After being a stay-at-home mom for some time, Traci Lawson was itching to get back into the working world. One day, while driving through downtown
Eaton Rapids, she saw a sign on a vacant storefront that said “For Lease, $700 per month.”
“I said to my husband, ‘I think I can sell $700 of something in a month,’” Lawson says.
She was right. Lawson and her husband Jaime opened
Your Creative Escape, a paint-your-own-pottery studio in March of 2011 and received such a positive response, they were running out of room.
“We could seat 49 people in that store and we were very often full to the gills,” Lawson says. “I hated turning people away.”
Exactly one year after opening, Your Creative Escape has moved to a 3,000 square foot studio on Hall Street in downtown Eaton Rapids, tripling the business’ original footprint. Lawson attributes their extraordinary growth to the community atmosphere that has grown in the studio.
“It’s like a big conversation,” says Lawson, “and there’s lots of laugher. It’s a fun environment. There are many people who didn’t know each other before and now it’s like a big family.”
Your Creative Escape is also a fun alternative to going to the bar for many local adults. The pottery studio is open until midnight on Fridays and features such fun events as Diva Night. The studio is currently working with the Island City Dog Park Club on a community fundraiser.
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