Peppercorn Princess and Bad Daddy's Wood
Jennifer and Corey Leighton
Leominster, MA
I’ve always been a crafty “do it yourself” sort of girl. I like to work with everything from beads to tile to canvas. My husband has more of a singular interest – woodwork. And it was his skills in the workshop that started our adventure into the handmade business. How it all began is now a favorite story of our family. Picture this: I was a stay-at-home mom, who spent her day trying to keep one step ahead of two energetic children gifted in the art of mess-making – it was wipe, mop, clean, sweep, repeat. Then Daddy would come home from work, join us with his drink (usually orange soda) in the living room…and proceed to leave wet rings on the furniture. “Bad Daddy” I would tease him, enough times that the kids were soon joining in. It became a nickname that stuck and always makes him laugh. One night in his man cave (aka, workshop), Daddy got inspired to hand-craft some wood coasters for the house with the “Bad Daddy” image on them. They were a hit! Bad Daddy’s Wood was born and we started on this really fun family adventure! At first our selling was done at local art fairs. We loved being able to interact with our customers, who would look at our products and say things like “That is so cool! How did you do that?” But as our children grew older, weekends were taken over with sports and activities and the time to do fairs became limited. Rather than give up our handmade business, we decided to move on-line and into stores. We’ve sold items all over our country and all over the world. We’ve even added a second line of designs called Peppercorn Princess, where we offer handcrafted jewelry, décor and gifts. All of our items are handcrafted in our home workshop in Leominster, Massachusetts, birthplace of the pink plastic flamingo and Johnny Appleseed. We are excited to keep offering new products and see how our business will continue to grow!
Leominster, MA
I’ve always been a crafty “do it yourself” sort of girl. I like to work with everything from beads to tile to canvas. My husband has more of a singular interest – woodwork. And it was his skills in the workshop that started our adventure into the handmade business. How it all began is now a favorite story of our family. Picture this: I was a stay-at-home mom, who spent her day trying to keep one step ahead of two energetic children gifted in the art of mess-making – it was wipe, mop, clean, sweep, repeat. Then Daddy would come home from work, join us with his drink (usually orange soda) in the living room…and proceed to leave wet rings on the furniture. “Bad Daddy” I would tease him, enough times that the kids were soon joining in. It became a nickname that stuck and always makes him laugh. One night in his man cave (aka, workshop), Daddy got inspired to hand-craft some wood coasters for the house with the “Bad Daddy” image on them. They were a hit! Bad Daddy’s Wood was born and we started on this really fun family adventure! At first our selling was done at local art fairs. We loved being able to interact with our customers, who would look at our products and say things like “That is so cool! How did you do that?” But as our children grew older, weekends were taken over with sports and activities and the time to do fairs became limited. Rather than give up our handmade business, we decided to move on-line and into stores. We’ve sold items all over our country and all over the world. We’ve even added a second line of designs called Peppercorn Princess, where we offer handcrafted jewelry, décor and gifts. All of our items are handcrafted in our home workshop in Leominster, Massachusetts, birthplace of the pink plastic flamingo and Johnny Appleseed. We are excited to keep offering new products and see how our business will continue to grow!