Cute As Can Bee Offers Parents Choice in Children’s Clothing

Cute As Can Bee Children’s Boutique

Startup date: July

After working for J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., Alicia Barrett decided it was time to try something new. And her three-year-old daughter helped her make that decision.

Cute As Can Bee Children’s Boutique provides Northwest Arkansas parents with a place to buy children’s clothes and accessories. Catering to premies, girls up to 6x and boys up to 7x, Barrett carries hard-to-find hair bows and clothing lines including Rumble Tumble, Hartstrings, Kitestrings and Samara in her 1,450-SF office.

Clothing can range from $20 up to $100 (for a three-piece outfit).

Barrett soon will add two more lines of clothing, one specifically for little boys, as well as socks and tights to her inventory.

In addition to clothing, Cute As Can Bee offers baby gifts and accessories, baby and little girl jewelry, and picture frames.

With startup costs of $70,000, Barrett hopes to gross $225,000 within her first year.

Bear Images

Startup date: July

Tammy Trobridge and Kevin Vineyard are the owner and manager of Bear Images, a tattoo and body piercing business that soon will specialize in temporary images as well.

Vineyard, who has two Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, said he has been in the business for 22 years and has won several awards for his talents, taking more than 18 first-place awards in national competitions in both fine art and tattooing.

The 1,600-SF business has a variety of clients, ranging in age from 18-60 years old. And he’s proud to say that he’s given a first-time tattoo to a 72-year-old male client and a 68-year-old female client, his oldest customers yet.

With low startup costs, Vineyard said he doesn’t really know what to expect in the next year but stressed that he isn’t in the business for the money.

“I am a working man’s tattooist. I just want to make a living. I’m not trying to get rich,” he said.