Dec 29, 2009

Out-of-work mom turns daughter’s drawings into toysBy Amy ChillagCNN.com

Denise Garlow clearly recalls the summer day when her 9-year-old daughter brought home a plate from Girl Scouts.

On the plate was a transfer drawing of colorful, mouse-like creatures with large saucer ears and big black eyes.

“I said, ‘Grace, what are these little characters? What do you call them?’ ” Garlow said.

“And that’s when she said ‘Mom, they’re my representatives … they come to children who are sad and lonely or who were meant to have a better life.’ ”

It touched the unemployed, 48-year old Atlanta, Georgia, mom’s heart during a time when she wasn’t feeling too good about herself or her job prospects.

It would eventually lead to a new project for the graphic artist who had spent months looking for work in the corporate world — a line of stuffed animals based on her daughter’s drawings.

“Every day, I would sit at the computer … doing work, rewriting my resumé and cover letters,” she said. “In between doing that, I would go over to my drawing table and work on this project and slowly, over time, it just felt like this is what I really wanted to do.”

One day, a friend with marketing experience visited and suggested that she should, in fact, make the dolls her life’s work. Now, she has her own business and faces the same reality that many small businesses do — trying to get off the ground in a tough economy.

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