Making It
Custom Crafts in Akron with Sweet Peach Designs
2/7/2020 | 3m 38sVideo has Closed Captions
Two best friends formed their creativity into a crafting adventure.
Ashley Luke and Jessica Harvey have been friends for 11 years and counting. Their first joint crafting venture happened in 2017 prior to Harvey’s wedding to her husband, Brad. Harvey decided she wanted to have flowers that would last forever, so the two friends decided to make paper flowers by hand. That venture led to the founding of Sweet Peach Designs in 2018.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Making It is a local public television program presented by Ideastream
Making It
Custom Crafts in Akron with Sweet Peach Designs
2/7/2020 | 3m 38sVideo has Closed Captions
Ashley Luke and Jessica Harvey have been friends for 11 years and counting. Their first joint crafting venture happened in 2017 prior to Harvey’s wedding to her husband, Brad. Harvey decided she wanted to have flowers that would last forever, so the two friends decided to make paper flowers by hand. That venture led to the founding of Sweet Peach Designs in 2018.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- We asked our husbands.
We were like, "do you care if we start a business?"
- Well, the first big hurdle we had was that we had to leave husbands out of decision making.
(upbeat music) Hi, my name is Ashley Luke - Hi, I'm Jessica Harvey and I'm the co-owner.
- And I'm one of the co-owners of Sweet Peach Designs, LLC.
So, I've always liked doing crafty things.
- My mom had craft days with me when I was a kid.
- I met Jessie through my husband and we just became this secondary family unit.
She was with me during the toughest times of my life and I was with her during the toughest times of hers, and we were like, "we're just meant to be".
My degree was in business entrepreneurship and I was like, "well, we're gonna do something with this eventually."
- [Jessica] So, my wedding was coming up.
I decided that I wanted to have flowers that wouldn't die.
- We decided that we were going to make the stuff for her wedding and we made the bouquet.
This was the first design of Sweet Peach Designs before we even became Sweet Peach Designs.
- Everybody at the wedding loved the bouquet.
They couldn't stop talking about it, they were amazed that we did it ourselves.
- Everyone was like, "this is what you need to do."
All those ideas that started with her wedding became Sweet Peach Designs, LLC.
The first thing we started doing was paper flowers.
I start the flower building, basically you have to know what shape you're going for.
Is this a round flower, is it a flat flower.
I have to think about how is it going to attach to the stem.
These are all one piece of paper and I just fold them painstakingly.
One's like the roses.
Each petal is hand textured, hand carved, and individually glued.
Jessie tries to help with flowers.
She's like, "I don't have the patience for this."
- Like she can do flowers so I'm just like, "what am I gonna do?"
(laughs) Customized tumblers are pretty great, people carry 'em everywhere.
You use them for everything.
I can hand paint them, I glitter them.
There's ombre, there's all different kinds of glitter.
Depending on what I'm doing and how much details is in it, it can take me three or four weeks to make a cup.
I watched a few tutorials on how to put epoxy resin on cylindrical surfaces and basically you have to keep it turning so it doesn't drip.
This is the very first turner and it has run for two years on a rotisserie motor.
A chicken rotisserie motor.
(laughs) - For one I like getting to do this with my best friend, Jessie.
We both feed each other on how we're going to do stuff, but without her telling me we can do it and without me telling her we could do it, we wouldn't have done it.
- Ashley means a lot to me.
(laughs) We've know each other for so long that we're practically sisters.
- She's my peach queen.
It's just something that belongs to us, and that we've been able to grow and nurture.
- Most rewarding for me would be the excitement that comes from all of our clients.
- I love mostly the joy on the customer's faces.
Especially custom orders when you get to take someone's vision that they have for something and you actually successfully turn what they're think of into a product that they're ecstatic over.
It makes it worth it for me.
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