Susan Hardin, of Calhoun City, has always considered herself a creative person. Now she’s getting to practice that creativity like never before with her new family business – The Little Birdie.
“I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said sifting through a tall stack of designs soon to become custom pillows.
Susan and her daughters Emily, Sarah and Reagan have made custom pillows for years as gifts, that were well received. But it wasn’t until her husband Tony, owner of Varsity Pro, Inc., suggested he take some of their designs and put them on his 12-foot wide dye sublimation print that they began to think about going into business.
“They really looked good so we made some custom pillows and started putting them in Bridgett’s (Judges Creations) around Christmas and opened a booth at The Mustard Seed in Oxford,” Susan said.
Soon after she placed some pillows at Maroon and Company in Starkville. The pillows began selling really well in all three locations.
“I went to the Mississippi Wholesale Market in Jackson in June just hoping to make rent on my booth, and I took so many orders that we just finished them up this week,” she said. “After that, we decided to try the Atlanta market and it doubled Jackson.”
The early success meant some long hours of work all summer without a vacation and also a difficult decision. Susan was teaching English at Calhoun City High School and had planned to continue that and run the pillow business on the side.
“I decided there was no way I could go back to school full time and do this full time. I’m a creative person. This is what I like doing. I thought if I didn’t give this a try, I would always wonder what I could have made of it.”
The Little Birdie’s pillows can now be found in over 70 stores in states all across the U.S. and online at littlebirdiearts.com.
“This was a leap of faith and God has truly blessed us,” Susan said.
They’ve added three sewing positions at the plant, located in the old Kellwood building in Calhoun City behind the Career and Technical Center.
“We’re trying to get our production up so we can hire more people and maybe get a grant to improve the building,” she said.
The potential for increased production exists due to the unique designs all of the Hardin girls are able to produce.
Susan and her daughters have all exhibited artistic abilities in the past. Now they are taking their art, scanning it in and fine tuning it for the printing process.
Sometimes they use original watercolor paintings, other times they take images and work with them in Photoshop to get the desired look.
They’ve used watercolors of the Oxford Courthouse on pillows sold at Neilson’s department store and other prominent buildings and locations in their designs.
“We have a store in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida and the owner sent me a picture of the Rosemary Beach Town Hall and we watercolored it for a pillow,” Susan said. “We do a lot of custom work like that.”
They’ve done colorful designs with the state of Mississippi, catch phrases, zip codes, all kinds of animals, the Bruce Museum, and are still trying to get a paw print design for Calhoun City just right.
“The orange isn’t exactly what I want, so I’m still working on that one,” Susan said.
Varsity Pro already had licenses for Ole Miss and Mississippi State products so there’s no shortage of pillows with a brightly colored Bully, Hotty Toddy, cowbells, Flim Flam, or their most popular seller thus far, “Hail State.”
The growing business has called in all the Hardin children and friends at times to help stuff, pack and ship hundreds of pillows every week.
“It’s truly a family thing,” Susan said. “This is all something the girls and I started for fun, and it just took off. It’s been a blessing from God.”