| FRESH FACE 09.09.09 9:00 AM |
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| A Gift Guru |
| Susan Turnock sources personalized gifts from American vendors at all price points. |
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| After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in graphic design, Susan Turnock moved to the Washington area and took a job at an advertising firm, but the work didn’t spark her interest. “It wasn’t creative enough for me. Since childhood, I wanted to own my own business and be a decision maker,” she says. Ten years ago, she made the first move in that direction with a boutique soap company called What Fun, which she still runs. After hearing repeatedly about how her husband’s financial industry colleagues were tired of gifts of boxed fruit, Turnock saw a need for creative corporate gifts. In late 2007, she launched Gifts for the Good Life, selling artfully branded custom goods for swag bags, event accessories, and personal gifts. Turnock describes her look as “modern, fresh, sleek, and still a little campy when it needs to be.” |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | Washington-based Susan Turnock creates gifts for clients all over the United States.
Photo: Powers & Crewe for BizBash |
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 | For a recent Wedding Library luncheon, Gifts for the Good Life created etched invitations onto miniature bottles of Champagne.
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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Turnock’s Good Life partner is her sister, Heather Arak-Kanofsky, owner of a Roseto, Pennsylvania-based custom stationery company, which produces the paper accessories for their joint business. “We talk on the phone 300 times a day,” says Turnock. “With every client, we look at what a company wants to communicate, the image they want to get across, and together we create a campaign that spotlights a unique gift.” They create unique packaging with natural materials and are frequently at gift trade shows, on the hunt for new vendors and the made-in-America sources they prefer. Their wooden fire-branded gift boxes come from a small provider in the Midwest, and they found a tiny company in Napa, California, that etches wine bottles with custom art.
Brian Winterfeldt, a partner at Washington-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson L.L.P., calls Good Life when he needs gifts for holidays, conferences, and promotions. “They have a very high taste level and take a lot of care, from finding the unique gift to the custom-printed, branded lining paper in the packaging to the gift card,” says Winterfeldt. “They work with different budgets, high and low. That’s really helpful.” Among the sisters’ current projects: a custom-etched bottle of Scotch for a corporate Scotch-tasting dinner and a set of branded leather coasters for an upscale water company. “I’m thrilled I can be creative every day, with new challenges and rewards,” Turnock says. “I see no end to it.”
—Walter Nicholls
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