The Making of Valentine Day Collection, Thank You Ma!

by Kelsy Valencia
We are only a couple days away from Valentine's day! As I gather together my last 30 orders this week all I can say is THANK YOU! This collection took me by complete surprise! As I was not planning on doing this at all. But Mother's know best, right? This all started with a conversation with my mom saying that I wanted to create 3 wallpapers for valentines day. As she replied saying, "When are you launching another collection?? She had a point there considering I had not launched anything since "Boss". She kept on saying that Valentine day shirts would do great with me. I kept telling her no over and over again, but come the next day I surprised her with shirts!! I launched my wallpapers that Sunday afternoon, sure enough people started saying they wanted these sayings on shirts. 
Truthfully, I had no intentions to launch this since I wanted to focus on two other collections that are in the works at the moment! So I said, "F- it" let's see what happens! Come the day of the launch it actually caught me by surprise! Watching the live feed on Shopify, I couldn't believe how many people were on the site at 9 AM! The launched included the following items: 
  • Can U Not. (Let's be real... EVERY Miami girl uses this phrase everyday!)
  • Myself ( At times I always have to remind myself to always put myself first or to love myself just as much as I go above and beyond for others.)
  • Be Mine: (because no valentine day collection is set with an original phrase!)
  • Te Bote: (com'on... because we just had too?!)

Later on, we decided to included our first kids tees! Now, remember how many of you were requesting for "Corazon de Melon" in an adult tee? Here's why I never did it!

Now before I go on, the main reason I wanted to start this is because I wanted to connect more to my customers and followers on Instagram. Just to keep them in the loop of Miami Writes co! To be quite honest with you...This campaign wasn't pretty from the beginning. It actually sucked! To put it in perspective, imagine creating something you work your butt off!  And in comes someone telling you... "you can't launch conversation hearts because that's what I'm doing too, especially corazon de melon. Did you not see the poll I posted? I even asked my followers on my story the week before?!" It'll be unfortunate if you do, since we do have the same followers..." LOL, made you laugh a little right? I cannot make this up *Kevin Hart voice*
Immediately, I called my mom on facetime to let her know what was going on with me. As per usually, I was talking ridiculously fast as the level change in my voice would get louder and louder. Telling her, "you see!! This is why I did not want to do this I'm just going to call this off!" (Now before I continue this person assumed that I was doing the conversation hearts.. their assumptions were correct but again to attack me the way they did was just not cool.)  Going back on topic, my dad comes into the conversation with my mom and I, making me repeating everything again. As he replies, " You can go tell them to go F off! The fact that a 28 year old is making them like this says a lot" Now for those of you who may know my dad can tell you that I am a spitting image of him, personality included too. 
 
Now let's be 100% real, between being a business owner, a full time employee, a girlfriend, a daughter and a friend... I'd be lying to you if I told you I had my nose 24.7 on Instagram or on any social media platforms. Again, I created this not to call them out, not to start problems or to have you all feel bad for me. because I think I bounced back harder then ever with Vday! I wanted to post about this because I know I'm not your typical business owner that need to have my face on my IG stories or feel the need to post what I'm doing every hour on the hour. I wish, but I just can't! I'm a VERY private person and don't open up to people at all. Just ask my boyfriend how long it took me to get comfortable with him. As I myself am still growing and learning how to a business owner. I love that I'm from Miami but lets be real.... you gotta be careful with who you "think" is out to REALLY support you.
 
 
Honestly, I almost dropped the whole collection! Just because I did not want to create any drama. I was so upset and in shock that someone would actually come to me with this, let alone this person knows how creative I am when it comes to MWC and has hired me before! I vented to my family and friends and they encouraged me to keep the collection going! They knew how much of a hit it would be and they were right!
Valentine Collection surpassed my horoscope collection and sold over 250 shirts!
 
My only learning experience that I learned was that don't EVER let anyone tell you, you cannot do something just because they're doing it too. NO matter how many likes you have on Instagram or followers! Now I'm not telling you to copy anyone because, com'on it's the incorrect thing to do! Again, this person had no idea what I was launching until we started messaging back and forth. It's like what I say... "you mean to tell me that just because one Cuban restaurant sells croquetas this makes others to stop selling or creating their own Croquetas too... com'on now."
 
IRREGARDLESS, I am so extremely blessed and thankful for all of you! I will forever remember this and cannot wait launch all my other collections! I wanted to thank and dedicate this collection to Chris you truly did step up for this one! You surprised me how involved you got to make sure these shirts were going out on time! No matter how tired I was, Thank you so so much! also to my parents, family and friends!
Love, Kels 
Back to Keepin' up with MWC!