A former Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), Princess Erica Trinidad, ventured into entrepreneurship and decided to take advantage of the benefits of macramé crafting. Macramé is a crafting technique that uses knots to create a variety of textiles such as wall decorations, bags and other home accessories. Her fondness for the craft led her to set up a business – Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts.
Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts is a home-based business which started selling macramé products through online platforms during the pandemic community lockdown. Princess sought help from the Department of Trade and Industry-Zambales Provincial Office to improve its business capabilities and market presence. She was invited to several webinars hosted by DTI-Zambales and later participated in trade fairs such as the DTI Zambales Yuletide Fair in December 2020.
For Princess, being part of DTI programs and activities is proof of being a legitimate entrepreneur, especially in social media. Through these programs, she was able to strike a deal with a large retail store in April of 2021. From producing only an average of ten (10) art pieces, the business deal caused Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts to produce 200-300 pieces of art products per month.
Due to its vast potential, Love Knots Arts and Crafts macramé products have been enrolled in the One-Town-One-Product Next Gen Program (OTOP NG) of DTI Zambales. In August of 2021, Princess also joined and graduated from the Kapatid Mentor Me (KMME) program of DTI Zambales. The OTOP NG provided Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts with new products such as macramé bag designs which were later sold on their social media accounts. Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts is a woman-led enterprise and because of that, Princess received a trademark registration incentive program from the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) called “Juana Make a Mark”.
“Juana Make a Mark” is a trademark registration incentive program for eligible Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to have their trademarks registered at a reduced cost. Also, it aims to introduce the ‘first-mover filing’ mindset amongst MSMEs. It is a mindset the MSMEs must establish while putting up a business to ensure availability of and secure exclusivity over the marks or trade names.
“Finding and asking someone for help is not a bad thing, be humble always and don’t let them ‘beat’ you down. Do not be discouraged if you sometimes experience a loss in business but use this as a motivation to further improve what you are doing,” Ms. Princess Trinidad of Loveknots – Art & Crafts Handy Crafts said. ♦
Date of release: 19 September 2023
