About Wild Ivy Shirt Co.

Hi everyone!  Welcome to Wild Ivy Shirt Co.  I'm glad you found yourself here!  

My name is Abbi Sinclair.  I'm based out of Webb City, Missouri, where I live with my husband Jim and our two daughters.  

I haven't always been a "t-shirt lady".  Before launching Wild Ivy, I was referred to as the "tech lady"! I handle the technology in the 5th/6th grade building for our local school district.

It was January of 2020, when we all started hearing about this dreaded virus that hadn't currently made it to the United States, but we were all bracing for it while being confused and scared of what our futures would hold. 

It wasn't long after that, it made its way to the United States.  People commented about the country literally shutting down and speculated about what would happen if we all had to stay home.  I can remember it being surreal and I would listen to what friends, co-workers and family had to say, but it just didn't seem like it was a possibility.

Like most school districts, our school district was hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.  We began working toward the goal to transfer teaching in the classroom to a virtual learning environment.  That was logistically challenging, but it was coming together.  My small part of making sure that students had devices to use from home and reliable internet access was just a tiny, tiny piece of what went into making everything come together. 

Fast-forward to March, we made it to spring break.  I don't think we could have put off spring break another week.  We were all mentally and physically exhausted.  We spent the next week trying to relax, but every time we flipped on the tv, opened a web browser, listened to the radio, passed a newspaper stand, there was a reminder of what was going on.  

Then it all started to really happen.  Our week of spring break had been "extended" for extra cleaning.  Our welcomed extra week became "one more week", until eventually we were officially not attending in person school for the rest of the school year.  

That's when the brainstorming/spiraling all started...what if we don't go back to school in the fall?  Will I still have a job?  What will I do from April until August (or maybe further)? 

I'm a naturally crafty person, but the realistic side of me told me I was never going to be a crafter that actually made a living making crafts.  My mind flip flopped around with a ton of ideas, but each one led me back to a crafting idea.  As supportive as my husband is, he's also the one that keeps me grounded.  I just knew he wasn't going to hop on board without a serious plan, and even at that, I was going to have to be VERY convincing.  

Somewhere around the end of April, I was laying in bed at night dreaming up my "wait for covid to be over" job and it just hit me...t-shirts!  Now, I had made my fair share of t-shirts in the past, but not anywhere close to how many t-shirts it would take to actually create a business.  After lengthy discussions with some of my closest friends regarding sales strategies and everything that went with putting this idea into action, I decided this might actually work.  I decided if I was going to take the leap, I needed to get my husband on board.  I figured there was never going to be a more opportune time to try something so risky, where I still had a safety net if it failed. 

My glorious husband...He was cautious, nervously trusting, and encouraging enough to give me a push, but just stand-offish enough to make sure I didn't give up.  I remember him saying to give it a shot, don't bankrupt us getting started and we'll see how it works.  That was a green light for me!  

Fast-forward to August...things were going great!  I couldn't be prouder of what I had built, but it was about to get hectic...we were headed back to school.  I was nervous about running what had become a full-time t-shirt business along side my full-time job.  We'll just say that school year was a blur.  By April, I knew that something had to give.  If I was going to take Wild Ivy seriously long-term and really let it grow, I was going to have to leave my job with the school. 

So here we are.  I managed to turn my day dream into my full-time day job, all with a push brought on by the pandemic. 

I can't think of anything else that I'd rather be doing.  Wild Ivy allows for me to promote creativity, meet new people, have flexibility and thoroughly enjoy what I'm doing every single day. 

Thank you again for stopping by.  I hope that you find something that you love. 

 

Abbi