Hi, I am Jadelyn and I sold stuffed narwhals with an adoption certificate, by myself. I decided to sell this product because I really like stuffed animals, and many people in our school like narwhals. When you put both together you get a stuffed animal narwhal! When I looked this up on YouTube I found a great video. It showed step by step the process. The problem was that it did not show you the measurements or the shapes of the pieces you had to cut out. But, dad to the rescue found a website that showed you step by step how to create a different narwhal (this one came with tracers of the narwhal).
I came up with my business name by brainstorming with my parents. I wanted my business to protect not just one animal species, but them all! So, we came up with Planet Protectors.
I struggled with actually making the narwhals after I did the first 3. It took me about 2 hours to complete each narwhal, and after making the first 3 it wasn’t as interesting and fun. My mom made me finish what I started; however, I ended up making only 30 when my original goal was 40.
I felt proud and accomplished standing at my table. Several people asked me to save them a narwhal, so I was turning people away because I only had saved ones left. A teacher came up to my stand, and asked to have a narwhal. I told her that there was only saved ones left. She then explained to me that I could be considered as sold out then. When my mom overheard that she walked over and said,” If you don’t have the money you don’t have a sale.” I agreed, so I started to sell them again. I sold out ten minutes later (40 min after TREP$ started). I was second to sell out. I had several people upset because there were no more narwhals. Those people that really expressed a desire for a narwhal I agreed to make them one. I ended up selling 7 more, so I made 37 narwhals!
I had said that I was going to give 10% of my profits to the World Wildlife Fund. That ended up being $13. I should have charged more for the narwhals. I undervalued my time and effort. I made $1.50 an hour. If I was to try and do it again I would price higher. Since you have to create so many items my advice to you would be to pick something you love doing, and make sure that you pay yourself well.
