A few weeks ago the children and I were working on their social studies course and we were talking about supply and demand and basic business ideas. They got very excited when they realized that anybody can be an entrepreneur if they have the resources necessary to create a product. For several days they contemplated ideas. Some were simply unrealistic, like selling tours to Mars or hosting a “How the Universe Works” event and charging people to come watch it on DVD at our house. (Side note: My children love documentaries and don’t understand why everyone doesn’t watch them.) Other ideas were not really money makers, like selling some of their stuffed animals. I finally nudged my way into the conversation and suggested that maybe they should create something. They remembered a craft we’d done a while back and asked if we could do it.

 I told them I would invest $30 (and my time) in their business. We all schlepped to the store and purchased canvases and paint. They created fliers to take around and show people so that everyone could see what they were “sale-ing”. (I know I should have corrected them, but I love love love the way sale-ing sounds when they say it.) They got 3 orders up front! We created those and delivered the products and used that money to purchase more materials. They only had $3 left over from what they’d sold so far. We talked about profits and the price of materials and your own time and decided that maybe $10 wouldn’t be quite enough. They completed the ones they had promised for $10 and those are in the process of being delivered now. As we finished working on that batch, we talked about pricing (again) and they developed a new price list. The small ones (7×14) should be $15 and the larger ones (12×16) should be $18. At these prices they hope that they will make enough money to save up for a special toy for each of them and still have money left to give to Ms. Missy, a friend of a friend who is searching for funding for her mission field assignment in Uganda.

If you are interested in purchasing a bible verse art from them, please email me at {iveyleaguemama}@{gmail.com} (leave out the brackets though). We have a few of our favorite verses and we can choose for you or you can request a certain verse. There are restrictions to how many words can fit, so if it’s a long one we may have to paraphrase.