Creative sisters show their entrepreneurial spirit
By Dale Woodard on February 22, 2022.
The kids are alright.As the Lethbridge Handmade Market took the floor Saturday at the Lethbridge Exhibition South Pavilion, the sister duo of Sylvie and Chalise Young were also in business.
The vendors were out once again for the Handmade Market, but for Sylvie and Chalise, their business ventures were being both cooked up and drawn up as part of the Kidpreneurs program.
For Sylvie, it was all about the baked goods with Sylvie’s Baker Boxes – complete with video instruction – while Chalise showed her artistic side with Fine Line Art.
For her business, Sylvie’s Baker Boxes provided more than just the key ingredients for tasty desserts.
“They’re kids’ baking kits,” said the 13-year-old entrepreneur. “They have the dry ingredients and some decorating tools and supplies. It has the recipe in there and also a video link. It’s a step-by-step tutorial, so kids can bake along with me.”
Meanwhile, Fine Line Art deals with custom-drawn graphite pencil realism.
“People send me their photos and I draw them with pencils,” said Chalise, 16.
“I’ve always loved art and I got really bored during the pandemic. So I said I’m going to teach myself to draw. I did a lot of practising.”
Sylvie said she’s always liked baking, a skill she wants to share.
“I’ve always wanted to teach kids how to bake, that’s what I want to do when I’m older. My mom and I were talking one night and I came up with this idea.”
At Saturday’s Handmade Market , Sylvie was enjoying steady business.
“It’s been really good. The first three hours were crazy, not one moment to just take a break. It was great.”
Now, the goal is to turn up the heat on her business venture.
“I’d like to work at home and have my own business when I’m older and if I do this for a few years hopefully it will work out,” said Sylvie.
For Chalise, Fine Line Art began with a few sketches.
“I started doing friend’s photos and giving them to them as gifts and I realized ‘Wow, I can really make a business out of them,” she said.
“They loved them, it was a great gift.”
Like Sylvie, the pandemic and the downtime it created got Chalise putting the pencil to the paper.
“It’s great. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off. It feels really good,” she said, adding it takes her between two and four hours to do a drawing.
With the Lethbridge Handmade market wrapped up, the sisters will continue to promote their businesses.
“We’ll definitely do this again in April and then we’ll do the YQL market,” said Chalise.
“We do that once a month.”
For more detailed information, Sylvie has two introductory videos on her Facebook page at facebook.com/simply.sylvie.baker.boxes.
Those with questions or orders can also contact her at sylvie.young2008@yahoo.com.
Fine Line Art can also be found in Facebook at facebook.com/Chalise.Fine.Line.Art and can be reached for orders via email at chalise.m.young@gmail.com.
Six Kidpreneurs were running booths at last weekend’s Handmade Market, said Jessica Plant, Lethbridge Handmade Market assistant manager and the KidsCreate organizer.
“Kidpreneurs is anyone who is under the age of 18 who is the primary vendor of their business,” she said.
“We give them a 50 per cent discount on their booth. They need to be involved in the production and they need to be there selling their product.
“We have somebody who makes bath bombs and bath products. We have a lot of kids helping out parents, too.” Plant said last weekend’s Handmade Market customers enjoyed checking out the young business people.
“I think they’ve done really well. We’ve put up signs that mark them as Kidpreneurs and I think people respond to it really well. I think they’re excited to be able to buy from kids.
“Our long-term goal is to have an entire section of the market just for Kidpreneurs and maybe having a few kids running the area as well since it’s all kinds activities.”
The theme of last weekend’s Handmade Market was Aurora Borealis, complete with buttons to go with the theme.
Around 70 vendors were out for the Handmade Market.
“We got a lot of vendors after things opened back a bit and we weren’t imposing the Restrictions Exemption Program,” said Plant. “I feel like we have more people than we would at this time of year.
So it might be a factor. It’s definitely feeling more normal. It’s nice we can have food again and people sitting at tables and eating. There’s definitely more hands-on stuff in the KidsCreate Area, too, which is nice.”
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