14 | locally owned business | Friday, February 25, 2011
lakeshore chronicle | herald times reporter
Your Local Hand Made Shop Accents ‘n Spice Celebrating 11 Years in 2011. This year we celebrate our 11th year in business at Accents ‘n Spice. How did we get where we are today? It hasn’t always been easy. We thought there had to be a better way to market our wood crafts other than attending craft shows and fairs. Besides, we weren’t getting any younger…It seemed like our wood products were getting heavier, and loading and unloading the inventory was becoming a tougher task. We set out looking for a shop, but found that the ones that had high traffic also had high price tags. What we found instead was a quaint, old tavern that was vacant, located about eight miles from Manitowoc, Wisconsin and approximately 20 miles from Green Bay, in the village of Francis Creek. That left us with a new challenge ahead of us– how to market what we had and make it easy for customers to find us. To keep our start-up costs low, we set up all our old displays and the card tables that we had been using at craft shows and opened our doors on April 1, 2000. With determination and patience, little by little we replaced all our old displays with new. This venture started out as a family affair and still is. My very talented husband, Dale, is in charge of all of the woodworking. My daughter Janice contributed the spices, soup bases and dip mixes to add a unique twist to our inventory. My daughter Joy takes care of a little bit of everything and steps in wherever needed. I handle all the handpainting and put the finishing touches on the products before they go out on the floor. We work with a few local crafters to add some variety to our shop. We like to refer to ourselves as Outside of Store “The Hand Made Shop.” 80% of our inventory is hand crafted. Although we are located in the country, and the weather has a definite impact on customers visiting our store, we use that forced downtimes to create more product. We strive to keep our prices as low as possible and we believe this helps our customers coming back time and time again. What we have in mind for the future is to create some outdoor displays for our planters, benches and yard accents, since we’re full to the brim on the inside. We’d love to have you stop in and check Accents ‘n Spice’s many one-of-a-kind crafts. Our hours year round are Tuesday-Friday, 9am-5pm and Saturday, 9am-3pm. Take a little road trip and stop in to check us out. We are always adding new items so our customers have a reason to come back. Spice Wall We think you’ll enjoy our unique variety of products and crafts and our friendly service! - Karen Koeser, Proprietor, Accents ‘n Spice
WI-5001258706
Accents ‘ N ’ Spice & O ther D e lig hts
“ The Handmade Shop”
920-686-6789 529 N. Packer Drive (Cty R) We are located on the far Northside of Francis Creek Tues-Fri: 9am-5pm • Sat: 9am-3pm