Fairy interesting
Interest growing in fairy door business
A mom-and-pop operation makes and sells fairy, elf, pixie, brownie, leprechaun, sprite, hobbit, and goblin doors, most no more than 15 cm. in height.
Once upon a time in a Canadian province far, far away, a man and his wife were dreaming of starting a business when, suddenly, they received a gift, a stone-cast fairy door. Now, this couple, Alan and Sarah Cornfield, also wanted a garden. But there was none on the property they had bought in the subdivision of Sugar Bush in Oro-medonte, Ont. So, they placed that fairy door in a pile of dirt. And the following spring, flowers appeared, creating a beautiful flower garden. “There was a mound of dirt there and I stuck our first fairy door in it on an old, rotten stump,” said Alan. “The following spring, there was a beautiful flower garden. That was our first experience with (fairy magic).” The appearance of that flower garden – and solid market research by the budding entrepreneurs – convinced the Cornfields to launch Sugar Bush Fairies, a small company they moved into a Digby home last October. The company makes fantastical fairy doors, which are shipped throughout North America. “Each door is a portal allowing the fairy folk to enter into our lives, bringing with them the special magic of their realm,” claims the Sugar Bush Fairies website.
FAIRY MAGIC
At Sugar Bush Fairies, the Cornfields profess that they “absolutely” believe in the existence of fairies and their magic. On his Facebook page, Alan Cornfield demonstrates his interest in things magical by giving himself the nickname of Merlin, the wizard which legend holds advised King Arthur and fell in love with the Lady of the Lake. The Cornfields’ mom-and-pop operation makes and sells fairy, elf, pixie, brownie, leprechaun, sprite, hobbit, and goblin doors, most no more than 15 cm in height, through about 60 stores in Canada and the United States. While tales of these creatures hold that they come in a wide variety of heights, from only a few centimetres to as tall as a human being, Sugar Bush Fairies has limited and somewhat standardized the size of its doors for real-life business reasons. “We cater to the very small door, in the pixie size of up to six inches … for the fairy lore and dollhouse scale which is a very big thing in the United States,” said Alan. “We also need to keep it at a particular size so it fits into our boxes, so the retailer can display it and for shipping.” Sugar Bush Fairies has an online store on Etsy, which can be found at the web address: www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Sugarbushfairies/items, where it lists 103 items for sale. These range from its diminutive Pips ’N Squeaks door, which retails for $23.37, through to the $51.94 Harry Potter Great Hall Door for Home and Garden, complete with the crest from best-selling novelist J.K. Rowling’s fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Bricks-and-mortar stores that order 10 doors or more get wholesale prices 50 per cent lower than those posted on the e-commerce website. “We have a minimum wholesale order amount of $250,” said Alan. “That gives people about 15 doors.” A former design engineer in the furniture industry, he crafts each door in cedar. Sarah, a former educational assistant with a passion for painting, then provides the final, artistic flair.
GROWING BUSINESS
The eight- year- old business started out as a sideline for the couple but it has grown over the years to become a full-time occupation. Sugar Bush Fairies nets about $20,000 in annual profits and provides the Cornfields with a total of about $45,000 in salaries. Alan says the business’ online store brings in about 17.5 per cent, or about $15,000, of its sales. Those figures, if correct, would mean the home- based business has annual revenues of about $85,700. And it’s growing. In February, the entrepreneurs took their fairy doors to the Craft East Buyers’ Expo 2018 in Halifax and landed deals to distribute their products in six more stores in Atlantic Canada, including four in Nova Scotia, one on Prince Edward Island and another in Newfoundland. The company’s fairy doors are already available for sale at: Newfoundland’s Iceberg Shop; Nova Scotia’s The Gaelic-College, The Teazer, and Odessa Gifts and Home Decor, as well as; Prince Edward Island’s Preserve Co. Expansion, though, is going to require a new workshop for Sugar Bush Fairies. The Cornfields are planning to attach another shed to the existing one in their backyard, creating one long workshop of close to 800 square feet.