Art Director Turns Passion For Puppets Into Profit

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Welcome to a brand new week. And hey, welcome to our real-time listeners in particular. Welcome to happy Christmas Eve. It is Christmas Eve, or if you're listening later, this was the 24th of December. I hope your holiday season has been bright and merry.

Or if not, I hope it has at least been decent and tolerable. As I've mentioned a few times, I know that the holidays can be a challenge for some people. They've been a challenge for me at different points in my life. So whichever way it is for you this year, my thoughts are with you. And over here at World Domination headquarters, I've been visiting Bend, Oregon, continuing to record every day, of course, just also doing some family visits, and also working on some stuff that I can't wait to share with you in the new year.

Is it 2019 yet? No, but it will be very soon. Or if you're listening in 2019, you're like, "Yeah, it's been 2019 for a while. "What are you talking about?" Well, regardless of when you're listening, in today's story, an advertising executive discovers the world of puppet fabric and unlocks a new career. She turns her passion for puppets into payables.

Or do you think we should say profit? Kind of went back and forth. Passion for puppets into payables. Passion for puppets into profit. Whichever you prefer, say it three times fast and stay tuned.

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Lori Nickerson, an advertising art director, knew she didn't want to work behind a desk. Eight hours a day, staring at a computer screen left her sad, sore, and searching. She wanted a job that was creatively fulfilling and allowed her to share her love for arts and crafts with others. And seeing as she couldn't find one, she decided to go out and make it. But that was a bit of a process.

Lori and her Justice Creative mother, Cindy, began renting studio space where they could teach classes and offer other services, such as long arm quilting. Side note, I did not know there was such a thing as long arm quilting. We'll save that for another episode. And when she wasn't at work, Lori found she spent more and more of her spare time at that studio. She also picked up an exciting side project, puppet making.

She loved the process of making puppets because every stage of the process was done by hand. There was no puppet by numbers system. You had to do the work from scratch. One of the most fun, yet challenging aspects for her was dyeing the puppet fabric. She thought it was like the perfect blend of science and art, trying to get the colors to stick properly and turn out just how she wanted.

Many puppets are made from a fabric called Antron fleece. When you purchase this fleece, it only comes in pure white and the puppet maker needs to dye it to the color they want. Even in small quantities, this can be notoriously difficult to do, especially when working in your bathroom or kitchen. But at the studio, Lori had more than enough space to create all the puppet fabric she needed. Much to her surprise, she found that other people in the puppet making community, such as it is, didn't enjoy dyeing their fabrics anywhere near as much as she did.

For many people, it was a burden. On one particularly frustrating day at work, Lori's mind kept wondering to how she had the space and the love of the process to solve this problem for others. When she got home that day, she decided to create a simple website, which she called puppet pelts, posting photos of fabric in several different colors for sale. She then shared the link with a couple of puppet groups she was a member of to see if there were any takers. There was an instant demand.

Puppeteers kept coming back weeks and months later to ask for more. And that's when Lori knew she had a new business on her hands. Not one to rush into quickly, Lori started small when creating the next run of the fabric. She bought 50 yards from her fleece distributor, Larry, and used simple craft dyes to create her colors. This allowed her to keep costs low and focus on just a few options.

Shout out to fleece distributor, Larry. And by the way, if you actually want to know more about him, you'll have to check out today's fun fact, stay tuned. This small production was enough for the initial growth of the business, but it came with some drawbacks. The dyes she used were tricky to work with and often didn't bind or create the color she needed. Making smaller, more frequent pieces was also time-consuming.

To start creating more pieces at scale, Lori and Cindy would need to use acid dyes. Now, these sound sinister, but they are not. They actually produce much less waste than what they were previously using. But to use those dyes, they would also need more specialized equipment. In particular, a 60-gallon suit pot they called Gertrude.

The suit pot, or shall we say Gertrude, allows them to create color blends without any nasty chemical reactions or damaging anything else in the studio. Lori decided on pricing for her fabric based on how much she wanted to earn per hour after the cost of raw materials. She wanted professional puppet makers to get the highest quality products possible, but also wanted affordable options hobbyists could use as well. One of the most frustrating parts of the business is that everything moves at a snail's pace. It can take four months from ordering fabric to receiving it.

But Lori doesn't mind it too much, saying, "Well, it's only puppets. Nobody dies if the shipment is late." That's a good life philosophy for you there on this Christmas Eve day. Puppet Peltz now averages around $9,000 a month in revenue, and more importantly, has freed Lori from the shackles of her nine-to-five job. She now hopes to expand into offering a complete range of colors, fabrics, and accessories. She's also recently moved from Las Vegas to New England and is looking forward to the challenge of working from a bigger and better space.

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All right, so check this out. Here's a fun fact for you. And by the way, there's a fun fact for every episode, in case you did not know that. It's always on the show notes. More on that in a moment.

But first, the fun fact about Larry the Fabric Guy. Larry is Lori's fabric distributor, and he's also the only person in the world who distributes Antron fleece. He was approached by Jim Henson to create the fabric for the Muppets, and then ran the world's only puppet fleece mill. He has no website, only a phone number. And if you don't know him, you can't order fleece in bulk.

He sounds like a character from Seinfeld, or perhaps a dystopian novel. But presumably he is a real guy, Larry the Fabric Guy. So I guess if you want to get to know him, you need some kind of introduction. Now, I mentioned that we have a fun fact for every episode. I don't always mention it on the program itself, because we want to keep things really nice and tight, just to be respectful of your time.

But on the F4 mentioned show notes page, you can always see that fun fact. You can see a quote from the featured person. You can see a link to their website. You can see any other resources that we've talked about in the episode, and sometimes some other stuff as well. If you want to check that out for today, the notes are at sinustinschool.com/723.

That is for episode 723. And actually, if you go to the website, you can see notes for every single episode. It's crazy, and they're all free. Merry Christmas Eve and happy holidays to everyone. Be back again tomorrow.

We don't take any days off, don't worry. And also a great way to end December over the next few days. So, don't go anywhere. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.