We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Terri Morgan & Sarah Mathis-Luesmann. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Terri Morgan, Sarah Mathis-Luesmann below.
Terri Morgan & Sarah Mathis-Luesmann, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Terri: I basically stumbled into this business. Needing specialty fabric for my sewing business (Fancy Pants 4 pets) and my resource was closing, I was not finding other good options cost wise. I discovered that I could have my own chosen designs printed myself. I had another person join in the ordering for her own sewing business of custom made cloth baby diaper.s We quickly realized what a good price point this was and wondered if others would also want to buy. Baby Bumblebee Designs came to be in May of 2019. My risk level came in August of 2020 when that co-owner abruptly left the business. This is a two person venture for sure. I had someone who had been working as striker leader for our sewing team say she would love to do it. We also made the decision to make it three Co-owners. We then transitioned to The Creative Critter Collective which it remains now. Three designers with very different aesthetics. We announced to our Facebook Group January 1st of 2022 and changed our website to reflect the change. Pandemic made things hard in many ways, increased cost of shipping to get finished product to us. And so many others decided that a fabric business out of their garage would be easy. We were determined to hang on. But only 8 months in one of them left for family reasons of great need. The other simply walked out the next day. Again….do I try and go on and how do I do that. Each time was a financial and emotional blow. But I am a fighter and don’t like to let others decide my timing. So then a phone call to a customs customer of mine……Sarah, again a risk.
Sarah: I started buying custom PUL from Baby Bumblebee Designs for my baby diapers after my daughter was born in March of 2020, and it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the fabric and with the customer service Terri provided when I ordered custom fabric. I ordered customs every few months from her for almost two years until she asked me to come on as a co-owner in 2022. I was immediately excited and a little nervous too. I had never done anything like this before, and there was a LOT of information to absorb. The big risk for me was taking on a business that I was buying into without knowing for sure it was going to be something that I would be any good at, or even enjoy doing. (Buying fabric and designing it are two very different animals!) Terri was incredibly patient with me as we worked through it and we settled into a rhythm. Even now, I continue to learn as we go, but it has become a life passion now. I couldn’t have made a better decision when I said yes, and I can’t imagine NOT doing this.
Together…we have taken the risk only in the last two week purchasing a well know custom fabric company “Violet Snow Custom Fabric”. They are ready to move on to new and exciting things, so we have added this company, their website and customers to our work. We are determined to honor their brand and supply their long standing customers with amazing fabric, beautiful designs and top notch customer service.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Terri: I am the Grandma of the group lol I am 63 and actually married 41 years today! We have two children and two Granddaughters. We currently live in Texas and our kids are on the east coast. We have moved 16 times in those years, following my husbands work. I have always been creative and had other business that involved that, owning a craft store, a catering business and my long term passion which is Fancy Pants 4 pets. A 4 week old paraplegic kitten and incontienent found its way into our family in the spring of 2006. This squirmey little kitten could not keep om a diaper that I bought at any pet outlet. So I designed one. That lead to making them for a large company for disabled animals and then eventually in 2010 my own website and direct sales. We currently have 4 kitties in diapers in our home. Fancy Pants 4 pets have been shipped world wide weekly and is our Rockos Legacy. Saving these disabled furbabies that deserve a chance at life and providing them a way to be more comfortable and protect the furparents home is a passion. I also admin a Facebook page where we work hard to teach people these furbabies can have great quaility of life despite others opinions. A very special fabric called PUL is used for this. A round about way lead me to designing and printing my own fabric for Fancy Pants and blossomed into the business we have today.
