Local businesswomen boost new Board & Brush owner
by Joanna Dodder Nellans
For Bailie Sanders, being a fourth-generation Prescottonian has proven a bonus as she crafts the business she purchased in 2021 at the youthful age of 30: the Board & Brush DIY wood sign workshop along Whiskey Row Alley in Prescott.
“I’m really fortunate to know a lot of business owners here,” Bailie said.
She also feels lucky that opportunity sort of fell in her lap after she moved back to Prescott to marry another local, optometrist Shane Sanders. Bailie had coincidentally been working for a Phoenix retina specialist when she met Shane online. When she moved back here, she decided to switch careers to something she had loved since she was a child. She joined the Board & Brush team.
Her crafting talents became evident at the age of eight.
“I was looking at an empty Christmas gift wrapping paper roll and thought, ‘That looks like a palm tree,'” Bailie recalled. She added green felt paper for branches and then adorned it with Christmas lights. Her mom looked at her and exclaimed, “You’re crafty!”
Next thing you know, Bailie was making stuff after school at her great-grandparents’ house out of papier-mâché, paints, clay, beads, and everything else she could find. Then when the Girl Talk Studio opened downtown, she walked there weekly with her grandfather from fourth grade until it closed when she was in eighth grade. Later her favorite local store was Jarz of Clay.
Now Bailie gets to be crafty all day at Board & Brush while teaching others how to be crafty, too.
Board & Brush provides all the supplies and assistance to create a cornucopia of colorful, personalized wood signs. Friends (and sometimes wine!) help, too.
“We’re getting more and more couples in here for date night and it’s so much fun – especially when he makes her use a drill,” Bailie laughed. “We always say power tools are empowering.”
If you’re not into power tools, Board & Brush has plenty of other things you can design including custom doormats, pillows, tea towels, snack bowls, bar glasses, pie plates, and even cornhole and other backyard games. The newest Board & Brush functional kit is a charcuterie board that includes food tips and a gift card for cheese and meat, a great holiday gift.
Bailie knew for a while that she wanted to be a small business owner, but it’s been especially challenging to buy a business in the midst of widespread supply shortages related to the pandemic. Advice from women who are trailblazers in the Prescott business community has been invaluable.
“I’m so lucky to be able to own a business as a woman,” Bailie said. “My grandma would be so proud!”
Board & Brush is at 156 S. Montezuma Street, Suite D in Prescott. Learn more at https://boardandbrush.com/prescott/ or call 928.899-5524.