Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Tuscaloosa and Northport!
Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Tealla Stewart's 34-Year Evolution of Monograms Plus
Can you imagine turning a small monogramming shop into a thriving gift emporium? Discover how Tealla Stewart, the inspiring owner of Monograms Plus in Vestavia, AL, did just that over an impressive 34 years. From chic candles to fashionable clothing, and from personalized baby gifts to elegant silverware, Teela shares the secrets behind her store's eclectic mix and her passion for curating unique, high-quality items for the Birmingham community. Her dedication to bringing thoughtfully selected gifts to her clientele is palpable as she recounts her journey and the meticulous process she follows to ensure every item in her store is a gem.
Curious about monogramming etiquette in today’s world? Tealla demystifies it all in this episode, offering a masterclass on the art of proper monogram placement and sizing for various items. Whether you're personalizing a men's dress shirt or selecting the perfect monogram for a bath towel, Tealla's insights will guide you through both traditional and contemporary standards. Tune in to get inspired by Tealla's heartfelt stories and gain invaluable knowledge on how to make any gift truly special.
#GNPBirmingham #MonogramsPlus #TeelaStewart #GiftEmporium #VestaviaAL #MonogrammingEtiquette #PersonalizedGifts #HighQualityItems #ChicCandles #FashionableClothing #BabyGifts #ElegantSilverware #GiftIdeas #BirminghamCommunity #UniqueGifts #MasterclassMonogramming #GiftInspiration #ShopLocalVestavia #CuratedGifts #HeartfeltStories #GiftGiving
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Patricia Blondheim.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, patricia Blondheim, and today our good neighbor is Teela Stewart and she is the owner of Monograms Plus in Vestavia. Teela, how are you today?
Speaker 3:I'm great thanks. How are?
Speaker 2:you. I'm doing fine. I'm thrilled to have you here, love your store. Give us kind of an outline. What is Monograms Plus?
Speaker 3:What is Monograms Plus? Well, monograms Plus has, of course, evolved over the 34 years that I've owned it, and we found out very early on that you could not be a store that just relied on monogramming and that we had to sell product. So we quickly evolved into what we have grown and grown and grown in, which is we were a gift store, a general gift store, and a lot of the items that we sell are not monogrammable. They are not really items you would personalize. Like you know, we have a lot of candle lines, we have clothing, which, of course, you can personalize, but we have just a lot of items that you don't personalize, in addition to all of the gorgeous you know baby things that you would monogram and personalize, and acrylics and praise and silver items that are able to be personalized. So we're just a big general gift store offering gifts that we know that you are going to be proud to give.
Speaker 2:We know that you are going to be proud to give. That's basically what we are. My mother-in-law had a gift closet and this closet was it was. It was the room of requirement. It had everything in it, every single thing you could possibly she. I don't think she even knew what it was that was in there. It was all wrapped. They had little Polaroid pictures attached to it. It was amazing. I loved her gift closet. That is the same feeling I got when I walked into Monograms Plus. It is the store of requirement. Oh, thanks. So tell our listeners yeah, go ahead, I'm marking that as an edit, by the way.
Speaker 2:Hold on, we're starting again.
Speaker 3:It is a lot of work to find all of these products. I go to a lot of markets, but I really, really feel like that I want to bring to Birmingham the very best Things that I would want to buy, but things that I also know my customers would like to buy.
Speaker 2:So do the customers. I mean, what kind of things do customers run into when they're in your store in terms of monograms and possibly not understanding what you do?
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing is that a lot of times they are concerned about the size of the monogram and in this day and age there are euro shams that are 26 by 26 inches. We have to guide them through what most decorators feel is the norm and what is best looking for the room. We have to guide a lot of people through the etiquette of monogramming. Like there's a certain size for towels, hand towels, washcloths, and I think that there's just a lot of unknown out there about old-fashioned etiquette or what people are doing these days and how that has kind of changed a little bit. So all of that goes into communicating with the customer and trying our best to get exactly what the customer wants on their items.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of people are going to be confused. We don't study etiquette as much anymore. It is passed from our parents to us, but it used to be. You know a whole study etiquette books dedicated to it. So tell me a little bit about I'm a whole study etiquette books dedicated to it. So tell me a little bit about I'm curious monogramming etiquette I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 3:Well, for example, on a man's dress shirt, the monogram is to go on the left cuff and there is a prescribed placement on that cuff. You have to measure precisely from the buttonhole over and then up from the bottom of the cuff. So just that is one thing. And then on a bath towel the monogram is prescribed to be four inches. Hand towels three inches. Washcloths one and a half to two inches. So, and then, um, they're just. There are a lot of um, a lot of things like that, that that the girls have to know, and my employees have been with me for a long time. So, but you know, again, like I was saying, we have a lot of people that come in and say, oh, I want this really big. And you know we have to. We have to try to guide them and lead them but also do what they want, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, Right, Exactly so you offer also it's also it's a consulting service for monograms which, you're right, in the past have been very important. Yes, yes, so tell me about you know, it sounds like 34 years. You got it down. Everything's been smooth sailing, but probably that's not true, Probably something.
