Every once in a while, I find myself in a conversation that starts with, “Then there was the time…”. I actually hate these types of discussions because it usually means revealing an error or misfortune in the pursuit of something otherwise destined to be fabulous.
So is the case of our recent Quilter’s Chocolate product developed here at C&T. This was an idea offered by non-other than our very own Payroll Manager, Steve Berryman, and what an idea it was too. Chocolate for quilters! Brilliant.
I set out to find a supplier that would meet our high standards for this beloved confection and found him after a chance encounter with a former colleague of mine, Lynn Sauter. Lynn and and I worked together a few years back at Savoir-Faire. Not so surprisingly, Lynn is still in the sales arena but this time instead of art supplies, I discovered she was rep-ing a line of fine chocolates in little travel tins. It seemed like fate had brought me back together with an old friend so I could create a wonderful new product line.
After the appropriate development phases, which of course involved a good deal of chocolate taste testing, we decided two traditional flavors would be the way to go—milk and dark. It being C&T’s 25th Anniversary year, we decided this would be the perfect occasion to kick off the line and picked two beautiful quilt images for the tin lids. Linda Jenkins of Piece O’Cake Design’s garden-fresh Aunt Millie’s Garden quilt (from the book of the same name) would be used on the milk chocolate tin and Margaret J. Miller’s lovely City Lights quilt (from “Stunning Angle Play Quilts“) would appear on the dark chocolate tin. Artwork was sent to the supplier and we eagerly awaited our first look and taste of the new product line.
The first of the chocolates arrived the day of our big warehouse sale. They looked and tasted great. The tins were stunning and the little cardboard point-of-purchase boxes were everything we hoped for. Yay! Success.
A few weeks and hundreds of tins of chocolates later, the most unexpected call came in from a quilt shop. “Do you realize the name of the quilter on the bottom of both tins is the same?”
WHAT??? Oh, no. Please don’t tell me this has happened to our lovely little chocolate product. Sure enough, it turns out the supplier mixed up our artwork and misprinted the bottom of the milk chocolate tin crediting both designs to Margaret J. Miller.
The print is exceptionally small, so it’s very likely that most folks won’t notice the problem. No one here realized it either until the caller pointed it out. The art we sent was correct, who could suspect that there could be an error like this made? “Not good,” as my 4-year old daughter frequently says when something goes wrong. It’s never fun to find an error on a product, and this one was no exception. We’ve notified Linda Jenkins that we’ll fix it on the re-print and, regrettably, I’ll have another story that I can tell by starting off with a sad shake of my head and the words, “Then there was the time…”
I feel lucky and blessed to work in a place where I’m so inspired by all the talent and creativity around me. It helps to sit next to the amazingly artistic marketing manager Lisa Fulmer Bruce. She’s been collecting Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) for the past few months and posts them on the wall outside her workspace.
I’m happy to say that our new 
