In 2003 as the portrait business of Sherry Peters Photography  continued to grow, Sally Grammer joined me as an administrative assistant to keep me organized and, more importantly, to become my cheerleader.  Sally’s practical wisdom and genuine love, support and encouragement have been the stabilizing force of our business.  Sally now manages the Bradbury Lane storefront and my portrait schedule, brainstorms new marketing ideas, and overall keeps all of us on our toes.  You will usually find Sally working up front at the store.  She is a steady bundle of creative energy and is a great one for ideas and suggestions.  She loves to help customers come up with just the right thing for the next gift or event.

Early in 2004, after designing my first set of notecards, Sally and I recruited Rhena Lang, to join us and help develop what would become the Sacred Moments product line.  Rhena has a beautiful gift for loving and encouraging others by sending them heartfelt notes and cards, as well as an eye for quality and design.  As she began to work with us, we also discovered her gift for organization and management and she has grown to play an essential role at Bradbury Lane as she manages the production of all the Sacred Moments products…as well as keeping up with the bookkeeping.  In the past year, Rhena has joined me in designing all of the latest Sacred Moments products, using her intuition and creativity to beautifully express what we are about.  When you find a notecard in the store that says just the right thing...you can bet Rhena had some input on it.

In the fall of 2004 Sally, Rhena, and I began selling the Sacred Moments products at Open Houses that we would host at my home and eventually in the homes of friends.  It became our routine over the following years to have several shows in the Fall and in the Spring.  We developed a loyal customer base and looked forward each season to coming up with new images and ideas.

Always in need of more hands to make notecards, in the fall of 2004 we invited Alice Morris, a “Stitch Group” friend of Rhena’s, to help out.  Alice started out making notecards, but as the number of products increased we discovered Alice is exceptionally gifted at organization.  Over the years, as she has watched all of our products develop, she has developed systems that have kept us organized and sane.  She now helps Rhena manage all of the Sacred Moments inventory, keeps our storefront well stocked and works beautifully with customers.  Alice is delightful and keeps me laughing on a daily basis.

In 2005, Teresa McAfee, a Berkner High School cheerleader mom with Sally, joined us to primarily make notecards and whatever else we needed her to produce!  Teresa is an incredibly conscientious and meticulous worker and has probably produced more notecards and bookmarks than all of us combined.  She has also become invaluable to us in helping with the bookkeeping.  Her beautiful, quiet spirit is a blessing to be around and we are so grateful for her consistent outstanding hard work. 

In the spring of 2005, we were given the opportunity to display and sell our products through The Habitat Showroom at the World Trade Center here in Dallas.  This propelled us into the world of wholesale marketing and selling which was a whole new learning curve for us.  Working out of almost every room at the Peters home on Bradbury Lane, we took orders for Sacred Moments products and eventually shipped them out to over 100 stores in 24 states across the US.  Needless to say, we added more staff as we grew!

That same year we added Dixie Cook, a dear Trinity Christian Academy friend and mom.  Dixie brought extraordinary creative energy to our team and we continue to be amazed to this day at the beautiful things that she comes up with!  Dixie’s gifts were truly given a place to flourish when we opened the doors of the Bradbury Lane store.  She currently oversees all of the gift buying for the store as well as creating our beautiful displays.  Along with being organized and efficient, Dixie ties wonderful bows, arranges flowers, makes wreaths, and overall keeps our store looking fresh and beautiful.

Along with Dixie came Paula McCutcheon, another wonderful TCA friend and mom.  Paula is an absolute delight to have on our team and keeps me laughing with her cute sense of humor.  She works right alongside Dixie keeping up with our gift lines, is a pro at the computer and outstanding at working with customers in the store.  Paula has a wonderful balance of practical common sense and a good eye for design and beauty.  I always feel good when Paula is working at the store!

Our dear, much loved, Rosemary “Rosie” Raley joined the SM girls in the fall of 2006 to help with production, and more importantly, to bring her wealth of godly wisdom to the staff.  Creatively, Rosie brings a talent for meticulous work from her love for quilting which amazes and inspires all of us...and spiritually, she brings invaluable, practical counsel from a life of working hard, loving her family, and walking with the Lord.  She works our store into her busy schedule as a devoted grandmother, mother, sister and friend, and we are grateful anytime she is available to help us out.

In the spring of 2007, I reconnected with college friend, Lori Day, and was delighted to bring her onto the team as production needs continued to grow.  With a background in fashion design, Lori brought another eye for detail and beauty to the development of the Sacred Moments product line and has taken her place alongside Teresa as one our primary “producers”.   Lori is the proud mom of 3 delightful and talented guys, and particularly loves the fellowship and friendships that have developed among the Bradbury Lane staff.  She definitely needs her “girl time”.

