Scrapbookers Love Of Hobby Leads Her To Provide Pampering And Workspace To Other Crafters
May 15th, 2008, 5:38 pm Hobbies News
Beth Preo loves to scrapbook. For more than 10 years, the Indianapolis native and Brownsburg resident has pursued the process of preserving memories.
For more than a dozen years, she also has channeled her creative energies into running a successful wedding cake business, Icing on the Cake. So when she began searching for a new location for Icing, she decided to merge her interests into a new venture: a weekend retreat for crafty types like herself, in a space large enough to enhance her existing business.
Thus was launched Treasured Memories Retreat in Brownsburg, a facility offering homey overnight accommodations, a commercial kitchen and a separate building devoted to the art of crafting. Each weekend, Preo and a Retreat staff of four welcome up to 14 crafters who spend their hours immersed in creative pursuits while being treated to homemade meals and other personal touches.
“It’s so hard to pamper yourself in this day and age,” Preo says, “and to carve out enough time for yourself. We take care of (guests) . . . We change the table linens with every meal. . . . We turn down their beds and turn on the electric blankets, put chocolates down (on the pillows), all those sorts of things.”
“It feels like you’re in a five-star hotel,” says Brittani Andis, a frequent Retreat visitor from Indianapolis.
That royal treatment takes place in a 3,200-square-foot, 1888 farmhouse that Preo purchased, renovated and decorated. It was a task for which she was well suited: She graduated from Purdue University with degrees in interior design and retail management.
“I used the services of a really good friend that I met through my wedding cake business, just to kind of help with those (design) ideas,” she explains. “But also, it really helped in doing the rehabbing as well, because at Purdue, with it being . . . an engineering school, you really have to learn how all the construction aspects go into things.”
Of course, what sets Treasured Memories apart from a traditional bed-and-breakfast — besides a full lineup of meals and snacks — is the “cropping room,” a 2,400-square-foot, freestanding building that offers each crafter her own 8-foot table for scrapbooking, quilting, beading, sewing or any other hands-on pursuit she favors.
Clients come prepared, hauling plenty of materials. “They will have luggage and luggage and luggage,” Preo says, laughing. “So we tell them to go ahead and move in.”
Unencumbered by time and space constraints, guests work on personal projects, share ideas with other crafters and generally immerse themselves in their hobbies.
Mandy Trusty of Indianapolis, Andis’ roommate, also visits Treasured Memories frequently with friends and marvels at the spacious digs.
“You can just spread out,” she says. “I thought that was awesome. That’s unheard of. Any place that you go to crop, a scrapbooking store or whatever, you may get a 4-foot space — and that’s going to be the most that you’re going to get.”
“A lot of the time, they hardly ever leave the property after they arrive,” says Preo. “They’re there to work. It reminds me of the old quilting bees; it’s come back around in another shape or form.”
It’s also garnering plenty of enthusiasm. Although the “cropping room” opened in May of 2007, and overnight stays debuted late last year, Preo already suggests that guests reserve three months in advance to assure they lock in preferred dates — especially in the heavily requested spring and fall seasons.
Guests range from groups who rent the entire facility to mother-daughter pairings. Preo has marketed her new venture through independent craft consultants, hobby shows and the Hendricks County Visitors Bureau.
Clients grasp the concept right away, she adds. The bigger challenge has been explaining Treasured Memories to various bureaucratic agencies when she applies for zoning rights, permits and other regulatory necessities.
Technically, the business isn’t considered a bed-and-breakfast, since Preo serves a variety of meals and snacks all day. So the Board of Health deems the site a commercial retail restaurant — albeit one with overnight accommodations like, well, a bed-and-breakfast, which is how the Visitors Bureau describes the retreat.
“We’re not a cut-and-dried business,” Preo says. “When you take something that’s a little bit different, you don’t fit into (a certain) category. . . . It becomes very difficult. (You have to) try to understand from everybody’s office what their perspective is on your business.”
It’s the price of being innovative, perhaps — but one that Preo is more than willing to handle.
“I have so much fun talking with (guests) and seeing the projects they work on. . . . Their personalities are so warm, and they’re inviting people, and that just makes your weekend. You don’t feel like you’re necessarily working. The time goes by so quickly.”
Tags: amp, commercial kitchen, construction aspects, creative energies, creative pursuits, electric blankets, engineering school, Hobbies, Hobby, homemade meals, lace, lai, launch, overnight accommodations, personal touches, perspective, preo, preserving memories, purdue university, quilting, rehabbing, retail management, retreat staff, treasured memories, wedding cake, weekend retreatRelated posts