Sarah:
About Me: I am have been married to my beautiful wife, Kristin, for 5.5 years and we have a little princess who is three, as well as an older daughter who just turned 18 and graduated high school. I started Faerie Knoll Creations after my baby was born and I fell in love with making her diapers and clothes. My grandmother taught me to sew when I was only a little older than my baby is now, and they are some of my fondest memories. I can remember making baby doll clothes alongside my grammy as she quilted, and I remember how patient she was (and still is!) when I have questions about it. If I can’t figure something out, she’s the first one I turn to with my questions. She usually laughs and tells me she’s never made that before, but she always takes the time to help me anyway! In addition to working with fabric, some of my loves are books, art, and riding motorcycles! I work for a Harley-Davidson dealership, but my true love will always be in working with my hands on a project and watching it come together beautifully.
Our answer of what we are most proud of is the same for both of us within our business.
We are most proud of the way we have grown our business over the last year. We have added a ton of new options, formed exciting partnerships, and taken on a second fabric shop “Violet Snow Custom Fabrics” that we purchased in the last week. We are so proud that we went from not knowing what the future held for our shop to having solid plans and getting excited for every new opportunity. We have formed partnerships with pattern makers that have allowed us to offer popular patterns in a cut-and-sew option, along with building customized panels to meet our customers’ needs. We are proud that we take on every new challenge that comes our way with a positive, can-do attitude, and we are proud of the business owners we are today.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
Terri: Part of the initial business model for Baby Bumblebee designs was providing custom printing of design files our customers all ready had, but I also took on learning how to do seamless patterns in photoshop. Now thats alot of fun and opened up a whole new world for me. One of my very consistent customers that signed up was Sarah Mathis-Luesmann. In the beginning we focused on diaper panels and PUL yardage prints in Baby Bumblebee. We soon added AWJ which is the wicking fabric used in diaper making. One year into the business we also offered a few clothing bases such as Cotton Lycra and Cotton Woven. Sarah came to me with designs to create clothing panels, seamless prints to match and diaper panels for her business Faerie Knoll creations. But the one that stands out in my mind is creating custom Quilt panels of Rainbow Dragons for her to make a quilt for her wife. I think I designed at least a dozen different size panels for her to patch this quilt together. We worked closely together via Facebook messenger only for about two years. But we would chat and got to know each other a little. I also knew she had moved into doing some of her own fabric seamless designs. To be completely honest, the blow of loosing two co-owners in 24 hrs and the question what now…..Sarah was the only one who came to my mind. And the partnership is amazing! We are totally an odd couple lol and one that works together so smoothly.
Sarah:
I met Terri when I put together my first customs order a few years ago. I had no idea what I was doing with it, and I barely new the difference between a JPEG and a PNG. Terri was so patient as she walked me through the process, and even when I flubbed it, she explained how to get the effect I wanted. One of my favorite custom orders that I placed with her was for a quilt I was making my wife out of Rainbow Dragons. I was trying to figure out what size panels I needed to order to get the sizes that I needed—she then asked me what I was making. When I told her, she made the process so easy. She built a custom file for me that allowed me to get the exact sizing I wanted, and it turned out beautifully. I never had a lot of interaction with the other co-owners, but Terri always made sure I was taken care of. She would create designs completely from scratch for me, and she would check with me every step of the way to make sure I loved what she was doing. She was always explain every aspect to me to make sure I was happy. This was one of the many reasons I knew going into business with her was the right decision.
Any advice for managing a team?
The advice we would have for managing a team and maintaining a high morale is actually really simple: find the right people to lead them. We have an amazing team that we simply could not do without. Kelly Estelow is one of our designers and admins, and she brings us a design aesthetic that appeals to a different style of customer. Katie Zendejas is our Social Media Manager and Strike Team Leader, and she makes sure our team and our social media pages is running smoothly. Both Katie and Kelly are invaluable to our team and to our business. Their help leading and managing our strikers (sewist), keeping things fresha nd exciting for them ensures we have the time to bring new products to our customers, and continue to grow as a business. 
Contact Info:
- Website: ww.creativecrittercollective.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t3cfabric/?fbclid=IwAR0M2tg6V5N643V69WpvgoT05aDdkX6Ovj69y2JglLhdMAWlRpLqJyzkANQ
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/babybumblebeedesign