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Tina Mardis, owner of A Quiet Life Handmades in Gibsonville, fell in love with making crafts as a way to cope with grief. Now she's turned her passion and creativity into a full-time business.
Tina Mardis, owner of A Quiet Life Handmades in Gibsonville, fell in love with making crafts as a way to cope with grief. Now she's turned her passion and creativity into a full-time business.
Times-News
Elizabeth Pattman | Times-News
What once started as a form of art therapy has blossomed into a new business in downtown Gibsonville as Tina Mardis' A Quite Life Handmades store opened on West Main Street Sept. 1.
Located at 114 W. Main St., A Quiet Life Handmades offers shoppers a variety of handmade, one-of-a-kind wares including jewelry, scarves, pins, keychains and more.
Owner Tina Mardis started on this journey nearly two decades ago, making scarves to fill her time while a family member underwent chemotherapy. As the years went on and Mardis continued to cope with grief, her crafting became a means of therapy and healing.
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"It's kind of like a mosaic," she said. "If you look at it, you've just got a pile of broken pieces but its how we put them together to turn it into something beautiful after that. I feel like that's what's come through me working through grief and difficulties and that's how this all came about."
While her crafting began with loom-knit scarves, she now creates wire-wrapped necklaces and pins, earrings and keychains.
After selling the items at craft shows and various retailers in North Carolina and Virginia for years, the idea of a brick and mortar store started to weigh on her mind about five years ago.
"I turned 65 in July. The business of loading the car, setting up a tent, setting up a space to sell, breaking it down ... (it) starts to take its toll for sure and I thought its going to be easier to set it up one time in one space," she explained.
When she saw her West Main Street location for rent in May, she knew it was the right time to take a chance.
"I figured it was time. At 65, if you're not going to do it now, you're not going to do it," she joked.
"I'm a person of very strong faith and it felt like God had used what I had been through to make something beautiful and I felt like I needed to share that," she added. "It was just as if something else took over and all of the sudden things started to grow and fall into place."
With all the time spent at home in 2020, Mardis said she had more than enough inventory to hit the ground running.
The day before the shop opened, Mardis sat inside still crafting away working on more scarves for the store.
"I don't believe in idle hands," she said.
Mardis said she hopes the store will offer both herself and her customers an opportunity for community-building and healing.
"I still feel very strongly that art is a means of therapy (and) that it is a means of establishing a community," she said. "One of the things that I wanted to do here is to be able to share not just what I do but how I do it."
To accomplish that, Mardis said she plans to always be working in the shop and to host open craft hours where customers can come in and use the space to work on their own projects. Workshops with other artists and vendors are also on her radar.
Mardis said she feels at home in downtown Gibsonville alongside other locally-owned businesses, which she called "somebody's dream."
"There's not a big box store or a chain store on Main Street. It's business after business after business of somebody's dream and, for whatever reason, they have decided to work ... to have something good come of it," she said.
Prices at the store range from $5 to about $60 or $70 for bigger items. In addition to the handmade jewelry and scarves, A Quiet Life Handmades also sells quilts from Mardis' personal collection, framed tin pieces and spiritual jewelry items.
The store will be open Wednesday through Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The hours will be flexible as Mardis heads to some craft shows, but any change in hours will be announced online.
To keep up with A Quiet Life Handmades, follow the business' Facebook page.
Elizabeth Pattman is the trending topics reporter for the Times-News in Burlington, covering business, COVID-19 and all things trending. Contact Elizabeth (she/her) at epattman@gannett.com. I'm also available on social media @EPattmanTN on Twitter or @burlingtontimesnews on Instagram.
