We recently connected with Pamela Cohen and have shared our conversation below.

Pamela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

After getting married, my husband and I moved to Arizona so he could go to school. What I figured would be maybe four to five years turned into more like 15—lots of milestones and special events missed. I sent gifts, trying to make them as personal as possible, all with cards that expressed our love, but could never quite capture my feelings—words were just not enough.

Realizing that we were becoming those out-of-town relatives that just sent a check or a sweater that was too small, I tapped into my creativity and started doing something different—instead of writing a check I made money trees or bouquet of flowers from dollar bills. From there it was small boxes with books and Arizona inspired gifts.

We moved back to Michigan; I escalated the type of gifts from boxes to baskets for whatever life events came along. Family, friends and coworkers soon asked me to make baskets for them—and a dream began to take shape. When I retired, I was going to start a gift basket company.

Earlier this year I traded my keyboard in for ribbons, bows and baskets and Basket of Smiles was born.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always considered myself creative—journalist degree, editor, no detail goes left undone on a theme party-but I am not crafty. Every Halloween costume for my daughter (and a matching one for her Cabbage Patch doll) was the product of a glue gun. So, when it came to wanting to do unique gifts for my family and friends, I knew I wouldn’t be knitting, sewing, or quilting. Dollar bill bouquets turned into glitter filled boxes which morphed into gift baskets.

No matter what the theme or reason for the basket, the most important part to me was making sure whoever got the basket knew how much they meant to me.

I bring that same passion to each basket I make for a client, so the person receiving this special gift knows someone is thinking of them. That is why on my website I made sure that the customer can express a favorite color, or even the tiniest detail. My gift baskets are not done ahead of time, you won’t go to order a basket and it says only 1 left in stock. I start a basket upon receiving the clients order and wishes.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me there are two rewarding aspects of being creative.

The first is personal satisfaction–look what I did. When I used to do creative business writing it made me feel good to read the published article–I loved putting into words a person’s life. When I am done with a basket, I look at it and have a thrill that I created something where a few minutes ago there were independent objects sitting on the table.

The second reward to being creative is the feeling that I hope the other person gets from what I do. When the subject of a business article reads the published story about themself I imagine (or hope) they feel good and can say–look what I did. When someone receives a basket I hope it makes them smile and conveys exactly what the clients wants it to.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For more than 20 years I worked as an auto claims representative for people who sustained catastrophic injuries. Reading romance books has always been a stress-reliever, but my creative outlet was making gift baskets–something happy. I decided once I retired, I was going to make doing something creative a priority, not just a few stolen hours here and there. On the journey to making Basket of Smiles a reality I discovered that my creativity may have been stifled, but it was there under the surface just waiting for me to be willing to embrace it fully.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.basketofsmiles.com
• Instagram: basket_smiles

Image Credits
I took all the pictures.