CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Buying a custom-made embroidered hand towel or baby bib from online shops like Amazon or Etsy can be expensive, costing anywhere from $15 to $20.
That’s why a Cheyenne embroiderer wants to sell her threaded creations to community members at a more affordable price.
Alana Stottlemyer is the owner of Scrapbookrose Creates, a small business where items like towels and baby bibs, embroidered with designs including plaid-patterned animals and custom greetings, cost only $6. Other low-cost items for sale include fabric baskets and embroidered bookmarks for $4 and jackets for $25.
“I get a lot of comments from customers like, ‘Wow, you should be charging more for these,'” Stottlemyer said. “But I’m like, ‘Nope.’ I’m making a reasonable profit and covering my costs. I don’t see any reason to raise my prices.”
Stottlemyer’s insistence on selling budget-friendly products comes from her experience with having to save money.
“I was an Army wife. I stayed home with our son and money wasn’t plentiful,” she said. “That’s why I always want my products to be affordable, so people who were like me can take something home from a craft show that they really love.”
Her elaborate array of embroidery themes, which consist of cute outlines of farm animals, elegant flowers and witty scripts, are usually inspired by design books. However, if anyone contacts Stottlemyer with a custom order, she can adjust a pre-made design to match the color, size and font to their liking.
Although products are embroidered at her home, community members can buy them at 307 Made, a downtown storefront where various small businesses sell their products, or at various craft fairs around Laramie County.
It’s been three years since Scrapbookrose Creates opened, but Stottlemyer says she never gets tired of making products for her customers.
“I love finding an embroidery design, taking it and matching it with the fabric,” Stottlemyer said. “Watching the machine stitch it out is very relaxing, and seeing the look on people’s face when they see a design they absolutely love just makes my heart happy.”
