We are two girls with the same Italian last name, (sister-in-laws). Karen is a crafter and Dawn keeps Karen out of trouble… sorta. Granted we were just heading out for Sunday breakfast and it turned into much more than just an appetizer pancake! But Dawn should have seen it coming, honestly, how could she not?
The story goes like this…
One November morning in 2011 we headed out to the Black Diamond Bakery for breakfast. Found a great parking spot right up front but before we could get out of the Jeep, THREE large tour buses pulled up and started unloading a TON of people. Feeling too hungry to wait, we went someplace else to eat breakfast, which turned out to be a disappointment soooo….
(Metro Employees Historic Vehicle Association’s Fall Foliage Tour was the bus tour that occurred that November morning in 2011)
The following Sunday we headed to the Black Diamond Bakery again, only this time earlier. The wait was about 15 minutes to be seated in the restaurant so we grabbed some baked goods and headed to the espresso bar area to enjoy our before breakfast snack. That’s when we saw the charming empty room that use to be a Native American shop.
The Black Diamond Bakery & Restaurant owners were going to make it into a banquet room for large parties but they were willing to hear what we had to say and to see a sample of our products (also known as Karen’s inventory). After hearing our vision and thinking it over a few days it was a go!
Karen has been making stuff since 2005 and at one time she was in 19 retail shops. It’s amazing how much you can learn from other shops but until you are on the shop owner side of the fence, you really just don’t know what it is like to have a retail shop.
Isn’t it just crazy how life happens? So here we are running a little gift shop that focuses on handmade goods, while working our full-time jobs.
After the first year of business, we learned more than we could imagine! We had a vendor party celebrating the first-year anniversary of Bella (as we call her). After the party we discussed how we’d been embraced by the community, lucky to have talented craft friends, landlords that believed in our dream, and a restaurant staff that treated us like family.
Here is a slide show from our first website while at the Black Diamond Bakery:
But, how can we improve what we already have? We went through our calendar of events that we keep at the front desk. The repeating message was, “you should be open more often” With that being said, we looked at our corporate jobs and started putting things in place for Dawn to be at the shop more often… and Karen getting more time to create and weld.
The plan for 2013 was that Dawn will be at the shop full time and Karen, while still working her corporate job, will be able to hit welding class more often (yippee!), continue to make sassy greeting cards, and be the primary contact for crafty friends. Dawn focused on day to day business operations and running the shop.
Some important things we learned was that it truly takes a team to run a successful small business and the ability to place the right people in the proper area to make things run smoothly.
By no means would either of us say it’s easy but it is very rewarding. It warms our heart to hear people come in and say, “I love this shop” and to bring their family and friends from near and far for us to meet.
In September 2016 when our five-year lease was about to be up for renewal, we learned that some changes may be coming to the Black Diamond Bakery. We took a long hard look at what we had created, and thought about what the many, many lessons we learned, along with where we wanted to be. Our rent had increased throughout the years and we’d been working long hours. The shop had been open 7 days a week from 10am to 6pm most days, and on the weekends were opened at 8am. We really wanted to be able to host events, have classes, and well.. make our own hours and our own rules!
So, we took a break! ..and looked for a new place.
Ok, Karen wasn’t “looking” for a place for Bella (that’s what we loving call the shop), she was looking for a remote farm area being leased by Tilth Alliance. She had heard that Hell or High Water Farm was there and they had farm fresh eggs, which at the time was located on Lake Moneysmith Road. It’s that the way it usually works, you find something when you aren’t looking for it?!
The property was for sale, which is always good! But the metal barn came with a house, and acreage, and other out buildings. We already had a house and we weren’t exactly looking to move.. BUT we did end up moving!
It took some time but we ended up buying the farm so to say! The house had been vacant for a while and needed some maintenance and so did some of the other buildings.
We ended up needing to do a lot of projects to make what was the previous owners “wood workshop” into our new space. BUT there was some great bones and lots of charm to work with!
As we started to get inventory moved into the shop, Dawn hurt her foot and we added two young souls to the family..
We were able to open in late 2019 and had a very heartfelt Christmas season as our old friends came to visit and new friends stopped by. We were so excited to open the doors and visit we forgot to set up the credit card machine. The machine wasn’t even in the building, the old processing company turned the machine to active but we had the machine boxed up and in the house! Then we closed again in early March 2020 due to covid.
With time on our hands but in some cases limited supplies we were able to make new items. Such as stickers:
LaBellaVita at 98092 