Our Story

The Craft Bin didn’t start with a business plan. It started with a poorly made owl.

Kristie and Hailey were browsing a craft store together when they spotted it on the shelf — a small stuffed owl that stopped them both in their tracks, but not because it was impressive. It was clearly foreign-made and mass-produced, and it showed. The materials were cheap. The craftsmanship was an afterthought. For something meant to be charming and whimsical, it managed to be neither.

They didn’t walk out with it. They walked out with something better — a challenge they set for themselves: make one worth putting on a shelf. Make one they’d both be proud to call their own.

Working together from the first pattern to the final stitch, Kristie and Hailey hand-cut, hand-stitched, and hand-finished their answer to that owl — crafted with care, quality materials, and the kind of attention to detail the original never had. When they were done, they both knew: this was something. That first felt owl didn’t just meet the challenge. It set the standard for everything that followed.

From that first project, Hailey’s passion for crafting only grew. When she headed off to college, she brought that spark with her — along with a very practical need for spending money. That Christmas, she and her parents worked out an arrangement: an embroidery machine she had been eyeing, purchased together, with her parents covering their share of the cost. Hailey’s job was to cover hers. Crafting wasn’t just a passion anymore — it was the plan, the income, and the only way to hold up her end of that deal.

She didn’t just meet the challenge. She exceeded every expectation. With a rigorous academic schedule and a demanding daily routine, her creativity flourished rather than faded. She learned how to read her customers, market her creations, manage her books, and grow her small business in ways that surprised everyone around her.

“She had the creativity, the forethought, and just enough determination to make it happen.”

Hailey never stopped. Through graduation and into a corporate career, her passion for handcrafted work never dimmed. What began as a college side business became a lifestyle — and eventually, a calling.

Somewhere along the way, she realized her desire wasn’t just to create for herself — it was to lift up other local artisans who shared that same passion. People who pour their heart into their craft but might not have the platform, the reach, or the confidence to share it with the world.

That realization became the seed of The Craft Bin.

Before that first owl, Kristie’s crafting experience began and ended with cross-stitch — a hobby from years past that had long since been set aside. She never thought of herself as a crafter. That changed the moment she picked up felt and a needle alongside Hailey.

What awakened in her that day never went back to sleep. When Hailey headed off to college and the owls started selling — out of her dorm room, at small local festivals nearby — it was Kristie at home cutting and stitching to keep up. Around exam time especially, when Hailey’s academic load left little room for anything else, Kristie quietly kept the inventory stocked. No fanfare. Just a mother making sure her daughter’s small business didn’t run dry while she focused on her studies.

But Kristie brought more to the table than steady hands and felt. Years of managing the books and daily operations for her husband’s small consulting firm — and handling the family’s finances for longer than she’d care to admit — had given her a precision and a business sense that most creative ventures never find at all, let alone from the very beginning. She understood margins. She understood inventory. She understood what it takes to keep a small operation running when passion is real but resources are limited.

Today, every decision about what belongs on a shelf at The Craft Bin is made by both of them — equally. What Kristie brings to that partnership is a trained eye sharpened by years of managing books and daily operations, first for her husband’s consulting firm and now for the shop itself. She keeps the finances in order, holds the operation together, and brings the same quiet steadiness to the business that she brought to those exam-week nights cutting owls at the kitchen table.

And underneath all of it — the bookkeeping, the quality standards, the careful curation — is something simpler: a mother who wanted to build something meaningful alongside her daughter. Not for her. With her.