Friday, October 16, 2009

The Story of Divine Baby

It all started in May 06- 1 month after I was married- when I was pregnant for the first time and wanted to use cloth nappies when my baby arrived. MCNs to be precise, and being as crafty as I am, I decided to make my own. At that stage I didnt even have a sewing machine and tasked my mum to make a few nappies for me to see how they went. Once I got the nappies from her I fell in love with them I knew I would HAVE to make more and every person I showed them to agreed with me.

Two weeks after my first son Conner was born in January 2007 mum came from interstate to visit me and the new baby- and while she was here bought me my birthday present 3 months early. A brand new sewing machine. Nothing fancy but enough to do my nappies and anything else I would want to sew.

One day little Conner just would not settle. I tried him in our front carrier but as he was a teeny weeny little thing (2.7 kilos when born) it was just ridiculous. He would slump to the side and not be comfortable at all. Of course, as you do, I rang my mum to have a whinge. She suggested I tie him to myself with an old sheet or something like they did in the olden days. Out of sheer desperation I gave it a go. And it worked pretty well. Straight away I started tucking and folding and trying to figure out where I would need to sew it to make it "fit" well and be wearable in public. Once I did a bit of playing I jumped on google and found a few patterns. I made one of each of the few types I found, tried them all out and then used what I liked the most from each sling to make my own Divine Baby pouch sling. Everyone who saw the sling were in awe and lots of friend and family told me I should sell them so I started making a stash ready to go to the local market. I did this for a while and all my customers kept asking to see my website.

I investigated buying a premade website, I investigated free websites (which I already had a few in the past- one for my wedding planning- one for my wedding photos- one for my baby photos) but it wasnt what I wanted. I wanted my OWN. I rang a few places and got some prices but I didnt have a business loan- this was coming out of my maternity pay which there wasnt alot of. So I did the best thing I know how. DIY. I opened a notepad page and taught myself html. It was a very long and slow process. I made a practise website which was very basic and pretty crappy looking (LOL) But really awesome coming from nowhere. So I changed the colours, I changed the fonts I played and played until I was happy. I sewed and added more and more products over the years. Getting feedback along the way I found that
my home made logo needed to be better. And I hated my business name at the time (Hands Free Baby Stuff) not to mention the person selling on ebay etc who decided to use the same name! So I left my website as it was while I got myself a new name, logo and web domain. I was ready to go pro and needed my name to reflect this. I thought long and hard. I knew I needed a forever name, not to change my mind and not like it in a few months time. I asked everyone I knew, people I didnt know and groups on forums. I even put an ad on my day jobs internet noticeboard and had a few replies- which prompted Divine Baby (which I am 100% happy with and will never change ever.) I also hired another work at home mum designer to do my banner for me so it looked professional. Once I got that done I remade my website and the rest is history.