In the fall of 2007, we weren’t sure we were hearing enough laughter around the place, so we brought in Kellye Price to take over that job.  Notorious for her delightful laugh and great presence, Kellye is wonderful at anything we need her to do around Bradbury Lane.  Along with Paula, she assists Dixie with gift buying (her specialty is the Caspari napkin line, which she collects), checking in new products, and beautifully working with customers as they come in the door.  She has a wonderful heart for anything that walks on all fours and passionately defends the squirrels that nibble on our chair covers outside.

In the spring of 2008, the Sacred Moments product line and business was outgrowing the upstairs of the Peters’ home.  As we prayed about the direction of the business, the Lord opened up the opportunity for us to open a storefront in Richardson.  The shopping center we would be located in was owned by a former TCA mom and daughter team who had been praying about who would lease the last available space at Campbell Road Village.  Sensing that this was an answer to all of our prayers, we signed a lease and began construction on our space in June of 2008, opening the doors of Bradbury Lane on September 2, 2008.

Long time Richardson resident, Sharon Johnson, loves to tell the story of getting a pedicure one day at QNails in our shopping center, and reading a postcard that announced the opening of Bradbury Lane, the new home of the Sacred Moments product line.  Sharon had been a loyal customer for several years and was as surprised as we were that we were opening a permanent location!  From the chair, she called Sally and offered to join the staff if we had any need for more help.  We took her up on it and have been delighted with what she has brought to the store.  A former school counselor, Sharon has a great loving heart for people...and equally important, a love for reading and books.  She works closely with me, as well as and Logos Bookstore, to keep up with the inspirational books that we offer, and has become quite proficient at helping customers figure out what to read on their next vacation!

We were most blessed the day that Cindy Aston had lunch at the Chocolate Angel with friends and then happened into our store.  Before she left that day, she checked to see if we were needing any extra help for the holidays and, sure enough, a match was made in heaven!  Cindy brings many years of retail experience to Bradbury Lane and has a beautiful heart for working with people...our staff and customers included.  She has a passion for what we offer and is contagious in her love for the Lord and His Word.  It didn’t take too long to discover that Cindy loves to work with her hands also and she quickly caught on to the task of making notecards and our other products.  If you don’t see Cindy up front, chances are she is making cards in the back and exclaiming with joy over the latest thing from the Sacred Moments design studio.

One of our favorite things at Bradbury Lane is having Sarah Holmes work for us.  Sarah grew up in Richardson with several of our staff families and is the daughter of our good friend, Suzanne Holmes.  She graduated from Texas A&M last spring and wanted to keep busy while working toward entering nursing school.  We couldn’t believe our good fortune when she wanted to join  our staff.  Sarah is a joy and a delight whenever she walks in the door and works beautifully in every area of the store.  We keep her busy working in the back making notecards, putting together matted prints, and boxing Encouragement Cards and Little Lifts, but if you are lucky, you might catch her working in the front where she excels at greeting and helping customers with her genuine, beautiful spirit.

In addition to Sarah, we have come to love our delightful, Kaitlyn Martin.  Kaitlyn is Sarah’s good friend who we discovered needed a job to keep her busy while she was planning her wedding for next summer!  She has a teaching degree from Texas Tech and works us in between tutoring, babysitting, and being a newlywed.  Kaitlyn worked in a retail stationery store throughout high school and is quite adept at the computer, working with customers, and any special project we give her to do.  She works with the girls in production and always has Sprout, her little buddy sitting right next to her.  She has a darling sense of humor and is great fun to have around.

Our latest treasure is Laurie Cooksey, who joined us this fall to help with marketing and anything computer related.  We actually didn’t know there was a woman our age who had as much experience with computers as Laurie has!  In addition to that, she has worked for a professional photographer for 10 years and brings a wealth of knowledge from the portrait and photography industry.  She loves photography, digital scrapbooking, blogging, and is full of fun and creative ideas for us to implement around the store.  You will see her touch on Facebook, in our emails, on our website, and in our shopping cart.  I am so very grateful for Laurie’s expertise and her positive, yet realistic perspective on things.

Sherry Peters Photography and Bradbury Lane would not be what it is today without the love and support of Bob, my husband, and Brittany, the second of our four daughters.  Bob, a physician specializing in otology, has been the sole financial investor in the business as well as giving up much of our home (and me) to the development of my photography and the Sacred Moments product line.  His practical and conservative wisdom has brought needed balance to my creative, and sometimes “boundary-less”, profusion of ideas.

Brittany graduated from Texas A&M in December of 2007 with a Masters Degree in Accounting and Finance.  She passed her CPA exams with flying colors and is now married and living in Denver with her husband, Dennis.  Brittany cut her accounting teeth on my photography business, finding a place in which to develop her natural talent for business development and analysis.  She has played an invaluable role in providing direction for the business financially and is, along with her dad, perhaps the most essential player on the team. 

Brittany is now enjoying being the mother of our first granddaughter, Brooklyn Grace! 

Our delight in now having our own retail space is surpassed only by the delight we have in meeting the wonderful folks who walk through our doors every day. It is a blessing to see how the Lord has faithfully answered our prayers for direction and we continue to pray that He will use it to speak beautifully of His love for us and faithful presence in our lives.