The email came in on a regular afternoon. Samsung wanted 700 hampers for their store.
We read it twice. Then we cheered. Then we got to work.
The brief was simple on paper - a journal, a pouch, a coaster, and a candle in every box. Sustainable. Made by our women artisans. And on top of each box, Samsung's branding, custom and clean.
That evening, we sat with our production team and did the math out loud. 700 journals. 700 pouches. 700 coasters. 700 candles. Multiply, plan, breathe, repeat. The next morning, our artisans began.
Soon the warehouse started to fill. Empty boxes stacked floor to ceiling, waiting their turn. We began with the branding - one box at a time, tops first, careful hands and careful eyes. Across the room, products arrived in waves. Journals from one corner. Coasters from another. Pouches folded and counted in neat little towers.
The candles were the last to be finished. Each one was topped with dried flowers, pressed and placed by hand. There is something about that final step - the smell of wax, the tiny petals settling in - that makes you slow down for a second and just look.
Then came the assembly. Our whole team showed up for it. Someone arranged, someone sleeved, someone packed, someone tied the ribbon. We moved like a quiet machine, but a happy one. Conversations, chai breaks, and the soft sound of paper being folded over and over again.
And then, one morning, the boxes were ready.
700 of them. Stacked. Tied. Waiting to leave for Samsung's store.
We stood there for a moment before they were loaded onto the truck. You don't always get to see your work in numbers like this. Behind every box were the hands of women who had stitched, poured, pressed, and folded their way through the week. 700 small acts of care, lined up in a row.
Then the truck doors closed, and off they went.