the end of an era

Yesterday Ann Woodruff, of Siloam Springs, AR, bought the five last sets of my lingerie shower invitations. It is the end of an exciting era of caroline’s fortunehearts. Of course, there is always a chance that I will have more printed in the future. But there are no specific plans to do so at this time.

So I thought that I would share the story behind my paper bras…

The summer of 1999, I was working for Mebane Packaging Group as the marketing specialist. One day I told the guys in the die shop that I had my own die-cutting machine. I had bought it to save myself from cutting each individual strip of fortunehearts. I had actually first seen the Accu-Cut machine at the DC Convention Center, which stood three blocks from where I am sitting now. I was working for DoubleTake Magazine and we were marketing the magazine at the American Library Association. It was a dream come true. This was in 1998, many years before the scrapbook phenomenon and you could buy portable die cutters to create countless decorations for all of your memories.

The guys in the die shop loved it. As did the guys in the graphics department and the printing department. They were amazed by this machine that was a baby table-top version of what they dealt with everyday. So one day I had an idea.

My friend Heather was getting married over Labor Day weekend. Sherri and I were hosting a lingerie shower. I needed a lingerie shower invitation. So I started talking to Rodney Dixon, who was our best die engineer. He said that he would be happy to help me out. I selected an image of J. Crew bathing suit top off of the internet and he went to work. Not long after, he had created a drawing and sent the file to the sample room. There was one guy who was not excited about any extra work. So I promised to bake him some brownies and bring them in the next day.

The rest of the details are a little blurry, but before I knew it I had my own bra die. One of my most famous babies was born.

It’s been a great 6 (almost 7) years. It is pretty appropriate that I sold my last pack on my birthday. Now I just need to start redesigning the fortunehearts web site.