104 - Amanda Smith - You Have To Be Willing To Change and Adapt With The Market

The Podcast is sponsored by; The Workroom Channel   Scarlet Thread Consulting   The WCAA   Like many others in this business, Amanda Smith did not start out as a fabricator of window treatments. She attended college at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte earning a bachelor's degree in Middle Grades Education. After teaching English and Social Studies for seven years, she attended graduate school earning a master's degree in Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and worked as a high school media specialist for three years. In 1997 she co-authored "Developing Lifelong Readers: Using Literature Across the Middle Grades Curriculum" Staff Development Guide For Middle School Teachers, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. She became a stay-at-home Mom in 1998 when her twin boys were born. When her boys turned three Amanda knew she wanted to work but did not want to return to teaching full time. While visiting a friend one afternoon, she noticed her friend had new window treatments in the family room.  It was an "ah ha" moment. She thought, "If I can make cocktail dresses, I can surely learn to make window treatments." Amanda comes from a family that sews. Her mother, an accomplished sewer and quilter, taught Amanda the art at age 12. Her father owned a successful auto upholstery business for 25 years. Both of her grandmothers and all of her aunts sewed. With her family's support, she set up a small workroom in an extra bedroom and completed her first job in July 2001. What started out as a small, retail business has grown into a to-the-trade full-service workroom offering fabrication of panels, valances, bedding and decorative accessories as well as several lines of fabrics, hardware, shutters, blinds, woven woods. Amanda continues her fabrication education by belonging to the Window Coverings Association of America and by attending local and national conferences. Over the years her work has been published in several local magazines and online design sites. Sew Unordinary can be found on Facebook and Instagram You can find Seamless Workroom on Facebook The M'Fay Manuals can be purchased on the Workroom Channel We mentioned the following podcasts; Kate The Socialite Goaldigger LuAnn Nigara The apps mentioned were Planerly and Meet Edgar Here is a link to the CWC Page.