C'ville Entremom

I was first introduced to Crozet local, Amy Thornton’s, “it’s a jem” bags about a year ago. I commissioned her to make the most adorable bag for my older daughter, Trudy, when Joise was born. The pink canvas “Big Sister Bag” features a crown, heart & Trudy’s 1st initial. I gave Trudy this bag when she came to visit us in the hospital & filled it with lots of goodies. To her, it was a present from her little sister Josie!

Amy, an attorney by trade, creates one-of-a-kind hand painted canvas bags for children and adults, painted onesies for infants and toddlers and recently expanded her business to include designing and painting small murals for nurseries and children’s rooms. She adds great details to her hand-painted goods . . . gems, bows and personalization. Her bags come in all shapes and sizes and provide many uses: beach bags, everyday bags, Easter bags, children’s purses and even environmentally-friendly grocery shopping bags. The hand-painted onesies are perfect for baby shower gifts. I’ve already given some to friends. She has a wide range of simplistic, yet trendy designs: a monkey on the front with a banana on rear or a guitar on the front with music notes on the rear, to name a few.

Amy realized the need for these bags by chance. Every year she compiled a “goody” bag for each of her children, Jackson (7) and Eli (5), to entertain them during the long car trip on family beach vacations. The year before McKenna (now 2) was born, she decided to jazz up the bags with her boys’ names and a race car design. They loved the bags and started carrying them everywhere. Other moms started noticing the bags and asked Amy where she got them. Voila, a business is born!! The bags were so much fun for her to make, things took off!

How does she juggle owning her own business and being a mom? While McKenna was an infant, Amy often put McKenna in a backpack infant carrier and let her watch as she made the bags. McKenna was mesmerized by the process and was entertained for hours just watching her paint! (All I can say is WOW! WOW! WOW! . . . you go mama!) Today, it is not so easy. She spends most of the day chasing a toddler, preschooler and grade-schooler. She does, however, manage to squeeze in business time after setting the kids up with their own projects or after the kids go to bed. (I can feel you there Amy!)

If you are interested in purchasing a bag, onesie or mural from Amy, you can contact her at amythornton@comcast.net or by phone 434.466.1250. Prices range from $8 to $40 for onesies/bags and murals start at $100.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 am and is filed under Handmade goods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.