Last month I had the opportunity to work on a project for American Fork Hospital and Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. They were set to sponsor an upcoming Healthy Princess Festival to be held at Thanksgiving Point for young girls (under the age of 10). What they needed were bedazzled princess crowns, ones that were adjustable and could fit small heads. I was given the task to find and provide the crowns for the event.

They wanted crowns that were very princess-looking with lots of pink, gold and jewels. And of course, although they would have loved to give real silver jeweled crowns, they were looking for a more cost effective solution. They wanted a product the girls would be gaga over, but one that wouldn’t break the bank.

Since Alexander’s belongs to Advertising Specialty Institute – a promotional products membership organization — we started with them in our search for quality, pre-made princess crowns. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find what we were looking for.

We knew we could get them from a distributor in China, but with them, even 8 weeks is not long enough to guarantee delivery. And we didn’t have that much time. So we couldn’t go that route.

I finally found a princess crown that fit the bill at a local party store. It was just what the customer was looking for. The problem, however, was price. They were almost $5 each, and for a quantity of 2,500, they were just too expensive.

Besides, the party store said they’d have to order them from their vendor and couldn’t deliver them in time. I suspect they had a source that would ship them on a slow boat from China, although they wouldn’t disclose their vendor.

So, I bought just one. Then I brought it to the Alexander’s design team and asked, “Can we create something like this?” With a tangible example and a few back-and-forth revisions with the client, we were ready to print.

This was a great experience for us. We took an idea and ran with it even though it required us to create something from scratch and then figure out some very tricky, intricate die cutting.

It’s my first princess crown job and I’m happy to say the client was pleased with the outcome. Although I don’t expect any of the Healthy Princess Festival girls will be knighting me anytime soon, I suspect they’re pretty pleased with the crowns as well.

Thanks, Holly, for believing in me and giving Alexander’s the opportunity to work on such a fun, unique project.