The story behind Cindy’s business, Scrappin’ Twins, is as unique as the company’s products.

A mother of three young children, in the spring of 2003 Cindy discovered that she was pregnant again. A routine ultrasound soon revealed that she was pregnant with identical twins.

A few weeks later, Cindy’s obstetrician diagnosed the twins as monoamniotic, a rare condition in which identical twins share the same amnio sac. Because this condition can be deadly for the babies, Cindy’s doctor laid out a plan in which she would be admitted to the hospital during the 28th week of her pregnancy for constant fetal monitoring and continuous bed rest.

An avid scrapbooker, Cindy turned to her favorite hobby as a way to pass the time in the hospital and distract her from the anxiety she was feeling. Finally, at 35 weeks gestation, defying medical odds, healthy baby boys Jared Michael and Riley Gabriel were delivered.

Soon, Cindy began working on scrapbooks for Jared and Riley, but was surprised to find a very limited selection of quality twin and multiple related scrapbooking stickers and paper available.

Teaming up with her mother-in-law, Nancy Minear, an artist, Cindy launched Scrappin’ Twins, a company focusing on twins and multiples related scrapbooking supplies.

Scrappin’ Twins offers stickers, paper, die-cuts and embellishments, all designed by Cindy and Nancy. Nancy created the artwork for the stickers. “She is a fabulous artist,” Cindy says. “She used pictures of my twins as the basis of a lot of her designs.”

Cindy then used Nancy’s sticker designs to create a set of “header papers.” The headers are done on cardstock paper and can be cut out and placed on the layout in many different ways. There are three of these sheets, to go with each of the sticker sheets.

The paper line also includes Nancy’s artwork. There are currently five different twins paper designs and two triplets paper designs.

In addition, Scrappin’ Twins offers die-cut designs (Babies, Twins, It's Twins! and Triplets), and embellishments. The embellishments, both wire beads and eyelet letter words, spell out Twins and Triplets.

Cindy has discovered a much-needed niche market in the scrapbooking industry. “Very few others have any twin products at all, and there are practically no other triplets products at all out there,” she notes. “One big advantage we have over anyone else creating twins products are my one-year-old identical twin boys. Being a twin mom myself, I have a very good idea of the types of products twin moms want.

“I am very involved in my local twins club and I'm a moderator of one of the twins message boards online. Right now I am working on a twins sayings titles sticker sheet. Unless you were a twin mom or a twin yourself, you wouldn't even be aware of a lot of these sayings.”

That personal connection is making many scrapbook enthusiasts with multiples in the family very happy.

“I have gotten nothing but positive comments from people,” Cindy says. “I hear on almost a daily basis how excited they are to have found us. ‘I love your products!’ and ‘Thank you so much for starting this company!’ are the most common comments I receive. Everyone also wants to know when we are coming out with items for older twins. (We are working on it!)”
 

Cindy currently sells her products wholesale to retailers, as well as directly to consumers. “I thought a lot about it before I decided to sell retail also,” she explains. “The main reason I decided to do both was the fact that twin products are so very hard to find. I didn't want to make it any harder once a consumer found my site.

“We actually sell our products for a bit over MSRP on our website and encourage customers to buy from their local retailer if one in their area carries our products.”

There is a retail directory on ScrappinTwins.com that lists each store currently carrying their product line. Consumers can also purchase the products directly from the website.
 

“My husband and I designed the website,” Cindy explains. “We both have a background in computers and programming. I learned about doing websites from all the pages I have done for my kids. I basically taught myself html and php programming, and I update the website myself.

"I highly recommend that every business have an online presence. It will only become more and more important as time goes on. If a customer can't Google your company and find you, you will be losing out on a ton of business. Retailers are busy people, they want easy access to their suppliers. Being able to go online and see your products, request a catalog, and order your products quickly and easily are become very important to a lot of store owners.”
 

"Our initial investment was around $20,000,” Cindy explains. “We did not take out any loans and instead took the money from our savings. We have not turned a profit yet, but if business the rest of the year continues to be as good as the first two months, then we expect to turn a profit by the end of the year.”
 

"We do not have a very large budget for advertising,” Cindy notes. “We have done print ads in a number of magazines, and we are also on Google ads. We need to do a better job of PR and send out media kits to all the scrapbooking magazines, but have not gotten around to that yet. A lot of people find us by doing an internet search.

