out with the old

In my early days as a mum, apart from feeling extremely anxious about how I was going on the parenting front; my creative outlet was inspired by the need to give special heartfelt gifts to the children of my wonderful mother's group friends.
For one little darling's 2nd birthday, I came up with the idea of designing and handpainting a t-shirt emblazoned with the chap's extremely long and interesting name.
Well, if you've ever seen a personalised t-shirt made JUST for your baby,especially if your baby has FOUR rather wacky christian names, you will know the appeal.

These days, it's a big industry supplying personalised stuff for kids, and I think that I was pretty much at the forefront of that trend. Of course MY product was rather superior.
To begin with, most of my clients were personal friends and their babies were beloved members of my world, or their friends having babes. At some point, things took off and I was busily drawing and painting and shipping little suits off all over the place. I never planned for expansion, I barely advertised (the cherubs wearing the onesies and t-shirts were advertisement enough)
Often I would find my days off taken up with trips to the post office and Target stores in far flung locations in order to find onesies in the right size to complete an order. I learned to loathe Target in a big way. If I had an iota of business sense I would have found a manufacturer to supply the suits & t-shirts, but I had no capital and the prices I charged for the finished product ensured that I was never far ahead of breaking even. Sound familiar?

As my friends tapered off their procreating ways and my own children grew up, I found that the orders were continuing to roll in but there was no love there anymore. It was a chore to source the garments, and I found it difficult to get motivated to create for people who complained about paying postage to receive their order delivered to the doorstep. I even had one customer who, more than once, payed by cheque on receipt of their order omitting the price of postage. Geez, talk about cheap.
So, in recent years I have had to tell folks that "No, I am not doing the t-shirts anymore. No, not even just ONE more for little Isabella"

But guess what? I actually had a small secret stash of onesies in the cupboard.
I have decided, in order to completely sever the ties of Lovelybutton Utterly Gorgeous Handpainted T-shirts, I will donate my remaining suits to our next school fete.
On Saturday, while D's folks were dozing on our couch after lunch, I got busy and dashed off a few simple designs which I drew onto the suits with alacrity (great word).
Today I have finished painting them and slipped them into their little cellophane packets.

Definitely limited editions.
For a good cause.
Oh, I feel so good.
I don't even know the date of the fete, but I'm ready.