What's in a title?

There are all sorts of unique experiences I have in my work day that my corporate friends will never have. For instance, I get to make up my own title - which changes depending on the tasks of the day, who I am telling, and which one makes us laugh the most! The truth is I wear many hats at Admiral Road. I am the Office Manager when I have customers to talk to, supplies to order or bills to pay. I am the Director of Social Media (our favourite title) when I am spreading the word via Facebook, in a newsletter, or of course, blogging. Today Amy declared that I am the "web-genius". I get these titles not by virtue of my degree in Sociology (which I am still trying to figure out how to apply to the blanket business), but by virtue of being 23.

I’m not the only one who knows how to use a computer but I do have the advantage of not having had to work very hard at it. I was interested and I grew up at the right time. My family got our first computer when I was 12. It was new and exciting and I fought my 5 siblings for a chance to play with it. Now I can't imagine doing much in life without my computer. Instead of looking words up in a dictionary, I look them up on dictionary.com. When I can't remember who was in a movie, the lyrics to a song, or baseball stats, my computer answers me instantly. The Internet is like my very smart best friend that I have grown to know so well that I take it for granted that I had to learn these things.

I have a whole host of knowledge that was acquired simply by being exposed to a huge amount of new technology as it came out. The benefit of my useless knowledge is that I have managed to carve out a unique role at this company because so many "skills" from my everyday life (blogging, Facebooking, troubleshooting) have turned into assets that I didn't know had value.

Now I see 5 year-old kids surfing the webkinz site or 8 year-olds texting on their cell phones (I didn't get a cell phone until I was 18!) and I wonder about my generation gap.What will these kids be able to do in 15 years?

Admiral Road has been making personalized blankets since 2002.

Is imitation flattering?

Where do original ideas come from? Aren’t all new ideas inspired by something? At Admiral Road we have always prided ourselves on our original blanket designs. There is something very satisfying about putting something out into the world that was never there before you made it. Sure, we’re influenced by external factors: The success of the films ‘March of the Penguins’ and ‘Happy Feet’ led us to consider a penguin-themed blanket. But we’ve always put our own stamp on our ideas.

In the world of mompreneurs, we’ve seen imitation run rampant. You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve seen women do to one another. We ourselves have been imitated by other small businesses more times than I can count. (I know! The cut-throat world of baby blankets – who knew?) Our designs have been imitated. We’ve also had content from our web site knocked off many times. Heck, we’ve had to take legal action against a competitor!

But what happens when a big fish gets into the small pond? We recently learned of mass-market retailer who ripped off a mompreneur friend of ours – a children’s dress design. Same unique fabric, same style, same cut. The mass retailer was selling the dress for one-sixth of her retail price.

Where does the mass retailer get its ideas from? Aren’t there teams of designers sitting around designing new things?

I’ve always been a total cheapskate when it comes to my kids’ bibs. Drooling infants can necessitate a staggering number of bib changes in a single day. Five bibs for $1.99 at Ikea – that’s right up my alley. Not all the Ikea bibs lasted for the third kid, however, so I was thrilled when I recently found the good, wipeable kind at this same dress-design-ripping-off mass retailer (3 for $10!) It wasn’t until I got home and took apart the packaging that one of the bibs caught my eye. It looked…familiar. Why, that reminds me an awful lot of our sheep blanket! The sheep, the grass, the fence – those are the same three elements on our blanket. Now that sheep looks a little different, but the grass is a similar green. And my, the shape of that fence is….

Did a big fish imitate a little fish? Maybe not. But maybe….

You be the judge.

Admiral Road has been making personalized blankets since 2002.

Sister Act?

You know how they say that old married couples begin to resemble one another? If this is true, I’ve always thought it had something to do with the fact that we all get wrinkly, gray and smaller as we age. Then there’s the Fido campaign, where dog owners and their dogs share similar traits… But can you start to look like your best friend if you hang out long enough?

