Self made from the ground up. A total accident resulted in a full time venture on Etsy, a full-fledged company that lasted for almost 16 years!
2009 -- Where it all began: In February 2009, as the first signs the economy was beginning to decay Jason found himself in a position where he needed to find additional income to be able to pay the monthly bills. He started out seeking additional employment, but soon found himself realizing that the situation was quickly becoming dire as companies were not hiring and he would have to look for alternate options in the meantime.
With a heavy heart, he began to place items on eBay. Digging through the closet he discovered props and costumes that had accumulated from various student films and theater productions over his college years. There were some vintage 50’s dresses and a pair of hand made Sequin Shoes all gathering dust. He figured the dresses were going to be an easy sell, but the shoes he wasn’t too sure about as they were made for a one-night performance and were (in his opinion) far from a quality product.
After a week the dresses sold as expected, but to his surprise there had also been an inquiry on the shoes. It was someone looking for a keepsake to give her daughter as a graduation gift since she had played Dorothy in a high school production of the "Wizard of Oz" that year. As the shoes being sold were too big she asked if they could be made in a smaller size. After agreeing to make the pair in her size he dug out the sequin roll that was purchased for the original pair and purchased some more rhinestones from the craft store to be able to complete the new pair. As he painstakingly glued one strand at a time into the pumps he had what can best be described as a “light-bulb” moment. What if he were to start selling these full time for the additional income that he needed? Researching online, he discovered nobody was selling Custom Sequin Shoes. This was the answer! And so he began to list shoes and people began to find him.
2013 -- Jason met Elizabeth!
2014 --Elizabeth began becoming more involved with the process. She started learning how to make the shoes, checking the inventory and systems and sending the packages. She began experimenting with glitter and rhinestone options on the shoes which we began to incorporate in as options and they started to sell to great reviews.
2015 -- At the beginning of the year the company's sales reached the point where upgrading it from a sole proprietorship to a LLC became a necessity. (Which was great news for us.) It was also growing to where Jason could not do all of the work by himself anymore and was able to hire Elizabeth as a part time employee. Since Jason also still works in the film industry here in Albuquerque, Elizabeth was soon placed in the position of managing the company in his absence in the spring months. This came with it's own learning curve, but also helped the company grow in a lot of ways.
In September Jason proposed and Elizabeth said yes!
2016 -- Once again this was a year of growth where Elizabeth was placed in charge of managing the company while Jason was on set for months at a time. There were many expansions to the line of items, including several new name brands, more glitter colors and additions to the sequin color options.
2017 -- This year was spent much the same as the previous year, but with the added pressure of planning the wedding and honeymoon!
*On September 8th Jason and Elizabeth were married.*
They then took their honeymoon from 09/13-09/27.
They appreciated the overwhelming support and well wishes from their customers along with the patience and understanding on the delay of the orders around this amazing 2-week time frame of their life.
2019 -- Jason and Elizabeth added another company to their busy lives and responsibilities. In addition to this company, they started a photography company to tie into their passions and talents in addition to finding more ways to make ends meet in this increasingly expensive world.
2020/2021 -- This time frame just like the rest of the world was a crazy time frame for Elizabeth and Jason. When the world shut down it gave Elizabeth and Jason time to completely focus on this business without the added distractions of their normal busy lives and other responsibilities. This became a year of experimentation, evolution, and expansion. They partnered with Elizabeth's mom to make and sell custom face masks. She made well over a thousand masks over the time frame of June of 2020 through May of 2021!
New product lines were added including text shoes, more ribbon options, decals and SVGs. They also added to their staff during this tumultuous period. They started with one person before the pandemic hit who worked part time in the office for about a month before everything shut down. That individual then became a remote part time employee, hand building all of the ribbons from home plus other miscellaneous jobs where masked, contactless trades of finished products and re-supplying them with more materials happened twice a week.
In the fall of 2020 another part time employee was added to help with the digital aspects of the company, which they also did remotely from their home.
At the beginning of 2021 Elizabeth had to go into the hospital for emergency Gallbladder surgery, which left both Jason and Elizabeth out of commission for the better part of 2 weeks and caused an enormous amount of backlog on the orders as a result.
They realized that they needed more help, especially with the basic glitter items that require a large amount of time and space to complete. They then partnered with a friend who had their own Etsy shop to get assistance with those glitter orders which allowed orders to slowly get caught back up.
In March of 2021 they put out a call for yet another employee to be able to help in the office with the workload since their original remote employee was immune-compromised and was not able to leave the house yet. They found a gem a human being who massively helped with the ever-growing business needs.
April saw the addition of one more employee who oversaw all of the decal/text work which was an ever-expanding part of the business.
In a year of so much uncertainly this little company was so fortunate to have an ever growing customer base which allowed us to support other local people. The hope was to be able to upgrade some of the employees into full time status so the needs of the customers could be better met on a consistent basis.
In 2022, as the world began to open up more, they were hit with a ton of unexpected things that greatly affected how they were able to run the business and left them wondering if it was even going to survive. They had to make a lot of changes and were just barely to keep the company above water by taking out loans and leaning on Credit Cards to cover their employees, shipping expenses, supplies, etc.
In 2023 their sales drastically declined. This was a combination of the economy and changes that Etsy made, that regrettably made it almost impossible for people to find our products.
In 2024 they then made the difficult decision that it was time to start closing down the company. They started the process in the beginning of 2024 and worked throughout the year to make that transition a reality. Due to the loans that were taken out they couldn't do any immediate shut downs as they wanted to be free and clear of any debts. Their website(separate from Etsy) was shut down in July. They slowly started eliminating colors as they ran out of the materials. Their employee Syrstyne made their last pair of ribbons in December and turned in all of their supplies they had to make them. They officially took their last sale for their shoes on 12/31/24 at 9:27pm.
On 1/1/25 all of the shoe listings we deactivated from the shop. The only remaining shoe related items left were the "Send Your Own", so if customers still want a pair of shoes they can send them to them to have the material of their choice added.
Jason had started building puppets many years ago, and Elizabeth learned the hand stitches needed to help build these in the last few years, and so they have shifted the shop going forward to focus primarily on these sales, as they fit much better into the time they have available with their other company(listed in the next paragraph).
It is their plan in 2025 to also list any items that they still have ready to ship(Like a large number of Ribbon Laces) along with any Clearance items for people to be able to purchase.
It is time for them to focus on their other business of photography which comes with new challenges and amazing experiences and people. Please continue to follow them! @PonicPhotography
They have loved the time that we were able to do this unique business adding sparkle and joy to the world one item at a time!
Also, if you want a Custom Puppet, please reach out to us!
