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.
love this! let me think on what i want to order 🙂
Would love to have some for Christmas gifts.how do you order?
Can you tell me the word restriction?
I love this so much!
I am so proud of those hard workers!! Love them and you SO much!!
B!! I can’t figure out my email glitch on my phone…we are still getting to know each other. 🙂 but I want one!!! I want one for my mom with the verse naming God as Jehovah Rophe, the one who heals, exodus 15:25-26. Send me your addy so I can mail your little entrepreneurs a check, and tell them they are the first artists I’ve patronized in my life. 🙂
Dear Bridget,
Tomorrow is THE big day for us, and I couldn’t be more excited!
Morgen and Oliver’s 3rd birthday celebration is tomorrow, and, that is when we will be able to present your children’s artwork to them as their birthday gifts from us. Since I was ill on Arden’s (their little brother’s) birthday and wasn’t able to attend his birthday celebration, we decided to give him one of his own tomorrow too! (Yes, the 3rd piece!)
Soooo, that means all 3 of them will be going to them, and I will have to order one for us.(because we would really like to have at least one, and I would like to order an additional 2 more for family members, if that’s possible, for Christmas gifts. I can contact you later about those, but, just wanted to let you all know how much both Anurag & I love their work, and know each of the 3 pieces will be a “hit” with the boys. What a blessing! Ironically, I learned yesterday that “the boys” are going to be moving with their parents to a new home shortly, and so they will have new bedrooms to hang them in! (Isn’t that really “cool”?!)
And, to think that it’s their cousins who created these pieces of artwork is “double-cool”!
I think that maybe we should have sent a little more to help defray the costs of the supplies and their (and your!) time, so we will add that to the next orders, if that’s o.k. with you. I think that most artists under-value their art, and, it’s up to us, the art lovers to support artists who we love!(amateur or professional)We certainly would like to know in this case that each child is rewarded personally with a special toy, and have some left over for the missionary’s fund that we read about. What a noble cause that is! How sweet of them to care, and want to make a difference in other’s lives.
I hope that you all won’t mind if we tell friends about the children’s art work. It’s just a great thing that they’re doing, and, I whole-heartedly thank you for sending us 3 of their very special and beautiful pieces of art work, and if you all are up to creating more, we can keep the orders coming in for awhile! (just let me know.)
Then, we can discuss size, quantity, and the Bible verses for future- created pieces. You can also tell us whether the children enjoy using the smaller or the larger canvases. (either is fine with us.)
Thanks again to each of the children & you, Bridget! God bless you!
With love,
Marilyn