These mothers mean business
Because Sweet Potato prints are made from hand-sculpted potato “stamps” the moms make in their kitchens, each shirt is different. The colors are bright, the designs are simple, limited by what can be made with a potato stamp and a small thin brush for basic detailing.
Their small, home-based business, Sweet Potato Prints, started two years ago after Lucey, a mother of two young children who lives in the same Delmar, N.Y., neighborhood as Shaw, read about potato printing in one of Martha Stewart’s magazines. Lucey made shirts for her own kids, and Shaw thought they were so cute she wanted to learn how to make them. An evening craft party between moms eventually turned into a small business enterprise.
Today, racks of tiny T-shirts and onesies hang in Shaw’s basement ready to be shipped out to Internet customers or sold at a local farmers market on Saturday mornings. The three mothers work on the patterns — a long green alligator with jaws open wide, a boxy red firetruck, a bright pink flower with egg-shaped petals — when their kids are at last nestled into bed or off playing with friends.
Their husbands watch the kids, so the moms can work their booth at the farmers market, where other stay-at-home moms talk to them about how they wish they could start their own businesses too. “When you’re getting reaction from people you don’t know, for people who like your stuff, it’s a validation, an ego boost that you don’t get in your everyday life,” Shaw says.