Hughesville, Pa. — A new store in Hughesville has added new goods to the area market: thoughtfully-sourced home decor meant to be joyful and inspiring—and functional.
Beauty in the Making, located at 27 S. Main Street in Hughesville, held its grand opening on Saturday, Oct. 7.
Eileen “Leenie” Newell, a design expert, owns the store with her husband, David Newell. The two married a little over two years ago, bringing Leenie closer to the area. Originally from New York, Leenie has lived in Puerto Rico, Florida, and now, Milton, Pennsylvania.
Throughout her life, Leenie has worked in many professions: professional Latin street dancer, wedding designer, and interior designer.
After her professional dancing career—during which time she worked with music artists such as Will Smith, Enrique Iglesias, Gloria Estefan, and Ricky Martin—Leenie moved into wedding design. She took a course in wedding design at Miami Dade College and worked in the field for about 10 years thereafter.
Over the years, Leenie has been nationally recognized by notable magazines such as Martha Stewart, Brides, and The Knot, and blogs including Style Me Pretty and Once Wed, and many more.
“We were blessed to be featured in many magazines and to be sought out from brides all around the country and even from out of the country — we did quite a bit of weddings within the Caribbean,” said Leenie.
Eventually, Leenie found her way into interior design.
“I loved it. It was beautiful, but it was quite a bit stressful. Over the years I decided that I needed a little bit more of a slower pace. So, I took in interior design,” said Leenie. “I started working with interiors, and I did a little bit in Florida. Then I moved to York, Pennsylvania and I lived there for two years. I had clients in California, clients in Florida, but my base was there,” she added.
Leenie then moved to Milton a couple years ago. She and her husband, David, bought a house together to work on for their business endeavors.
The building, which is located in downtown Hughesville, also has two attached Airbnbs created by Leenie and David.
“I always wanted to create a store where I could connect with the general person,” said Leenie. “When you are in interior design, there is a limited amount of people that can actually afford that. I wanted to kind of be in a space where I could offer goods to anyone who wanted them. It was a goal of mine,” she added.
The store offers a large variety of home decor and gifts.
“The home decor, everything that you see, it’s functional for the home, but it’s beautifully pleasing,” said Leenie.
“We have beautiful kitchen items. We have pillows, candles, dry fly flower bar, and as well as linen napkins, special napkins, self-care products. We have also unique books and books that are for gifts, kind of pass down books that you that you fill in and document,” said Leenie.
The store also has a selection of greeting cards, handmade greeting cards, and even cards you can design yourself.
“We have really cute frames that we use, for yourself or to encourage a friend. You choose a frame, you choose a card, and then you choose a dried flower. And then you create (something) unique,” said Leenie.
Some potential gifts in the shop include handmade jewelry, dried flowers, locally sourced soaps, canvas bags, local artwork, customized pillows, leather goods, candles, baby blankets and books, and more.
“The dried flower bar is really, really special to me because I used to do weddings. So, it just gives me an opportunity to get back into flower arranging. I love to put (them) together to help people, or they can put it together. Whatever works, but I’m here to help people. I love to be able to see what people create,” said Leenie.
“Everything I have here is something I love. I just want to sell what I love, I really do. Otherwise, it just won’t make sense to me, or cannot serve the people in this area,” said Leenie.
Many of the items in the store include encouraging and inspiring words.
“We love to have to have encouraging messages throughout the store that you can use to encourage others or encourage yourself,” said Leenie.
The store offers baskets of different sizes for costumers to create their own gift baskets for others. The customer can choose a basket, and then choose from a number of small gifts to put in the basket.
“You can choose a selection of unique items and give that as a unique gift,” said Leenie.
All of the items for sale in Beauty in the Making have been thoughtfully sourced—many of which are made of natural ingredients and materials.
“(We use) organic products such as, like brushes that are all natural. Wood, trying to stay away from plastic. Soy candles, glass, metals, leather, wood, stone, you know that type of natural finishes that we have like marble. It’s really functional. We focus on functionality,” said Leenie.
A lot of the store’s products come from vendors and companies that Leenie has worked with throughout the years as a wedding designer and interior designer.
“I have my eyes on the same things that I love. I want to provide those same products. I know there are people that will appreciate that as well,” said Leenie.
The store will also offer complimentary coffee and tea and a place to sit for visiting costumers.
“We just we just want to welcome people. We want to create like a community. This is not just a store. You can come on by. You’re part of us. We’re part of you,” said Leenie.
“I’m most excited about connecting with people. Encouraging people connecting with people and just being a service,” said Leenie.