Last year, Kelley Waltz, owner of Sparkly Tees (asi/530143) in Nevada, agreed to have Wearables shake up her home-based screen-printing shop, receiving some expert advice from veteran consultant Terry Combs. The shop is still feeling the positive effects of our intervention. “We tried to tighten up what we were doing with a lot of Terry’s suggestions,” Waltz says. “We found ourselves getting busier and busier from being more efficient and being able to handle it.”

A tangible sign of Sparkly Tees’ success is an expansion this month into a 1,300-square-foot Las Vegas storefront, a huge step up from Waltz’s roughly 300-square-foot basement. “My daughter and I were just on top of each other in the basement,” Waltz says. “We couldn’t do it anymore.”

Though Waltz plans to keep her screen-printing press in her basement, she’s transferring the shop’s one-head embroidery machine and heat press into the retail store. “It will be cool because people will be able to see the embroidery machine running through the office window,” Waltz says.

Sparkly Tees offers custom glitter and rhinestone designs, as well as screen printing and embroidery. In addition to customer decorated apparel, the new store will offer in-stock items, such as local school spirit wear, embroidered stuffed animals and other gifts.

The biggest takeaway Waltz had from working with Combs was learning to create a realistic production schedule. Prior to her 2015 “shop shakeup,” Waltz says she had no idea how long a job would take and always felt overwhelmed and disorganized. Using a weekly calendar to block off time for each job has helped tremendously. “Before I was all over the place,” she adds. “Now, I can get a lot more done and take on a lot more jobs.”