Welcome to the Custom Made For Kids blog!!

We hope this blog becomes an easy way for us to connect with our customers….we want to hear from you! How did your family react to your child’s copy of The First Adventures of Incredible You? What kind of books would you like to see from Custom Made For Kids in the future? What can we do to make a great product even better?

We are “the two Sarahs, Sarah squared, Sarah and Sarah” (we’ve heard it all) – Sarah Headrick and Sarah Rivera. We are two moms who met at a weekly suburban Chicago playgroup and became friends and then business partners. Neither of us is a professional writer (though both of us have writing backgrounds), but after reading book after book to our combined four small children, we do think we’re experts on what makes a good story for kids (and what is at the very least tolerable for the adult reading it to them). We co-wrote The First Adventures of Incredible You in 2006 after thinking about the really memorable experiences we had both had with our children. It seemed to us that our greatest moments as parents had been sharing the people, places and things that were special to us with our children. From tasting a favorite family food, to a cheering on a beloved sports team to visiting a local park or beach, these were the moments that connected us to our kids, the first “adventures” that cemented us together as families. We knew that if we could capture those experiences in a personalized children’s book, it would make for a really special product and a story that children and parents would love. We were lucky enough to find Jill Dryer Bartolucci who made our story come to life in a whimsical, funky way through her beautiful illustrations. We think the result is a book that kids will want to read over and over again and a product that truly highlights the connection between children and the special people in their lives.

So…it turns out that writing the book was the easy part (more on that later)! We launched CustomMadeForKids.com in August 2007 thinking that our worst case scenario was that we would have birthday/holiday/baby gifts for life in the form of a personalized children’s book that we couldn’t sell! But we were confident. After all we were moms – We could make a nutritionally balanced meal while brokering a peace deal between quarreling siblings. We could carry $200 worth of groceries into the house in a single trip. We were able to fight stains, organize play dates and navigate through the complexities of pre-school registration. Surely we could run a small business. So, we learned how to be accountants, web designers, pr executives, marketers, customer service reps and just plain old worker bees. It’s definitely been an “adventure”! But what makes it worth it, what makes this business so rewarding for us is hearing from our customers… Keep us posted!!