D’ARCY, Sask. – Who as a child didn’t play in a big cardboard box, turning it in their imagination into a cave, pirate ship or castle?
That’s what Doug and Maggie deConinck Smith want to hear.
A business idea came to the pair about four years ago as they were cutting holes in a box to turn it into a rocket ship for their children on their farm in west-central Saskatchewan. Today, they are selling craft kits that turn a box into a medieval castle, fairy tale cottage or puppet theatre.
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It is an economic diversification on their small mixed farm, which is preferable to Doug working in the oil patch or Maggie doing more teaching instead of caring for their two small children at home.
Working with Huw Evans, a Saskatoon graphic artist, they designed drawings that people can cut out and glue or tape onto cardboard boxes. The customer must find a box but most appliance stores and farm machinery dealerships throw them away every week.
Doug said the boxes are surprisingly resilient and they have one outdoors that can be a snow fort, as well as a playhouse.
Developing the idea took time. First Doug thought he would also make a rigid plastic frame for the box, but then he thought, “who would pay $50 for a recycled cardboard box?”
The deConinck Smiths thought there would be more play value if the children were able to cut out the drawings and stick them on the box, creating a customized design.
In November 2005 they received help developing a business plan for the kits from the Meridian Futures economic development group in Kindersley, Sask., which later lent them $24,000.
It also organized a focus group of local families in which parents and children, working together, used the kits to create six castles in one evening. Maggie said with a laugh that some of the feedback from the focus group was that it was too busy an evening with all the cutting, painting and gluing.
More consumer tests followed using a class of commerce students from the University of Saskatchewan.
Then it was off to an annual toy and hobby show in Toronto in January 2007, where they compared ideas in the inventors’ corner with 25 others.
That’s where they found a printer who could make the kits in China for half of what it would cost in Canada. Maggie noted it wasn’t great timing with all the bad news last year about contaminated Chinese-made toys, but there is no lead in their printer’s ink.
The 7,500 kits arrived in October and they sold 300 of them before Christmas. Several appliance and toy stores in Kindersley, Rosetown and Saskatoon now carry them. They are also available through the deConinck Smiths’ website, www.everbuildcrafts.ca, or their toll-free line, 866-455-3837.
“Each step of the way was a challenge because we farm as well,” Doug said.
“This has been in the back of my mind – if we can make this (kit business) sustainable then it can support our family farm.”
So far the craft kits haven’t interfered with farming, but will overlap with calving time in March when Doug is at a craft show promoting the kits. Maggie said she learned to use a chain saw to open the ice so their cattle could drink. She is now worried about learning to unroll a bale to feed them.
They have also relied on neighbours and family in the area to babysit their children or their 55 Simmental-Hereford cross cows when they are on Everbuild business.
“It really needs to be a full-time job to promote it,” Maggie said.
The couple grows wheat, lentils and barley and last year added canaryseed to the 1,000 acres they have in crop. They have another half section for pasture.
Their son, Theron, 7, and daughter, Thyra, 5, are too young to do farm chores but each has a favourite cow.
The deConinck Smiths have a long list of events they could attend this year promoting their new business, including the Toronto show and one in Vancouver.
“But we probably won’t go to that,” Maggie said.
Added Doug: “We have to leave some time to seed.”
