Two young girls from Haliburton have turned a bright and creative idea into one of the must-have items in the region.
Heather, 8, and Danielle, 9, Barton are the creative minds behind the BeBe Bartoons, a fun collective lip balm.
“Me and Heather really love lip balm so one day my mom said why don’t we make our own so me and heather started drawing,” said Danielle.
Encouraged to draw their own characters, the Haliburton girls came up with a variety of animals.”
“We kind of just choose an animal and try to make it round,” said Heather.
Their mom, a graphic designer, helped the girls take their idea to the next level. After seeing how they turned out on the computer, she saw the potential and decided to give it a try.
“It’s been really terrific, it opens up family discussions and everyone has input and I’ve been happy to bring them to the business idea of it and bringing them on sales and educating them, it’s been a real experience for them,” says Michelle Barton.
The containers are refillable and the tops and bottoms can be interchanged so you can make your own little character. The girls even thought up the name.
“It’s kind of our name, last name Barton and cartoons because they’re little cartoons,” said Heather.
One year after the first drawing, BeBe Bartoons hit the market in Minden this spring.
“We think it’s amazing, it’s a fantastic product, when we opened the business it was our mandate to work with local artists and business people so this is just perfect for us,” says Paul Roy with the Up River Trading Company.
The girls have designed ten animals but for now only two are in stores and customers can’t wati for more to arrive.
“We’re finding that a lot of local people are really excited about it because of the closeness of the product to our community so it’s been a lot of fun,” says Mary Cross from Pharmasave Minden.
While the BeBe Bartoons are selling out in Minden, the family wants to take it one step further, they’ve started crowdfunding – an online social media campaign to raise money to build the business bigger and faster.
Learn more here.
