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Business & Tech

Lovelace Designs Puts the Fun in Functional

Lovelace Designs carries a wide array of handmade items from wine glass charms to hair accessories to clips for pacifiers and bibs and everything in between.

The holidays are right around the corner and soon you will be searching for those perfect gifts!

There is a website that may not only have great gift ideas, you find something for yourself as well, while shopping from the comfort of your own living room.

Upper St. Clair resident Deirdre Lovelace is the founder of the website store called www.LovelaceDesigns.com, where you can find a wide array of items in two main groups.

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"My one-of-a-kind designs are items that are made-to-order and range from personalized picture frames to a collage designed on a plaque or frame intended for the arrival of a new baby or as a wedding gift," Lovelace said. "Visitors also will find wooden letters in a specific color pattern for a child's name or initials that can be used as part of the decoration in their room."

Lovelace also makes Barrettes-N-Bows holders with a personalized color scheme or paper pattern to help keep a little girl's accessories organized.

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The other group of items visitors will find in Lovelace Designs are those which Lovelace can duplicate, including wine and drink charms made out of Czech glass beads, glass tea light candle holders designed with gems in a variety of colors, electrical outlet covers that provide an added touch of decoration in a child's nursery or bedroom, and pacifier and bib clips for babies. Lovelace also carries a wide array of girls' hair accessories, including ribbon-covered clips, covered button ponytail holders, character-specific ponytail holders and French-clip barrettes.

"I have always enjoyed making personalized gifts for people. In high school, I made photo collages or wooden picture frames upon which I would decoupage clippings from magazines, football programs or ticket stubs or add special wording to," Lovelace said. "I have been giving these types of gifts to family and friends for years and almost everytime, the recipient would tell me that I should sell that type of item. After a while, it started to sink in."

Being a stay-at-home mom, Lovelace wanted to find something that she could do that would allow her to work from home. She began thinking more seriously about selling her own custom creations and decided to set up an online store.

"The Internet is never closed so I decided that I could work whenever I schedule the time—day or night," she said.

She didn't have any information technology experience, so it was a real trial-and-error process of getting the website up and running, Lovelace said. But in the end, she found that it was a great learning process and is proud she can say that she did everything herself. Her "store" opened in June 2009.

As with just about any business in today's economy, Lovelace has had her ups and downs.

"While I would like to think that LovelaceDesigns.com items are essential for everyone, the fact of the matter is that they are, what I would call, luxury items," she said. "My products are 'the little extras' or special additions to a person's life or home."

Because of this, she explained, business has been a little slower than she would like it to be, but the good news is that things are starting to pick up again.

"The majority of the traffic to my website has come from word-of-mouth referrals," Lovelace said. "I am able to maintain a good referral base and many repeat customers because I am very customer-focused, and I create items that are very high in quality. You have heard the expression, 'They just don't make things like they used to.' Well, I make my items to last. LovelaceDesigns.com goes the extra mile to make sure every item is a top-notch, quality product."

The next step in her business venture may be to do home parties, which may be beneficial in getting the LovelaceDesign.com name out to a broader audience.

"I have thought about collaborating with a couple of other home-based businesses to host a home party that would allow guests to get a feel for what I do as well as see my items up close," she said.

And now that LovelaceDesigns.com has been up and running for a couple of years, Lovelace would like to continue to grow and be able to maintain her status as a stay-at-home mom. She said it was always her family's plan for her to return to full-time work when her sons were in school all day. Now that that has happened, she has more time to dedicate to and grow her business.

"I have met a lot of wonderful mothers whose businesses have grown from part-time, small, in-home operations to booming businesses needing a full-time staff. I am not sure that LovelaceDesigns.com will ever grow to be that large, but I will enjoy seeing just how far it can go!"

To check out the unique products Lovelace designs, visit her website at www.LovelaceDesigns.com.

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