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History of Handmade Originals
Handmade Originals actually was started way back in the day by my Grandmother and my Mother in the kitchen of their small house in Harrison Township, Michigan. It started with my Grandmother, Marie LaPlante making custom life jackets for the boating dogs of Boat Town USA and then lead to custom flags for the boats in the area. During my childhood my Mother made crafts and such with the skills she learned from my Grandma and we were able to do fun stuff like eat because she sewed and painted nearly 24hrs a day. Fast forward to Christmas in 2005 my Mom made both my sons very cute snowman hats she designed herself and at that moment when they put them on I knew we had to make them. We would always get comments on the hats like where did you get them or can I buy them from you when we were out and about. So asked my mother if she would make me one and in a few days she had it done and I started wearing the hat to see if I would get the same reaction and I did. In 2007 we started making professional patterns and bill of materials so we could go out and get quotes to make them in bulk. This process took an incredible amountof time because businesses did not want to work on jobs smaller than 10,000 pieces or they wanted to outsource them overseas and we decided early on that was not a possibility. Just when we thought that our dream of making these hats in the U.S.A. was not going to happen Kristy found a embroideryand clothing manufacturing company, Preferred Products in Walled lake, MI. Steve from Preferred quickly made us a sample of our product and to our surprise it was way better than we had ever imagined, then we shook hands and I told him look for our first order late August 2008. So here we are!!!!!! I will add more to this story as it unfolds and to everyone that has helped us so far in making our dream come true I would like to say Thank You, enjoy the hats and keep smiling.
