As of December 1st, here’s a new store in downtown Snoqualmie, Simply Anne Party Boutique; a store three years in the making and launched when a nervous second grader asked his mom to make him a cool necklace for his first day at his new Snoqualmie school.
Owner, Anne Jackson, obliged her son, designing a tile (with a picture of cougar on it) necklace for him; similar one he’d seen a friend wearing and liked. A cougar also happens to be the Snoqualmie Elementary School mascot. Needless to say, Ian wore it on his first day of school, and returned home to let Anne know that everyone “just loved” his necklace.
By creating that first necklace, Anne discovered she loved making jewelry so she kept at it. As the house filled with her pieces, she began sending them back home to friends in Austin, Texas – and demand for them grew.
Then Anne’s husband suggested they start an Amazon web store page for the tile necklaces. That year, the family had relocated to Snoqualmie from Austin for her husband’s Amazon job and at the time, the Amazon web store was asking all sellers to have a web store page – so Simply Anne’s Amazon web store launched as kind of a test website in connection with her husband’s job.
The necklaces started selling and Simply Anne started growing. For a time, her jewelry was featured at an Issaquah specialty clothing boutique, a move that also landed Anne custom designing pieces for the Seattle First and Portland Fashion Shows. Along the way Anne also started hosting local jewelry parties for friends and neighbors – and her pieces kept selling.
This year, Anne said she wanted to get back into teaching, something she did in Texas. But instead of substitute teaching, she decided to combine her jewelry design business with her love of teaching by opening a downtown Snoqualmie store thjat offers jewelry making classes, parties and camps. The move gives Anne the space to design, display and sell her pieces – and to teach her love of jewelry design to others.
And she’s taking the teaching part seriously. Kids and adults alike can book space at Anne’s shop for parties, whether it be kid or adult birthday parties, a ladies night out or winter break day camps.
Friday, December 7th, there’s even a “Drop and Dash” event for parents in need of a night out. From 6:30PM-9PM you can leave your kids at Simply Anne and let them create a Christmas gift while parents get an evening out. She’s also doing camps during the upcoming SVSD winter break – on December 21st, 27th, and 28th. There are morning and afternoon camps offered.
Anne and her husband transformed the former Mexican Grocery Store retail spot on Railroad Ave into the Simply Anne store all by themselves. Together, they gutted the tired space, adding new carpet, along with new texture and warm paint to the walls. Anne said they looked at retail space on Snoqualmie Ridge, but the spot downtown had the right amount of space and flow for the business – plus she thinks downtown Snoqualmie is “really cute.”
For more info on Simply Anne class, camp or party options you can visit www.simplyanne.com. If you want to stop by and do some local holiday shopping, Anne’s hours are Tuesday-Sunday from 11-5PM. Careful not to stop between 3:15 – 3:45PM- that’s when she runs out to grab the kids at school because she is a working mom!