Amy and I have been hanging out in a fairly exclusive club of two for the past 19 years – exactly half our lives, in fact. We’ve noticed that ever increasingly, people are starting to think we look alike. For years at craft shows people have asked if we are sisters, and even twins a couple of times! This may not sound unusual to you – but perhaps if you saw us you’d know why this is funny. Amy is a petite brunette with straight hair. She’s 5’ 2” and 100 pounds soaking wet. I’m a 5’ 8” curly-haired redhead who is – ahem – more than 100 pounds bone dry. So how could it be that we are beginning to look alike? Even our kids are weirdly interchangeable in appearance. Amy’s oldest and my youngest could easily pass for sisters much more easily than they could with their actual siblings. Same for my oldest and Amy’s middle child.

We certainly do sound alike, who wouldn’t after a 19 year-long conversation? But it appears to be more than voice and mannerisms. At a recent social gathering a new friend walked into a room full of women, most of whom she didn’t know – paused, and looked at Amy saying, ‘you must be Danielle’s sister’. It’s definitely a strange phenomenon…I wonder if we’ll be identical twins in another 19 years?

Admiral Road has been making personalized blankets since 2002.

Pet Names a.k.a The Dog Blog

We're not all about babies at Admiral Road. Admiral Road fans include kids, adults and .... well... see for yourself!

I grew up with dogs starting when I was 5 years old. My dad and brother came to pick me up at summer camp, and my brother tortured me (as he often did) with the surprise that was awaiting me at home. Much to my delight, my much older brother had gone to work one day at the gas station and come home with a dog! Several years later we added a second dog to the family. Needless to say that I love dogs. But I never loved my dogs enough to buy them a present more expensive than a $3 chew toy. Luckily for us, our customers feel differently.


Earlier this year we had a customer call from Vancouver to tell us that her dog LOVED the blanket that she bought for him last Christmas and now she needed a blanket for her new dog so dog #2 wouldn't feel left out.

Ethel's owner finally gave in and bought her this blanket as a Christmas present at the One of a Kind show this year. This blanket is roomy enough for Ethel and her little friend!


We were a little confused when we opened this picture that was submitted for our photo gallery contest. Lots of times pets make their way into pictures of new babies - it's usually quite endearing. And we do get some great pictures of dogs on our dog-themed blanket. But this pup is on a baby monkey blanket.... that says Ethan. His owner got this blanket as a part of one of our recent Facebook group giveaways where we give away free or marked down items that are taking up too much room in our warehouse. As it turns out, there is no baby and there is no Ethan. This dog is Benji and he apparently sleeps with this blanket every night. Good thing he can't read.

Admiral Road has been making personalized blankets since 2002.

Welcome to our blog

Technologically speaking, we’re not exactly early-adopters over here at Admiral Road. It took one of us (I’m not naming names) a heck of a lot of effort to convince the other of us that we really did need a web site way back when we first started. Granted, it was 2002 and it was far from the case that every company had a web site, let alone a functioning e-commerce web site, but the writing was certainly on the wall. Thank goodness we got admiralroad.com up and running – it’s been our beloved ‘store’ for the past seven years.

In the spirit of self-improvement we’ve been working on our technological know-how. Several months ago we retired our dinosaur of a desktop computer in favour of laptops. We’ve synched up our hard-drives and, with the help of Lizz, our 23-year-old computer whiz employee, are moving, sluggishly, into the new millennium – better late than never. We’ve read with interest for some time the blogs of other companies and individuals we admire, and we thought it was high time we threw our literary hats into the ring.

Blanket Statements (cute name, don’t you think?) is a blog about balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship. (We’ve got five kids between us, aged six and under.) It’s also a forum for us to tell you about products and companies we like as well as a little about some of our amazing customers. Finally, we’ll keep you posted on what’s happening at your favourite source for personalized blankets and other great gifts. We hope you enjoy reading our blog and let us know what you think. Who knows? If this works out, Blackberries might even be in our future….

Admiral Road has been making personalized blankets since 2002.