Junior Operates Business Making ‘Plushies’

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Two hours is the maximum. Junior Violet Rettmer can’t sit still longer than that. She would drive herself crazy. But it has to be perfect, her customers are expecting it. The pressure behind creating handmade “My Little Pony” stuffed animals is always in the back of Rettmer’s head.

In the low-light basement of her Leawood home, scraps of fabric are strewn across an art table. Among toy train tracks, old high school memorabilia from the 1970s, racks of books, there are intricately embroidered, cartoon-like eyes made of cloth and half-finished costumes. Rettmer is perched on the corner of her couch on a Wednesday night.

She still has IB French homework, and has to come up with an idea for her design lab in IB Chemistry over the weekend. Her workload never seems to let up. She is involved in NaNoWriMo, a national writing contest where she must write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. She’s also running a self-made business out of her basement with just fabric, a sewing machine and a little determination.

Rettmer’s stuffed animals sell for as much as three hundred dollars on the internet. The colorful animals are mirror images of the ones on the TV show “My Little Pony.” Officially, they’re called ‘plushies.’ Customers contact Rettmer with size measurements and a picture of the character they would like.

Her usual clientele is made of people who are a part of fandoms.  They are fan communities who enjoy a certain topic like a cartoon or Violet’s personal favorite: Japanese anime. Clients buy her’s because they are larger, and in Rettmer’s opinion, better than the factory-made versions available.

She was inspired to create and sell these stuffed animals at a Japanese anime convention last Spring. One of the speakers at a panel during the convention was talking about making plushies by hand. Rettmer decided to go home and try to make one herself. The finished product didn’t really live up to her standards.

“At first, I was kind of discouraged, but then, when I looked at other people’s [that] had been making [plushies] for a while, mine was as good as theirs,” Rettmer said. “I was like ‘Oh, well in that case, I could pursue this as a career.’ Because a lot of people are paying a lot of money with [them].”

So as time went on, Rettmer began practicing her craft more and more, learning about the lucrative aspects of the handmade creations. The low cost to make them as well as their high price tags were a signal to her that this was a genuine business idea. She began putting up her art on sites like Etsy and Deviantart, where individuals can sell hand-made products to consumers. Much of her business has slowed due the heavy workload of school.

“The really difficult part is that you have deadlines for school and you don’t get forever to work on [plushies],” Rettmer said. “Either because sometimes people will be like ‘Hey are you done with it yet? And I’ll be like ‘No, I had a French test’, but I can’t tell them that.”

When she’s not cranking out custom plushies or getting through her schoolwork, she’s with her friends enjoying anime.

She attends conventions that celebrate this art and cartoon two to three times a year. Rettmer and her friends spend days preparing for them. She uses her skills at the sewing machine to create hand-made costumes of her friends’ favorite anime characters for them to wear at conventions.

Junior Kayla Schuman had her idea for a costume with the picture ready and everything. She just needed the finishing touch — a tail — to be added. It was the night before the Naga Convention, and she knew exactly who to ask for help.

“[Rettmer] basically could figure out what exactly she needed to sew where,” Schuman said. “And she also talked about inseaming and just stuff I had no idea about and so it was amazing. We got it done in one night.”

Rettmer’s skill in the sewing craft was a surprise to her mom, Maureen Kenny, because Kenny had tried to get Rettmer to share her interest in sewing, to no avail.

“I wanted to give her sewing lessons immediately,” Kenny said. “I love sewing, I’ve sewn all my life. And so when she started I was really happy.”

She is happy that Violet is expressing herself creatively. As an art major herself, she values creativity. Kenny’s paintings line the walls of their bright living room, varying in styles and sizes.

She isn’t just excited that Violet is bonding with her over a mutual love for the needle and thread. Kenny sees this as an important opportunity to gain real-life skills before Violet goes off to college. Although Rettmer probably won’t pursue it as a career after college, she is saving the profit to help pay for higher education.

“She has a purpose in life,” Kenny said. “She feels like she has some passions and goals and she’s pursuing those. So I absolutely applaud her for that.”

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