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On a whim, woman designs, follows a dream
On a whim, woman designs, follows a dream
By Karl Henkel
BOARDMAN
A few years ago, Sarah Faix wanted to be the first person to buy a doll for her daughter.
The problem, Faix explained, was that she couldn’t find one in a store that wasn’t plastic, fluffy or cosmetically perfect.
Instead, she made one herself. Then she made another, and then another.
The 33-year-old Austintown mother of three then decided to put a couple of dolls for sale on Etsy, a website similar to eBay where people can sell or buy handmade items.
She sold one. Then she sold another, and then another.
What started as a means of connecting with her daughter has turned into an endeavor so successful she was able to make it her full-time job.
In 2011’s first quarter, she earned as much as she previously made in one year working as a consultant.
Her business, Bit of Whimsy Dolls, went from one doll design to 65, from using an online seller to its own high-traffic website and from Faix’s home kitchen to a new 1,200-square-foot, second-floor facility at 755 Boardman-Canfield Road.
“We could no longer fit everybody in my house, so we had to move into a real space,” said Faix, who works with two others and is looking to hire at least three more staffers who can sew. “And that’s after we sold all of the dining-room furniture.”
That’s been the frustrating part for Faix — keeping up with the demand for her product, which she admitted she didn’t expect even after her husband, Rob, urged her to sell her work online.
And what started with just a few dolls created entirely by Faix has grown into a small staff that makes about 25 a week and would like to make as many as 100 a week to fit her customers’ needs.
That hasn’t been easy.
“I think sometimes people treat me like I’m Amazon,” Faix said, referring to the popular online shopping website that sells electronics, books, apparel and many other items. “I’m not. I’m just a girl.”
Although not like Amazon, she did upgrade her company’s website in October, partly because of overwhelming responses that overloaded her previous site.
“We used to always list dolls at a certain time, and it used to crash our website,” Faix said. “People were checking out so quickly, and at the exact same time that we were overselling dolls.”
The overselling isn’t just happening in Ohio. Bit of Whimsy has received orders from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., since the new website’s launch. It’s also gone worldwide. Faix says she’s shipped dolls to Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Faix attributed the success of the business back to her daughter, who recommended different types of hand-sewn dolls, particularly animals.
The dolls are also a complementary product from those available at toy stores throughout the nation, which is what Faix originally wanted when she created the first doll for her daughter.
She said she tries to make as many different-looking dolls as possible so that others can share the joy she shared with her daughter.
“If you want to get a doll that looks like your kid, it’s pretty hard if your kid doesn’t fit the mold,” she said.
For more details about Faix’s dolls and other creations, visit her company’s website at www.bitofwhimsydolls.com.