Hey, there. It's me - Alyssa. The one behind the scenes of, well... everything here! Throughout the years, I've hidden behind my machines as often as humanly possible. After the closing of my brick & mortar in Nebraska and moving to Houston, I decided to shift what my business looks like for myself and the community.
My brand is incredibly important to me and keeping it at such a distance is truly such a disservice. In other words, be prepared to see more of me! More behind the scenes, more hands-on, more... ME! Which also means I will be needing to overcome some serious anxiety around being perceived. Along with being more visible in the literal sense, I plan to do this every two weeks - blog! Have I ever written a blog before? Absolutely not. Do I expect to be great at it? Also no. Let's consider this more of a twice-monthly check in to ease my anxiety over putting my thoughts onto paper for all to see.
So what now?
That's a great question! While I do not have any immediate plans to reopen a storefront, I do plan to make a slow reentry into collections. It was a lot of pressure planning and producing large collections in such a wide range of sizes. The thought of sticking to baby/toddler sizing has crossed my mind a few times but I'm still undecided. My own children are 6 (nearly 7) and 9 years old - the age where they have strong opinions on what they wear even if it absolutely does not match. Thoughts from those with kids in youth sizing?
Besides sewing my own collections, I've started to take on seamstress contracts for other small businesses. I'll be the first one to admit that sales over the years after COVID have really slowed. With moving to a new area and needing time to familiarize myself with the local market, these contracts will help me bring in some revenue to keep online collections coming. If you're local to the Houston area and have suggestions on what markets to look into vending at, please let me know! I'm not ready to commit to recurring markets until I have a larger on-hand inventory but it's still good information to have.
A few people have asked for a timeline on when to expect a new collection but I don't have that quite yet. Despite being in Houston since mid-April, I've just begun unpacking my sewing room. I know, I know... After spending 8 months handling parenthood without my partner while he got situated in Houston, I needed some serious rest! Once I get fully settled and have my first two contracts out the door, I'll be sitting down to plan a little comeback collection. Until then, check out Instagram, Facebook and TikTok (@scrapsandsuchco on all platforms) for behind the scenes and between-blog updates!