Speaker 3:No, here in Birmingham I opened my original store at the old Century Plaza Mall out by the Eastwood Mall area and then, two years later, we opened a store at the Galleria and we were. And then we made the decision to close the Century Plaza store, keep the Galleria store. And we were there for I don't know 12 years at least in the Galleria, and I really loved the time at the Galleria, but the hours were atrocious. The mall is open until nine o'clock at night and you know, I don't think staffing was ever a problem, but for me, having to be in touch every night with the store when they were closing and and something being there, it was just difficult. I began to, I began to look around and just see that different areas of town were changing and I decided that I wanted to move the store to Vestavia Hills, my literal backyard. So I looked around and found this shopping center here at 1360 Montgomery Highway and we began the process of moving here. So we moved here and now we've been here. I guess that was in 2003, 2004. So what, 20 years now? So we moved and haven't looked back.
Speaker 3:It's a scary thing to move your store because people you can move right across the street and people won't look right across the street to find you. So the location is so important. You hear that all the time in real estate location, location, location. Well, in retail, staying in the same location is also very important. So we have been here now and we love our location. We love where we are. We wish we had more square footage, but we that's, that's just it.
Speaker 3:That was a big was a big hurdle. And, of course, my journey isn't complete without talking just a moment about COVID. We were closed for six weeks but we did curbside pickup and we had such a support. Sales just zoomed and they have continued to grow steadily and I'm so grateful, thankful, for the people in this community and their open arms, the way they love us and, you know, continue to be here all the time and show up for us. You know, continue to be here all the time and show up for us. So those are. Those are some of the trials and tribulations. I would say that can't be overcome.
Speaker 2:COVID was a pivot point for all the entrepreneurs that I speak to and it was, you know. It was a moment where you know that entrepreneurial mindset, the agility and the uh and the and the bravery of the entrepreneurial mindset, just it kicked in for everyone. I know who's still in business. It was remarkable what our businesses did to keep the economy alive during covid, because y'all did it like single-handedly.
Speaker 3:It was difficult, I'm telling you. I mean it. Uh, every night you were just scared to death about what was going to happen the next day, you know, and um, and it's kind of like giving a party and no one's coming, you know, and and that was going on for about six weeks. Only in our case, we, really we did have such support. People were calling on the phone and remember that we were closed at a time sort of leading up to Easter I believe it was in March and March April, the end of March April, and it was okay, it was just really different?
Speaker 3:I don't ever want to go through that again.
Speaker 2:please no no, please, Please, God, let us never go through that again. But boy did we learn a lot right? Yes, oh yes. So what, tila? What do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Do you have a life outside of this terrific store that you run? I will say and this is a testament to my staff I have the most wonderful staff and in the last five years, ten years, they have made it possible for me to have more time away than ever before, and I have three wonderful grandchildren and two daughters who live in this city, and so it's family time and just going to all the different activities of my grandchildren, taking them to Disney, taking them on family vacations. Yes, my family is my life and even though and my work family makes my family family possible, you know all of the wonderful things that I get to do with them it's because of my work family and I have some. I have a lot of long-term employees.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, your life is so blessed.
Speaker 3:It is. Thank you, I'm really blessed and grateful yeah.
Speaker 2:What do you want our listeners to take away about Monograms Plus?
Speaker 3:Well, that we are very family oriented, that we are very service oriented, and if anyone ever has a problem with service, I want them to contact me. My whole philosophy is that I want our customers to be treated the way that I want to be treated when I am shopping, and I want someone to acknowledge them in the store. I want someone to offer to help me, but then I want also a little time to look around and think and process what I'm looking for. So these are always things that I want our customers to know about our business. I want them, if there is ever I repeat, if there's a problem ever with monogramming or with an item that they've purchased, I want them to tell us. I want them to because we want to make it right, because that is what I expect when I shop, and I want my customers to, you know, have that same good feeling and good experience about shopping with us.
Speaker 2:Gosh, thank you for keeping that in the community, Tila, that is. It's hard to find a place where that is the. That is the mission statement for the business. It's really hard and it has a lot to do with people not being able to find staff that will maintain that baseline right, and your baseline is quite high. So, yeah, how blessed you are to be able to do that and your success is your staff success and it's clear when you walk in. It's just really a really, really nice place to go and shop. And for our listeners who have not been to the monogram, to monograms plus investavia, how can they, how can they find you?
Speaker 3:Well, we are on Instagram and Facebook and that's the very, very best way, obviously, other than coming into the store. I will say that our website is under construction right now, so that has not been a really good thing, but we are working diligently to get that up and running so that people can shop anytime. But we are at 1360 Montgomery Highway. We are one block north of Mark's Outdoor Sports Everyone seems to know where that is. We are right next door to Solace Teca Mexican Restaurant and we are just on the south end of Highway 31, but it's so conveniently located to Hoover and Homewood. We're right in the middle and we also have a lot of customers from Mountain Brook, and so we just encourage you and we, of course, we have a phone number, but we encourage you to come in and then also just check out the Instagram and Facebook we are. One of them is listed as Xavier Hills VH. I mean, excuse me, monograms Plus underscore VH. That is our Instagram handle, so we post constantly.
Speaker 2:But there's no substitute for going in and seeing the actual store, which I'm encouraging everyone to do.
Speaker 3:Tila it was wonderful meeting you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming by and sharing your beautiful store monograms plus with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbirminghamcom. That's gnpbirminghamcom, or call 205-952-0148.