Catch your attention, yet? I hope so! So, Fiber Addiction made our debut at the Ann Arbor Fiber Expo (and Gun Show; just sayin') this weekend. Wow! I was nervous, nervous, nervous. Many things in the world of FA have not been going...well...lately and the confidence factor has been huge. However, I am super lucky to know many talented women in the fiber world. Not to mention, I meet more and more forms of inspiration at every show that I attend. Part of my inspiration at this show, however, came in the form of excellent customer service and truly exceptional product. On a whim, I decided to order some wholesale product from ZippyPins. I am personally familiar with the exceptional humor and craftswomanship of these items from way back. I have received a few zipper pulls, buttons, and magnets in Phat Fiber boxes. Zippy is a fellow Spin or Dye Swapper on Ravelry, so I have swooped a magnet set and a bumper sticker set...once or twice ;) Above is one of my favorite bumper sticker sayings, but I must say my favorite of all time is my magnet that reads: "A bad day knitting is better than a good day at work"! Since I have been doing this fiber thing full time (well, sharing it with the full time job of being Dingo's mama), I really want to let others in the fiber community know when I find exception product, committment, and customer service! Here's a little info on the masterminds behind ZippyPins: (PS~Clicking on the links will take you right to the Artfire studio)
FA: So, who is ZippyPins, anyway?
ZP: ZippyPins is a mother-daughter team made up of me, Jamie O’Sullivan, Director of PINnovation aka ‘Chief PINhead’, a married mother of six (SIX...yikes!) and my daughter, Jenna Montgomery, Chief PINnovation Officer, a 30 year-old mom to a longhaired Chihauha and 3 cats (hey, animals are children, too!)
FA: Tell us a little about how you got started.
ZP: Well, ZippyPins had an accidental and humble beginning on the kitchen table.
FA: Ah, like the beginning to so many good stories...
ZP: Ha! Several years ago, one of my daughters, Logan, was on a crew team and her time commitment to the sport was so great that she had no life outside of rowing. I had purchased a used button maker and she asked me to make her a pin that said “I Can’t, I Have Crew” so she could put it on her bookbag and point to it every time someone asked her to do something after school or weekends. Girls on the rowing team liked the pin and started asking her for them. When I found out the team needed to raise money, I created some new crew designs and started making hundreds of pins and selling them at regattas and donating the money to the rowing club. Sayings such as "Fast Girls Finish First," "Some People Party, I Erg," “Rowers Do It Backwards,” “Kiss My Stern” as well as more than 70 other sayings proved to be very popular. In December of 2007, on a whim, I created some knitting themed button-badges as Christmas gifts for my friends in the guild. They suggested listing the crew and knitting pins on eBay, which I did in January 2008, trading as Emblazon Yourself. From the beginning, there was great demand for the pins. I decided to create pins about things my kids were interested in like geology and Irish dance plus, plus things I was interested in like fiber arts, gardening, antiques and collecting. Very quickly, my eldest daughter, Jenna, saw the potential for growth and we decided to go into business together. Wanting to establish an online marketplace dedicated to celebrating people’s interests, it became apparent that to take our business to the next level we should create an e-commerce website and rename our business Zippy Pins. The specialty website ZippyPins.com was launched in October 2009, offering a broader selection of designs and a variety of products in many sizes, as well as Create Your Own Design and Buy In Bulk pricing. In September 2010 we found ArtFire and realized it offered a unique opportunity to reach more customers in a creative, new way. Customers have requested our sayings and designs as bumper stickers, so in October 2010 we began offering knitting bumper stickers in our ArtFire Studio.
FA: That is such a great story! I give you so much credit for the time and dedication you have to maintaining such a professional atmosphere with excellent customer service. Anything else you want to mention or anything surprising, to you, about running your business?
ZP: Well, I think the hardest part is trying to figure out a way to let people know that Zippy Pins exists and to be seen on the WWW. We have a unique product, an incredibly designed website and we strive hard to please our customers, but we haven’t broken through for search engines to return Zippy Pins as a result when people are looking for pinback button-badges.
FA: Thanks, so much! The bumper stickers were a huge hit at the Fiber Expo (and gun show, did I mention it was a gun show, too?!) I will definitely be expanding for the next show I do! I sold out of three designs on the first day! "Spinning because knitting isnt weird enough", "I knit so I dont kill people", and "I knit so no one must die" were the show favorites on day one, but I sold out of five designs all together and only had one left of "Knit Happens". The only suggestion I got was to expand a little bit...I had plenty of requests for "Friends dont let friends needle felt drunk". I can see how that would be potentially harmful...
I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to debut these awesome bumper stickers! Want to have a few of your own? Go to the ZippyPins Artfire studio, find a favorite (or five), add your comments below about the site, your faves, or any suggestions that you may have and your name will be enterred in a drawing to win a set of Bumper Stickers! Bonus entries for commenting on the Fiber Addiction facebook page, too!
