When you want to establish your own business, sometimes, the best place to start is at your grandmother's house.
Paducah resident Kacie Slack owns and operates a store on www.etsy.com that she simply calls "Kacie Slack.” It features items like a woodcut of Kentucky’s outline with Paducah, KY artistically scrawled across it. Shoppers can also purchase mugs bearing snarky or silly phrases, cards with cute sayings like, “I love you more than Star Wars,” and more.
Kacie says she established the online store about three years ago, under the name Tied Like a Bow—a business she started with her grandmother, Nancy King.
“She has been a huge influence for all of it,” Kacie says of Nancy. “She’s definitely an entrepreneur, and we both just have lots of big ideas. We get together and dream and talk about things.”
Ever an artist, Kacie learned to sew in her granny’s cluttered craft room. As Kacie grew up, Nancy patiently taught her to pursue and perfect sewing projects. Kacie says she loved crafting just as much as she loved spending time with her grandmother in that tiny sewing space.
“That’s what I always wanted to do when I went there was to go do a project—make a purse or make a dress or something,” she says.
Their collaborations culminated into Tied Like a Bow in 2013. The Etsy.com store specialized in bowties but also sold baby accessories and other small items. The business went well, but Kacie wanted new mediums to tackle. Nancy, however, was content with needle and thread.
“She got really into monogramming and embroidery and that kind of stuff, and I just had so many things that I wanted to try as far as more visual art,” Kacie says.
With love and pride, Nancy bowed out, letting Kacie explore new directions.
“The big thing she always said to me was, ‘If you find your niche, you need to pursue that,’” Kacie remembers.
The young entrepreneur renamed the online store Kacie Slack, and uploaded photographs of her state cutouts and mugs, along with button earrings, cross-stitch portraits, and knit infinity scarves. Orders poured in, and the Bricolage Art Collective in Paducah agreed to carry her products. Kacie says she also started making plans to operate pop-up shops near Paducah’s small businesses like Pipers Tea and Coffee.
Although Kacie’s interests have grown beyond needle and thread, she still keeps a few sewed items in stock—mostly so she has projects to make in Granny’s craft room. etsy.com/shop/kacieslack even keeps a couple of bowtie styles and a few baby bibs in its collection. These are the last vestiges of Tied Like a Bow, and they symbolize the origin of the Kacie Slack store: a little craft room and a patient granny.
