Conversations with Stephanie Halvorson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Halvorson.

Hi Stephanie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story. 
I was always kind of known as the girl who brought treats to everything. I always dreamed of running a business/bakery, but I’m not sure I ever really thought it would happen. Towards the end of college (degree in business and journalism) I started having people ask me about baking for weddings and decided to give it a shot. I found a small little building to renovate and went through all the legal steps to open my commercial kitchen. I was 24 at the time. Now, closing in on 10 years later, I’ve moved to a much large building and expanded into a retail clothing and gifts 5 years ago. 

The change in all of that came with having a family and with how physically demanding running a bakery all on your own is. My parents are co-owners of a factory that I worked for years in and is where I really grew my entrepreneurial desires and passion for made-in-USA things. Which is what led me to the boutique side of business. When that formed, I focused on all made-in-USA women’s items. I wanted something I was passionate about, something unique, and with starting a family, I wanted something to sustain those periods of time when I couldn’t physically take on so many bakery orders. 

With our new larger location (remodeled and opened at the beginning of 2020, which ended up being horrible timing!), we now have women’s, men’s, and baby clothing, jeans, shoes, toys and gifts, etc. It is no longer all made in USA, but we get as much as we can and are constantly looking for small, local, and/or USA-made vendors. We also carry some name brands as well to try and meet as many of our communities needs as we can. 

The bakery side of business is still mostly done “to order,” but we have events for walk-in purchasing and are busy trying to keep up with weddings, graduations, business orders, and holidays. It’s just myself and my husband running the business- although our kids do enjoy chatting with customers and coming up with their own business ideas! 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I thought it was fairly smooth in the beginning, but looking back, I was definitely the business owner trying to “do it all,” saying yes, all the time, and running myself ragged. I was young enough that it didn’t really stress me out too much. But the fear of failure and knowing that other people didn’t necessarily think I could make it always wore on me- but it also pushed me to prove them wrong. Now that I have the help of my husband, I can’t believe I ever did it all by myself. The pandemic obviously caused most businesses to struggle, especially the food industry. That of which we are still seeing the effects of today. Today our biggest challenge has been inflation and trying to keep things reasonable for our customer base. We need to make a living, but without the customers, there’s no business. So, there’s definitely still the “usual” stresses of worries of business, but having someone to share that with and bounce things off of makes it a whole lot easier. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
For the bakery side: While the main business focus when I started was cupcakes, I think the thing I’ve become most known for is frosted decorated sugar cookies. They are definitely a best seller, and I’m constantly behind the rolling pin cutting, baking, and decorating by the hundreds. I think something that makes us unique is that we do things like “walk-in open pack days” and “subscriptions.” The open pack days are what a typical bakery would do- customers just walk in and pick and choose what they’d like. For us, since we don’t always have hundreds of items to walk in a buy, these days have become little events in the community. We also do a few subscriptions for customers. Like baking buddy boxes (something that was featured on the John McGivern’s Main Streets program) and cookie club. 

For the boutique side: I think our focus on made-in-USA items makes us unique, but also the things we choose to carry and variety we choose to carry. We are careful about what we offer; meaning that we take a lot of time and research to make sure it’s items we love, good companies, and something we feel our customers will really love the way we do. 

What were you like growing up?
Funny enough, the way I grew up had a way bigger impact on my career path than I would have ever imagined. I’m an only child, and as I liked to say, I grew up “in the boondocks.” So, there was a lot of time alone to find what I was interested in. We had a closet full of cookbooks, and I used to dig through them, and post-it mark every baking recipe I wanted to try. In fact, the sugar cookie recipe I use today I made on my own for the first time when I was somewhere around 5-7th grade. I didn’t even have all the ingredients. In baking, that usually spells disaster, but it worked out in my favor. I haven’t changed the recipe since that day! 

Contact Info:

• Website: stephsweetreats.com and sprinkledwstyle.com
• Instagram: @stephsweetreats
• Facebook: facebook.com/stephsweetreatsDodgeville
• Other: facebook.com/SprinkledwithStyleBL

Image Credits
PhotosbyShawna