April 12: Experimenting with size and image quality/getting Poom Poom pillows made

The photo shoot took place in Richmond at Kent Eanes' studio. Welcome Mr. Pajamas Barry Privett. Barry looks awesome clad in plaid, by the way. Finally, I was feeling tangible progress. I secured my first musician's image for my very first Poom Poom. What more could a girl ask for?

How about someone to enlarge and transfer it onto fabric?

Finding a manufacturer was slightly more difficult than I had expected. I couldn't find a company that had the technology to mass-produce the pillows. I searched the Internet - I posted on forums, Googled, Wikied - and talked to business owners. I got nothing. Why is size always an issue?!

 

Roadblocks happen. It's inevitable. But you can control how you react to those things. You can be stopped in your tracks or you can turn around, take another direction. Find another way.

Fortunately, I have no problem with pulling over and asking for directions.

Jeff Swartz of Powerhouse Advertising had many contacts and, together, we found a company that could turn my photo into a 34-by-12-inch pillow. Because our manufacturer was overseas, it was a lengthy process. We were sent three separate prototypes over the course of a year. The shape and print clarity were different on each pillow. Although they were using the same digital photograph, the transfer technique varied and each prototype took about three to four months to produce and ship out to us. Finally, we agreed on what would be the final product.

Originally, I envisioned my pillow to be made of 100 percent cotton. Again, the size of the photo was an issue in the reproduction onto the fabric. The clarity and color were not as true when printed directly onto the cotton fabric. We had to make a decision whether to sacrifice the clarity or the cotton. Although the pillow is 100 percent cotton, for clarity's sake, we chose to go with a vinyl-based photo imprinted onto the fabric. Barry Privett is far too handsome!

This is the scary part. Once we agreed on the shape, size, photographic transfer, and box, it was time to sign on the dotted line. The box that the pillow comes in, by the way, is awesome. It's shiny black with my "Poom Poom Sleep Famously" logo imprinted on all sides. I had to come up with a down payment of $5,000. The minimum amount they would produce in one order is 1,000 pillows. The order was signed and placed and in December, a big freight ship sailed into a port in California, carrying 1,000 Poom Pooms. (A minimum of 1,000 pillows per order.) Yep, I've got a little over 900 Barry Privett Poom Pooms in a warehouse waiting to find homes.

Check out my Web site and have a look for yourself! PoomPoom.net. I've reduced the price of my first pillow as we make plans for our second celebrity/musician, Elias, of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Please leave a comment or suggestion and please tell all of your Carbon Leaf fan friends about my pillow!

Next edition, I'll share the excitement of receiving my first sales and how I went about promoting my product. Thanks for reading.