Let me first introduce myself to those of you who don’t personally know me. My name is Felicia. I’ve been married for 18 years, to Matthew. We are a military family from Oklahoma. We don’t have kids, but this business was created because of two very special people in our lives, our niece Zaniyah and my sister, Betty. Zaniyah was visiting with us from WA state. We had bought Zaniyah over 20 t-shirts during her visit. I had this routine with her that each holiday I would design and make her a t-shirt and mail it to her. It was just a little something to remind her we were thinking of her.
I’ve now called her inside from playing outside to try on these different size shirts so they can be put away for future use. We made it through about 3 shirts before she got fidgety and was itching to go back outside and play with Uncle Matt. I’m now compromising, wrestling, and bribing this 5-year-old to bear with me while trying on most of these shirts. Oh, please don’t use the puppy eyes on me, little girl! With the saddest face ever, she tells me she doesn’t want these shirts!
Me: “Wait what, did you just say?”
Niyah: “I don’t want these shirts!”
Me: “Why?”
Niyah: “They are boring, they don’t have anything on them!”
She had a point; they were just plain old boring colored and white t-shirts with no design on them. I take a few minutes to explain to her they will eventually have something on them, but for now, we need to see which ones need to be put up for later in the year and which ones we can use now. Okay, I won this battle, because I am the adult, at least that’s what I tell myself. She now is trying on the shirts and telling me what she would like on each color. Shortly after that, I started getting requests for all kinds of shirts to be made. And from the battle that I “won” with Niyah on that very hot day in June, June Rain Creations had begun, though I didn’t realize it yet.
But why, June Rain? We lost Betty in January 2014, and it knocked the wind out of me. She had given the last 5 years of her life to battling colon cancer. She is a strong woman. We never once heard her ask “why me?”. During the last year she was here with us she was selfless. During the holiday she still wanted to be in the kitchen cooking all the holiday meals. She was handing out brutal life advice to everyone that didn’t want it. She was more worried about what she would be leaving us without, than what she was currently battling. Sometimes when I called her, I could tell she was in massive pain, but she would brush my concern off and say, “It’ll be better tomorrow, just like June rain.” She was always so optimistic about how a June rain would give the day new life and hope.
That’s how we established the June Rain Creations chapter in our lives; with a little struggle from Zaniyah, and tons of love and hope from Betty. What started as this small hobby of doing shirts for my niece has grown into something that I never imagined would be my passion when I was younger. I hope this helps you understand the commitment, quality, and love we put into giving your new t-shirt, tumbler and other blank substrates new life. Besides, you don’t want Niyah thinking that you are boring, do you? Thank you for supporting our small business and if you have any questions send me a message. If you need shirts, decals, or laser etching, I’m here to help!