Navy wife turns into entrepreneur

For Alecia Hardt, a military wife and Aiken native, working from home was the only solution to the challenge of finding employment.

Her husband, a Navy lieutenant and an Aiken native, is the operations officer and navigator on the USS Chicago, a fast track submarine that is currently deployed with the Pacific Submarine Fleet.

Alecia, her husband Chad and 4-year-old son Will move every two years on average so she knew it would be too hard to hold down a conventional desk job. The family currently lives in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, having lived in five different states since Chad received his commission 10 years ago. Chad is stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Starting a website to sell customized, unique gifts was Hardt's only real option.

"I wanted something more for myself," Hardt said who has been in Aiken visiting friends and family. "This is right up my alley. If you're doing a website, it doesn't matter where you are."

Thus, www.thepaisleypalmetto.com was born. It launched in January of this year and has already logged over 7,000 hits. It took Hardt about one month to get everything organized.

Having never built a website from the ground up before, she said she was on the phone many times with her 13-year-old baby sitter who was extremely computer savvy as a result of maintaining a MySpace page.

Hardt essentially had to learn what she jokingly called "Business 101," complete with accounting software and HTML (a markup language for the creation of webpages.) Local women tutored Hardt on what kind of demographic she would be dealing with in Hawaii.

The website's name is a tribute to South Carolina and also to the one-of-a-kind merchandise offered on it. Though you can see a Palmetto nearly everywhere you look in this state, Hardt said, a paisley Palmetto would be quite unique.

Hardt is the all-in-one of The Paisley Palmetto — owner, the customer service representative and the marketing representative.

"My goal was for people to be able to pick up quick gifts," she said. "We offer an array of handbags, personalized jewelry... We cater to unique products. Whether it's $5 or $500, people want exclusivity."

Some of the website's most popular items are Light Affection picture frames (artist Lisa Mann chisels a treasured photo so that it turns into a 3-D image which is illuminated from behind with a soft light) and the large Posh handbags. Among the other various items featured is jewelry by Makakilo, Hawaii artist Kay Schoder. Hardt stumbled across her quite by accident. Hardt noticed Schoder's cellphone was decorated with a charm and commented on it. When Schoder revealed she was a jewelry artist, Hardt asked if she could sell her pieces on The Paisley Palmetto exclusively.

"The newest line is customized clogs from Pink Monogram," Hardt said. "It's a local company in Greenville."

Prices range from $10 to $200 and shipping is available to anywhere in the U.S.

Not only is the business convenient for her situation, Hardt is able to fill her time with it.

"My husband is never home and I'm an insomniac so at night I'm on the computer," she laughed. "Also, you go from being a full-time mom to having your kid always in school — you ask yourself, what do I do?"

For more information, visit www.thepaisleypalmetto.com.

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