Keith had a definite vision for how she wanted her 3,000-square-foot store to look. “I wanted something different than other stores,” Keith explains. “I like things big and fancy and glitzy. I treat my store like a scrapbook page – I wanted to have fun doing it, and for the whole store to be fun. When people come in, whether they buy anything or not, I want them to leave inspired by something they see.” 

Keith started with the perfect architectural foundation (left by the previous occupants, an interior design firm) and built from there. She (and a crew of helpful friends and family) painted the walls bright, hot, and pale pinks, adding black polka-dotted curtains and wrought iron accents. She combined sleek track lighting with sparkling crystal chandeliers.  She “framed” her slatboard wall displays with elaborate decorative molding built by her father. The molding makes the displays very distinctive, giving the eye a definite focal point.  In fact, that’s one of Keith’s prime criteria for choosing accents she likes: “anything that attracts the eye”. 

“All I can say is that if you drive by the store, make sure and put your sunglasses on so the pink glow doesn’t blind you,” Keith recently wrote on her blog.

Part of the appeal of Keith’s store is that she’s not afraid of uncluttered open space. There is plenty of room to move around and soak up the inspiring atmosphere in the seven different retail “rooms” of the store. Products are artfully displayed on a variety of surfaces, from bookcases and ornate wooden tables to more traditional spinner racks and scrapbook paper shelving units. Product is draped over urns, spilling out of baskets, and leaned against candelabras. It’s what you might expect to find if your glamorous inner diva and your more practical “just-get-it-done” self could meet in the middle, for once, and agree on something. And this “something” works.

The whole look of the store invokes a sense of trendy “Sex & the City” sass, which Keith reports has been received well, despite her decidedly non-New-York-City locale. “People come in and are amazed,” she says. Customers have remarked on Keith’s eye for finishing details, everything from her employees’ matching black and white aprons edged with rickrack, to the matching black and white tissue paper peeking out of the branded shopping bags.

The store’s classroom, or “She” room, is inspired by Heidi Swapp’s “She” class track at Creating Keepsakes University (which, in turn, in based on the book She by Kobi Yamada.) The room continues with the bright pink color scheme and offers framed inspirational “She” quotes on each class table.