The conception of Handle With Care was in January 2008. Like most evenings Alison and I (Heather) were emailing each other discussing the usual issues associated with our little ones. Reflux was the flavour of our life. Having met in Mothers group in 2007 we found we clicked
straight away – not only did we have boys with reflux but we also had a passion for cute cloth nappies (of course amongst the other things that we have in common). Our friendship forged and we often chatted about many of life’s joys and challenges via email, over the phone and in person.
It was one evening in January that Alison emailed me with THE IDEA - to start a business providing a range of Modern Cloth Nappies (MCN) along with advice on their use. I was immediately on board with this venture having always had the desire to work from home but never quite finding something that grabbed me enough to put the effort in. But this did it.
We excitedly discussed the services we could provide our customers that we had always wanted ourselves having both found it extremely hard to understand MCN from our internet research. We spent most evenings searching brands, discussing the pros and cons and sampling as many nappies as possible.
And so Handle With Care was conceived!
In February 2008, we came up with our name. We had many options but Handle With Care nappy and baby boutique was the one we settled on – it felt right. I might note that many of the ideas come from email conversations we have had very late at night, I think these ideas come to us thanks to being up all night with our refluxing babies (at least something positive came from the hours of screaming and settling). Even to this day I still get emails from Alison at some very odd hours with some wonderful ideas including new products she has found!
Soon after we started to build up our stash of nappies we discovered that we needed to extend our product line. Nappies are fun, but there are so many other cute and stylish yet functional baby and children’s products that are just so hard to find, particularly in Canberra. So
this is when our little baby started to grow its arms and legs. We started to find a great list of products we wanted to stock…unfortunately we have had to keep a lid on most of these as we have had to ensure we can manage this business whilst keeping our families as our priority.
I’m not sure when Handle With Care was actually born, I suppose it was a culmination of all the thoughts, ideas and plans from that first day in January. Somehow we have managed to get to over 1 year old! We cannot believe how far Handle With Care has come in that time. Like most parents we never imagined at its conception what it might become when it ‘grew up’. We have nurtured it with many many hours of love of attention. We have had many dinners to discuss how it is travelling, what we can do to nurture it further and how we will ensure it continues growing with minimal growing pains.
We are passionate about what we are doing and absolutely love what Handle With Care offers us both and our customers. We have met so many wonderful customers who have come into our lives through Handle With Care and each one has touched our lives in one way or another. These customers have allowed us to not only sell them products but to become a part of their lives. We have seen many bellies grow and flourish into beautiful babies and have been so blessed to share this with people who we might otherwise never have known. Its without a doubt the customers we get to meet and know that makes the many hours we put into Handle With Care all worth it.
So thank you to our customers, without you we would not have made it through our first year (which they say is the hardest) and we would not be here growing in our second year without you.
We hope you enjoy reading our blog, and that we can have more to do with our customers through sharing some more about ourselves and our growing business on here!
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