“I have an ad in one of the major scrapbook consumer magazines that does very well. I choose that magazine because their ad rates are very reasonable, unlike the rates of a lot of the other consumer magazines. I can not afford to spend thousands of dollars a month on advertising!

“I also have an ad that runs in Twins Magazine and one that is in the National Organization of Mother's of Twins Clubs (NOMOTC) newsletter. Those ads are very profitable. The cheapest ad I have is in the NOMOTC newsletter and it brings me in the most business.”
 

"I have no idea exactly how many hours I typically put into the business each day,” Cindy says. “It varies widely depending on what else is going on each day.

“Besides running the business, I am the sole caregiver for my five children. It is rare that I am able to sit down and finish any given task at one time. I'd like to be able to say that I am a highly organized person, but I'm not. I do have a very good memory and I'm able to keep track of a lot of different things at the same time. Which is good, since I am normally doing two or three things at once.

“My advice to other business owners concerning time management would be to do what has to get done first. I know that should be obvious, but it isn't. If you don't prioritize your tasks, then you don't know what is most urgent and you can end up spending a lot of time on something that you don't need to do until next week, while that one item you had to get done today, somehow gets lost in the shuffle.”
 

"They are very supportive!” Cindy expresses. “My kids do sometimes complain that I spend too much time on the computer though. But you should see them dancing around and singing the ‘We just got an order’ song! We have it set up to automatically print out any orders, and since the computer is in the living room, they see when orders come in. They made up this little song, to the tune of the ‘We just got a letter’ song from Blues Clues. Whenever we get an order, they start dancing around and singing that song. It is so much fun to watch them getting excited about the business too!”
 

"Before launching a business, do your homework!” Cindy emphasizes. “It takes a lot of skills to be able to run a business. Just because you love scrapbooking, it does not mean you can run a business. Know what you are getting into before you invest a lot of money in it. Start small and try to grow your business at a manageable rate.

”Before you launch a new product, do some market research. Is the product something that people would buy? Is it something retailers are interested in carrying? How are you going to package it? What will your costs be? Can you sell it at a profit?

“Once you have determined all that and actually gone into production, write up a press release and send it, along with samples, to all the scrapbooking magazines. Send out a flyer or email to all your current customers letting them know about your new product. Make up sample layouts that showcase this new product and post them on your website.

“I think that finding a niche for yourself in the scrapbook industry is extremely important,” Cindy continues. “With the number of new scrapbook manufacturing companies starting up these days, you have to have a niche market. If you do not have something that sets your company apart from all the others out there, you will quickly find yourself out of business.”
 

"I plan to expand our product line to offer products for older twins and to add more triplets items,” Cindy says. “I would like to have our products be sold in more stores. Towards that end, I'm working on doing more PR. We are hopeful that exhibiting at ACCI will go a long ways towards getting the news out that our company exists.”

"The idea for this web site grew from an online email discussion among six small scrapbook manufacturing company owners,” Cindy explains. “Aside from a few message boards, there was no comprehensive website which allowed retailers and manufacturers to see what small scrapbooking companies are out there, and what new products they have to offer. We see the site as a gathering place for manufacturers and retailers.

“Manufacturers benefit by having a place to let retailers know about their company. They also benefit by being able to learn about the business from the articles on the site and communicating with other manufacturers and retailers. Retailers benefit by being able to find out about small scrapbooking companies; this helps them to gain access to the latest products quickly. We also have articles direct to them to help them grow their business. They also benefit from conversations with other retailers and manufacturers.”

"A lot has been written about the chain scrapbooking stores and the fear that that will drive all the LSS out of business,” Cindy notes. “It has been compared to the big supermarket chains driving out all the little corner markets. The reason I don't see this happening anytime soon is the personal aspect of this business. LSS are not just a place to go buy products; they are also a gathering place for scrapbookers.

“The LSS that survive, will be the stores that create a community out of their customers. The customers will be loyal to these stores because they know the owners, they know the workers and they go there every week for crops. All their friends hang out there to do their scrapbooking. If you can build that kind of environment for your store, it will still be around, even if ReCollections comes to your town.”
 

Please visit Scrappin' Twins and Scrapbook Manufacturers to learn more - be sure to tell Cindy that Fun Facts Publishing sent you!

www.ScrappinTwins.com
www.ScrapbookManufacturers.com

Products Available Retail and Wholesale

Retailers, take a look at Cindy’s article,
"Capturing the Twins Mom’s Market!”

 

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