Pint-Size Pop Up Shop!
Last Spring, Freida suddenly had a pint-size business epiphany, and set her heart on selling bracelets. She had been making Rainbow Loom creations all year, and when she had perfected her fishtail designs to her satisfaction, she decided she would go corporate. With the help of a cardboard paper towel tube, she slowly started building her shop stock. Not a week went by where she forgot to ask me if she could have a lemonade + bracelet stand this Summer. And then she'd ask again 5 minutes later. To verify.
As an avid fan of Ikea, the annual arrival of their catalogue always excites me to some extent, and I usually settle on my favorites right then and there. One of my favorites from 2014 was the concept of the Skylta Market Stand. $15 for this cardboard cutie - and a promise of Summer-stand fun! I couldn't even resist from sharing this find in the Babyccino Summer Curriculum - under the umbrella of "lemonade" week, of course. Dramatic play props with these proportions usually require significant funding and even more significant space. The idea of having this made to go up and down in a jiffy completely made me smile. And it was one of my best Ikea buys ever. (While Ikea instructions are for dummies to begin with, I somehow manage to fall through the cracks, and struggle with those little manuals no matter what. Huge shout-out to my 11-year-old niece, Chaya, who was in town and available to assemble this one for me on the spot at Babyccino class.) I've since taken it apart to store flat, and put it back together a whole bunch of times. After our epic Lemonade + Bracelet sale, the girls have used it to enhance their dramatic-play-playdates with everything from "farmers market" to "movie theatre box office". It's been an imagination booster, to the max. And I wanted to share it here with you all - get your hands on it before it's discontinued (Ikea style)!
One Sunday in July, we made made a whole big batch of lemonade and set up shop on our block. I snapped a pic and posted it on Instagram, inviting our neighborhood friends to stop by and support her pop-up shop. Naturally, we also got the Melrose crowds, as well as a slew of charitable church-goers. Her little friends came by to join in the enterprise, and my friends came by to support my little entrepreneur. She was planning on making a few bucks to buy some new additions to her disney princess figurine collection (which her mother staunchly refuses to contribute to), but when we dismantled at the end of the day and counted up her cash, she (and I!) was shocked to see she had made a whopping $64! It was such a fantastic lesson in finances - we spoke about paying her "employees" (the little friends that helped man the booth), covering the cost of her supplies (the bags, napkins, and straws she wanted), and setting aside 10% for charity. At first she was hesitant about this saying "but I don't want to lose $6.50!", when I said "you're not losing it, you're giving it" - total game changer. She decided she wanted to send it to the IDF, and even happily wrote up a little card for them. The rest of the money she put away deciding she can save for her dream scooter instead of buy a bunch of princesses that usually break anyways. As she was falling asleep she said dreamily, "can I have my own bank account?". :)
Would seriously suggest you do something like this with your kids as a little lesson in fiscal responsibility. And get this stand while you're on the market!