Thursday, February 3, 2011

A Business with Heart.. A fun story of Hedy and Ross


Many of our clients know our business of Pawprints. For over 35 years now we have taken clay hand and footprints for baby's, kids, families and pets as well as we have trained women and men to have their own successful clay handprint business. What many of you don't know is how we started this business.

Ross and I were potters and came to Morro Bay to open up a clay studio. When our friends started having babies because we worked in clay we started making making clay hand and foot impressions for them as gifts from our heart. We never even thought about the potential of having a handprint business. We truly just made these for gifts.

However, when our friends friends saw their baby handprints they too wanted them. We all of a sudden were overwhelmed at how many people were calling and wanting to come in and have their kids ceramic impressions taken and how many inquiries we had from stay at home moms wanting this very business for themselves.

Virtually this business happened over night. What started as a gift from our heart, led us to branching out our pottery business to also marketing these kids handprints. We immediately saw the writing on the wall. This was a way for us to add a real "bread and butter" product to our pottery line. We realized that families always spend money on their kids and these hand and footprints that we were making made a real positive difference in our income overnight. This was a part of our business that was not only profitable, but, it was fun. Plus,we were making wonderful lifetime keepsakes for families that had incredible value and would keep growing in value with years to come. The most fun was that these families were so happy to have to have us make these prints for them.

Most of our clients think that we came to town and opened up our clay handprint business. Not so.. we came to Morro Bay to have a working ceramic studio and teach pottery. We never even imagined that we would have a business that was good for our hearts and wallet too. How fortunate for us. We are so appreciative that we have found a way to create our pottery, make hand and footprints for families. This handprint business changed our lives and has allowed us to live in this beautiful seaside community of Morro Bay, California.

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