Carousel Designs Blog

Has it been 21 years already? 

We’re actually a little late on the celebrating (we’ve been busy!).  The true establishment date of Carousel Designs was February of 1988.  But that’s a minor detail…break out the cake and candles, we’re 21 years old and counting!

When I was first preparing to write this post, I thought it might be nice to go back and share some pictures of old website designs.  But that would only get as far back as our teenage years – and who likes to go back and look at pictures from the teen years?  Given the nature of our business, it would certainly be more fitting to see the infant years of Carousel Designs in pictures.  Maybe we can visit the wayback machine in another post.  And hopefully by then I can dig up some of the pictures from the 80’s to share.

In taking a look back, I noted that only 8 years ago we had less than 1/2 of the products we currently offer today.  We still carry a large assortment of solid colors, ginghams and toile patterns.  But now we have lots of modern prints, animal patterns, bold dots and stripes and super soft minky fabrics.  We even released an organic line of baby bedding recently.  And the custom baby bedding design studio is an amazing product that just keeps growing in popularity.  We are continuing to expand but our fundamentals really have not changed much. 

Styles have certainly evolved since our early years.  But one thing that has not been altered is quality and attention to detail.  If you have ever purchased any of our baby bedding items then you know that the quality of our products is immediately apparent.  And we still make everything here in Douglasville, Georgia.  Nothing gets outsourced overseas.

I have only been with the company for little more than a year and I remember bringing home a pink paisley crib comforter for our daughter last year.  My wife said, “Wow!  This is really nice.  Do they make these for adults?”  Actually, we don’t make adult size comforters.  Everything we make is for babies or toddlers, with the exception of rocking chair pads.  But that doesn’t seem keep my wife from occassionally curling up under the crib comfoter to enjoy a movie.

We’re looking forward to another 21 years and more in the baby bedding industry.  And we have the right team to make it happen.  Our CEO Jonathan Hartley was practically raised in the factory (his parents were the original founders) and it is doubtful whether anyone understands this business as well as he does.  And we couldn’t ask for a better customer service team.  If you have spoken with them, you know.  Our IT team is is top notch and has a diverse set of talents (even if they all seem to have the same name).   Our designer is simply amazing.  And the wealth of talent we have in the sewing and inspection teams is staggering.

So Happy Birthday Carousel Designs!  Now, where is that cake?

John

As we wind the year down and celebrate the holiday season with friends and families, the entire Carousel Designs team would like to extend a warm holiday greeting to our military personnel serving overseas.

Carousel Designs is a Veteran-owned company and continues to find ways to support military families. We gladly ship our products worldwide to FPO and APO addresses. Additionally, earlier this year, Carousel Designs proudly made a generous donation to the non-profit organization Operation Homefront. This organization provides emergency assistance to family members of deployed and wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Carousel Designs provided several pieces of bedding items to military families in economic distress. It was simply a way for us as a company to give back to our brave warriors. Lastly, as a tribute to our military personnel, our design team recently unveiled our new Green Camo baby bedding collection targeted for the hardcore military enthusiast. This is truly a unique set.

Hats off to all of our troops!

Allan

My name is Jonathan Hartley and back in 1988 my parents Mike and Balva Hartley founded Carousel Designs. Our manufacturing plant in Douglasville, Georgia has been here since the 70’s and prior to Carousel Designs had been owned by a different company which made items such as rubber baby pants and women’s clothing.

In 1988, Carousel Designs launched and concentrated solely on manufacturing crib bedding and nursery décor. We designed, manufactured, and distributed our products for the better baby specialty stores throughout the United States.

The bedding collections we’ve manufactured over the years matched the trends popular at the time, but looking back on those older collections can be quite entertaining.

Here’s one of the originals circa 1989 named “Bashful Bunny”…

Twenty years later we’re still making baby bedding, and the designs have changed quite a bit! (See our newest arrivals)

Allan Sicat (our President), Jason Warren, and I acquired the business over a year ago. Mike and Balva still are involved somewhat, but are enjoying retirement somewhere in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

We’ve got a lot of exciting things brewing and stay tuned for some of our future product offerings and website enhancements.

We’ve also recently opened up our latest consumer-facing website which features the tremendous inventory of fabrics we have here at our 20,000 square foot facility. The website is Carousel Fabrics and we offer all of our fabrics in stock at some very competitive prices.

Jonathan