Last updated on September 8th, 2017 at 05:40 pm

Shelby Barone was in college studying to become a teacher when her passion for spreading literacy began to take form. Channeling this enthusiasm, the creative and fun-loving Shelby started making felt stories which she felt would be important in getting little children excited about reading. She donated these first felt stories to the Early Children Center school where she taught.

Later on Shelby would continue making felt stories to teach her own children, Andrew, Ella and Tyler, how to read.

In some ways, that was the informal beginning of Glitterful Felt Stories, Shelby’s family-run business which only officially started selling the stories (at cost) 5 years ago due to the increase in demand.

With so many requests for the Glitterful Felt Stories, Shelby can be found working until 2am most nights just to complete orders. Late nights or not, though, Shelby and her team always make good use of their scissors, felt and glue to inject love into every single felt story they create.

Love is a very important ingredient in the books. As children’s author Emilie Buchwald once said“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents“, Shelby, too, believes that her books are a good way for families to bond as well as teach children how to love reading.

The Glitterful Felt Stories are an interactive storytime tool especially great for children who have trouble sitting still for books. Parents can read the books while the children can hold, touch, and feel the pieces from the story. The felt stories practically bring the stories to life!

This is something Shelby knows of by her experience with her own 8 year old son, Andrew, a special needs child who was taught with felt stories since birth and is now is an avid reader. “He reads at least 20 100+ page chapter books a month. Everywhere he goes he seems to have a book in his hands. I love watching the passion for reading begin to grow in my other two children as well,” the proud mompreneur states.

Glitterful Felt Stories also gets rave reviews from other parents. Shelby recounts the story of a mother of an 11 year old special needs child who called her in tears:

“We donated her a story to try with her daughter. She was in tears watching her daughter laughing as her Dad read her the story while she was holding the felt pieces in her hands. It was a full sensory experience and her daughter had them read the story over and over again to her!”

A year later, Shelby and her family were invited to the customer’s home for the girl’s birthday party. They found that the girl was having a “book birthday party” that was all about reading with felt stories! Needless to say, the folks behind Glitterful Felt Stories were beyond touched.

One way to get children excited about reading is by offering a wide variety of stories. Glitterful Felt Stories currently has a selection of over 800 designs, with the most popular one being the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom set that accompanies Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s lively alphabet chant book (the set doesn’t come with the book).

There are also kits to go with family favorites from Eric Carle (Brown Bear, Brown Bear. What Do You See?), Laura Numeroff (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie). and Marcus Pfister (Rainbow Fish), to name just a few.

Since Shelby and her family intend to continue their work towards encouraging literacy in young children, it is necessary for them to become visible to more people through marketing. Aside from having their own website, Glitterful Felt Stories also sends their customers business cards, holiday cards, and postcards which they have printed with UPrinting.

Shelby says “We love Uprinting. We would never use any other kind of printing company. They have helped me to create such amazing high quality products to send out to my customers!”

High-quality products are certainly familiar to Shelby, who always works very hard to create the beautiful, handcrafted, and eco-friendly(they’re made from felt that comes recyyled cans and bottles)“glitter-full” products that her customers love so much.

In the coming days, though, families can expect a new kind of story from Shelby and her husband, Steve. They’re working together on their first children’s book on domestic adoption. It’s been in the works for eight years now but once they get it just right, it’s bound to be just as great as all their other work.

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