Small Idea Turns Into A Big Business For One Dallas Girl

The Dallas Morning News:

If there’s a tween girl in your household, chances are you’ve heard of the latest rage: magnetic bottlecap necklaces.

What most Dallasites probably don’t realize is that they’re made right here, the brainchild of a Hockaday student.

Maddie Bradshaw, now 12, was doodling one summer when she came up with creative lapdesks, clipboards and frames, which she pitched to Camille’s Creations owner Camille Murphey back in 2006.

The bottlecap necklaces actually started out as locker magnets when Maddie couldn’t find any she liked for her fifth-grade locker. So she decided to make her own, and her uncle offered up bottlecaps from his gameroom Coke machine. Maddie says she remembers seeing bottlecap necklaces around, but none that were magnetic and could be easily swapped out.

Ms. Murphey, whose store is at 6110 Luther Lane, urged Maddie to sell them at Learning Express in Snider Plaza, where owner Kathryn Cook, a Hockaday alum, put them on consignment to see what would happen. “And, whoa. I just cannot tell you. We sell them like crazy, and continue to sell them like crazy.”

Maddie’s novel idea has now blossomed into a booming business, with 15 employees in Dallas, four sales reps and 30,000 bottlecaps being sold each month in 500 stores nationwide. They got a copyright on Snap Caps, which is patent-pending. M3 (Maddie, Margot and Mom) Girl Designs is now a limited liability company.

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