I usually wake up anytime between 4 and 6:30 a.m. My first meeting of the day is with God. I have my prayer time, my reading time. Sometimes I'll go in the other room if my husband is still sleeping. I like to start out my day with the Lord, basically. It really sets my day off in a good place, so I can be more patient with people and better handle whatever comes up.
My kids are usually up by 6:30, and that's when things get busy: There's breakfast, hairdos, and making lunch boxes. It's chaos. Chloe is in first grade, Lily in fifth, and Erik is in 10th. We try to all sit down to breakfast, but it's often impossible. Then I drive them to school -- sometimes I'm still in my jammies. When I get back home, I start working.
I try to work from home every other week, so I can spend more time with my family. Everybody on my team knows that my schedule is planned around my kids.
I always check in daily with Stephen Roseberry, our president and COO. We'll discuss things like what's going on with our retail partnerships or manufacturing issues that have cropped up. We have relationships with about 25 different manufacturers. For instance, Shaw, a company in Georgia, makes our rugs and flooring products, and then GoldToeMoretz manufactures our socks. Some of our manufacturers make products only for us, but others have partnerships with other companies as well. Our financial arrangement with each is different. Usually, we receive a royalty on every product that bears our brand.
My old job description was "Shut up and pose." So I have an allergic reaction when someone just wants me to put my name on a product. I have dealt with manufacturers who didn't want my input. As soon as I sense that, our relationship is over.
When I'm working at home, I usually like to focus on product design, which is my favorite part of my job. I have a table in my home office where I sketch and take notes based on stuff I collect when I'm out and about -- a shell, a piece of fabric, a snapshot of a flower. I bring my sketchpad and a camera with me everywhere, because I never know when something will strike me. I was in my daughter's music class last year and saw these drums, which became the inspiration for a leather ottoman I designed.
Sometimes I'll designate a day to go out and look for inspiration -- on the streets or at the mall. I might go to a museum or go on a hike. My best ideas come to me when I'm out in nature. I really do think God is the best designer. One morning while walking my dogs, I noticed that the grass was covered in dew and sparkled when the sunlight hit it. That inspired a broadloom carpet, which is bright green with silver threads throughout. One of my design philosophies is that I want to bring happiness into the home -- I like bright colors instead of dreary blah beige.
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Comments:
The dreary blah beige bit gave her ID away.