Like so many awesome little businesses, SaraBoo Creek was born as a “side gig” in my suburban Illinois home. I’m not sure that term was even used 29 years ago, but it’s a good one! At 30 years old, having finished grad school and started my first college teaching job, I had my first child, Patrick (soon nicknamed Boo) and of course fell madly in love with my little guy. Like so many young families, we needed additional income, but like lots of moms I wanted to find a way to help the family without having to leave home. I was inspired by my own mother, who had started selling antiques (in her 50’s!) to take her lifetime love of Vintage to a new level. I loved helping with her booth at flea markets, and I credit those days with my mom for sparking an entrepreneurial fire I didn’t know I had. I paid attention to what people were buying around us, all the while wondering “What can I do? What can I sell that people would want?”. If you had asked this History teacher what was the one quality I had NONE of, I would have (without hesitation) said creativity. But life is a funny thing, and what I know now is that you never know your potential for ANYTHING, until you tap into it. So…with that little fire burning and armed with the belief that I would “figure it out” along the way, I added another “first” to my 30th year – I started a business. A creative business.
It's funny how things come full circle…at that time all things rustic and “shabby chic” were the rage. Now, we are back to rustic finishes and farmhouse styles. My first products were barn wood birdhouses (birdhouses were HUGE then!). I started out at small craft fairs and flea markets, all the while improving and expanding my items, honing my displays, and learning everything there was to know about that “gypsy” artisan life. When my daughter, Sarah, was born a few years later I gave the business its forever name, SaraBoo Creek. Two little ones in tow, I was teaching 3 nights a week, making product all week long (while sneaking grading and lecture writing into the crevices of my days), and filling 35 weekends a year doing craft shows. Yup! that was a little nutty…but it was also empowering and invigorating to be growing my own “thing” and at the same time, growing myself.
Within a few years, my product line continued to evolve and as I got into better shows and needed more product than I could make myself, I hired a few neighbor moms to help me. We were often quite the curiosity at the local parks, lugging along our in-progress wares so the kids could play while we worked. By the time Sarah was entering grade school, SaraBoo was clearly outgrowing “side gig” status and I had a decision to make -- go all in on the business and stop teaching or pull back and continue the straddle. I realized quickly I don’t have much “pull back” in me and bought a cute little cape cod building for our next SaraBoo adventure -- a work space and our 1st store! Now we could hand craft all of our designs, generally through 8 stages of production or more, as a team in an actual workshop (bye bye basement!). Most of us are moms, and most of our kids have had their first “kid jobs” right alongside us, glittering letters or gluing accent shapes. We’ve been so lucky to have a great team and a fun, creative place to work!
Over the years we have opened 2 more stores in great retail locations, downtown Naperville and downtown Plainfield IL, while continuing to participate in select markets throughout the country. We took our wood line in a new direction, enabling in-person customers to design custom signs, frames, and ornaments using our handcrafted accent shapes and lettering options, which we glue up and finish on the spot! Our “customizing” line is so much fun and allows everyone to tap into their creative potential (whether they know they have it or not!). If you’re ever in the Chicago suburbs, come see us in person and give it a try! We also have an ever-growing line of hand personalized ornaments that we work on year-round, and a line of larger Custom Cut signs that we cut to order.
The last few years have seen a lot of changes – unanticipated, but critical pivots brought on by the chaos of Covid. When our stores were forced to close for 2 ½ months and we had no idea what was ahead, we cranked up an e-commerce presence in just a few days with ETSY and a new website, SARABOOCREEK.COM. I couldn’t be more thankful for the SaraBoo team that made those moves possible – the transition saved us during Covid and continues to propel our small (but mighty!) business to exciting new places.
Thank you for finding our little ETSY shop and taking the time to read a bit of our story. We are forever a work in progress, so don’t hesitate to message us with any thoughts or just to say Hello! We love doing what we do and infuse all our work with a little bit of that happiness as we hand craft and personalize each piece. We hope to make something special just for you one day!