Shelton Small Business Spotlight: Word Couture, LLC

Every local business has a story worth sharing with the community. And that’s the belief behind this exciting series — to shine the spotlight on all our favorite local businesses, and to learn a little about the ones we may not know that well.

Business: Word Couture, LLC
Owners: Tracy Piccuillo
Website: www.wordcouture.com
Address: 166 Soundview Avenue, Shelton (home based. We don’t have a store front. All orders come through my website)

How did you come up with the name?

Couture means designing something fashionable. Since we use fabulous fonts and beautiful word designs to create a one of a kind piece for our customers.

Why start a business in this town?

Owning a small business sometimes means you need to make the most of the space you already have! We live in Shelton and we raise our kids here. Our Shelton friends and neighbors have been so supportive of this business and we are incredibly grateful to our Shelton family.

What business are you in?

At Word Couture, we recycle beautiful wine bottles from our neighborhood restaurants and local wineries, which would otherwise be discarded. We take those bottles, remove the bottoms, sand the edges and apply a vinyl monogram, letter or saying of your choice. Each bottle is hand cut, polished and is one of a kind. Each lantern includes a battery operated flameless candle to place underneath your lantern--when illuminated at night, they are absolutely gorgeous. They are commonly used as wedding centerpieces or gifts, decor for your mantle or end table or as a gift to friends and relatives who love wine!

What’s the most difficult challenge you’ve faced as a business owner? There are daily challenges when you own your own business. Things like not having coverage for days that you are sick or on vacation to not having enough hours in the day to get it all accomplished all make owning a small business challenging.

However, I think since I started this business over 6 years ago, the most challenging aspect of it has been digging deep to find the motivation to keep the business going and growing. Since I work out of my home, there are always distractions from keeping me on task. Kids being on vacation from school, the piles of laundry that need to be done, the phone ringing, having a husband that works from home too, dinner that needs to be cooked, babies crying...it all results in a chaotic and often frazzled work environment. Staying on task and being focused is crucial. While working at home has its advantages for sure, there are often times when you have to make your business a priority if you are going to succeed. I think a lot of moms, whether they work at home or in an office, face that same dilemma.

What’s been your proudest achievement since opening?

I’ve had such amazing moments during the life of this business--all of which I’m so proud of. Creating my own website, growing my revenue 10 fold over the last five years, being recognized in prestigious blogs and websites has all been amazing. However, I think the greatest moment was when I received a call from the Editor of Brides magazine asking if she could have some samples of my product for possible inclusion in their article on unique lighting options for weddings. Just a few weeks later I got the call that they loved our lanterns and we were going to be featured in their spring edition. We went from creating about 500 lanterns a year to selling close to 3,000 that year alone. Since then we’ve been seeing our sales increase quarter after quarter. Being recognized by a well known national magazine is something that a small business owner can only dream of. I was certainly blessed that day. As a small business owner, you are always asking yourself if you are doing the right thing, going in the right direction and whether or not your business is viable. For sure on that day, I rested easily.

How does your business give back to the community?

Word Couture is often asked to contribute to local events and donate our products and services. While the wine bottle lanterns are certainly our “staple” product, we use our commercial grade vinyl products to make banners and signs and create all kinds of personalized products for our customers (in the Fall, our most popular is the personalized pumpkins!). We are ALWAYS happy to contribute. In fact, we donated over $2,000 worth of products and services in 2015 so far which compared to our profit is pretty substantial! Right now we are working on a project for our local cheerleading team and just finished a project where we donated 45 centerpieces for a local charity event. We also donate frequently to our local schools through straight donations along with services. In addition to donating our products, we also give monetary donations to our local fundraising and charity events.

Would you like to see your small business showcased in this series? Email wendy.mitchell@patch.com.