Creativity and variety drive newest owner of Stuart Flowers and Gifts

Stuart Flowers and Gifts owner Katie Adams was ecstatic to host a ribbon cutting recently that marked one year since she took ownership of the longtime business.

Always having an interest in flowers, Adams was working in the corporate world and needed a change.

“I was working from home and I knew I needed to be around people daily and knew I needed to do something creative,” she said. “Where I was at, I was working with spreadsheets. That’s very left brain and I’m a very right brain, creative type.”

Adams did an online search for Iowa flower shops for sale and found Stuart Flowers and Gifts, just down the road from her rural Earlham home, was for sale. Over time, her husband Jeremy was the “muscle” behind her ideas, and they’ve both been able to exercise their creativity through this venture.

“We met with Christy O’Brien, the former owner, hit it off, and we knew this is what we wanted to do,” Adams said.

Since opening, Adams’ goals have been to expand the number of weddings they do, create online ordering and expand the gift inventory in the store, and they’ve been able to do all of that. Stuart Flowers and Gifts launched a new website recently, www.stuartiowaflowersandgifts.com. Many of the gifts in the store are made in Iowa.

Adams also likes to partner with other locals. Sunday, Oct. 23, she is partnering with Los Altos in Stuart and Sprig LLC of Earlham to do a program on Dia de Los Muertos and Margaritas, where participants will be able to make pumpkins from dried flowers and learn about the Mexican holiday that is also known as Day of the Dead.

Above all, Adams says she has enjoyed meeting the community and working with her team to meet their needs in all circumstances.

“Because we usually know the reason but not necessarily the person, we deliver for all the emotions — happy, sad, nerves — and are really working the gamut of what is going on in people’s lives. It’s really neat to be close to that,” Adams said. “It also gives you great perspective of what’s happening in our community constantly.