that I had actually started A Gift from the Heart a full year prior to this time in Illinois. Anyway, another press release had paid off and I was grateful for the coverage. I could tell the reporter and the camera man were a little uncomfortable coming to my apartment when they walked up. It was just as uncomfortable for me to have to expose myself in this way, but it was something that I had to do if I wanted to get my name out.