LeClaire welcomes three businesses

Aug 14, 2023

LECLAIRE — It might have a new name, but Shelly Wheat’s new bakery is still putting out cupcakes using the same recipes customers may remember.

It’s one of three new businesses that calls LeClaire home, along with The Kitsch-n Sink and Orange Blossom Stitchery & Quilt Shoppe.

“I’ve been baking for almost seven years,” Wheat, owner of Shelly’s Sweet Sensations, said. “I started when my daughter graduated from high school. I’ve been doing that out of my home and then I was at the farmers’ market for a couple years, and then this opportunity just came up.”

Shelly Wheat, owner of Shelly's Sweet Sensations, stands behind the counter of at her business's kitchen on Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

Wheat’s experience with baking started at home, baking for her kids and community as Wheat’s Sweets Cupcakes and More. Her small business was a familiar face when she had a stand at Freight House Farmers’ Market in Davenport and at private events.

Now she shares a location at Here’s the Scoop ice cream parlor, 204 Jones St., adding to the already sweet spot. Wheat held a grand opening for the bakery on June 10 with the first 100 customers getting a free mini cupcake right at the door.

Her bakery has been popular for her wildly creative cupcake flavors in the past, including Kit Kat bars, Fruity Pebbles and even a Margarita cupcake, but her recent innovation with cheesecakes has quickly taken to a high demand around town.

A cupcake tin of tulip cupcake liners sits on the counter in Shelly's Sweet Sensations' kitchen on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in LeClaire

“Since I’ve been open I’ve sold almost 15 cheesecakes so far,” she said. “I have a Canadian driver that has a cooler. It’s his mom’s 80th birthday or something like that. And he’s getting Oreo cheesecake to take back to Canada.”

Her newest recipe is a bright blue cheesecake named after Cookie Monster, the cookie-loving creature from Sesame Street, featuring cookie dough balls on the bright blue cake, dripping with chocolate drizzle and cookie bits on top.

Wheat has continued to experiment in the kitchen and is looking to fill in a line of summer flavors and to possibly collaborate with Here’s the Scoop ice cream cakes in the future.

The Kitsch-n Sink

Owner Laura Duncan stands behind the counter of her antique store, The Kitsch-n Sink, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in LeClaire.

Antique stores can have a connotation of dusty collectibles piled left and right, or a similarity of venturing into “grandma’s attic,” Laura Duncan likes to say. She hopes to bring a sense of aliveness to her store, The Kitsch-n Sink, at 430 N. Cody Road.

The Kitsch-n Sink is a blast-from-the-past antique store with trinkets ranging in dates from the 1940s to the 1980s sprinkled throughout the former house. Duncan herself likes to wear vintage outfits during her working hours to match with the store’s energy. She sported bell bottom jeans and peace signs at the store’s grand opening.

“I want people to walk in and I want them to feel like it’s fun and like they’re kind of stepping back in time,” she said.

Between the choice of retirement and jumping on a hobby of hers, Duncan decided to join the antique market after inheriting a surplus of items from relatives. From her treasure trove, she’s worked to incorporate several of her items into decorative or themed aspects in each room.

The main room is what she calls the “Bohemian Room,” filled with bright, citrusy colored furniture, glowing neon signs and vinyl record collections along the walls. A working Atari tabletop game sits in the center, playable for those interested, while a vinyl record plays hits from the 1970s in the background.

The "kitschiest" items voted on the store's Facebook sit on a shelf at The Kitsch-n Sink on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in LeClaire.

She works with other vendors to display homemade jewelry and vintage clothing within her own items Those items too weird to be vintage, she references as “kitsch.”

“Kitsch is art or objects that are pleasingly tasteful, overdone, gaudy and tacky or overly sentimental; so bad it’s cool,” Duncan said.

The store acknowledges “kitsch” with the shop’s name and Duncan even held a contest on Facebook to determine the “kischiest” item from a shelf of items in her store amid olive green owl tea cups and a crucifix shell shrine. The winner: a wide-eyed crochet toilet paper doll.

Besides scouting the local Facebook marketplaces for new items, Duncan knows she’s not the only antique place on the street.

LeClaire is famously home to Antique Archaeology, the home base for the History Channel show “American Pickers,” where antique pickers go around the country looking for antique items. The antique store is not only a tourist destination for fans, but it holds some of the team’s best picks from their ventures.

With the encouragement from her neighboring antique stores, Duncan’s continued to thrive and looks to expand her store to offer lunch and drink items for the sitting room.

“I’m hoping to eventually serve, like soup or sandwiches, local craft wines, coffee and some snacks, like dessert type things,” she said.

Orange Blossom Stitchery & Quilt Shoppe

Owners Amanda Norris, left, and Laura Strickland ,right, stand in front of their quilt mural on the side of their store, Orange Blossom Stitchery & Quilt Shoppe, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in LeClaire.

Laura Strickland and Amanda Norris never expected to own the quilting shop they had worked at for years.

“This was a quilt shop for almost 20 years, then that owner retired,” Norris said. “And when she retired, I approached Laura and asked if she’d like to go into business with me, and we didn’t want the quilt shop to leave the area.”

As former managers of the store, the two were fervent on keeping the quilt store legacy alive in LeClaire. They have changed the store more toward their liking under the new name: Orange Blossom Stitchery & Quilt Shoppe.

Orange Blossom, 208 S. Cody Road, sells quilting needs including fabrics and patterns, but the women work with embroidery, sewing kits and supplying a majority of craft project ideas and materials.

The store is filled with colorful fabric and threads with Strickland’s numerous award-winning quilt designs hanging on the walls. Within the store, the owners teach quilting and other craft classes, with the biggest change to the space being moving the classroom to the front of the building.

Shown is the area for shopping in the Orange Blossom Stitchery & Quilt Shoppe, with quilt patterns, thread and quilt examples all over the walls, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in LeClaire.

The previous quilt-making courses used to be held in the back of the store where the owners now keep a longarm quilting machine, but the move to the front of the store overlooking the main road and the Mississippi River has paid off tremendously.

“I found it was really difficult to teach hand embroidery classes in fluorescent lighting only; it gave people headaches,” Norris said.

The store cycles through different classes working with quilts, tote bags and embroidery based on the time of year. The six-hour courses are listed on their website and always include all the materials supplied for the class, whether it’s an introductory course for all ages, or an advanced course for quilting techniques.

“The cool thing with the bag classes are, if you take a bag class here, you get a little tag from us that looks like this,” Strickland said, showing off a mini tag on a nearby tote, “that you sew in the outside seam of your bag, and that tag allows you to receive a discount when you’re in the store,” she said.

Since opening at the beginning of June, they have redone the entire store’s appearance and added flower boxes and an outdoor seating area, along with painting an orange quilting pattern mural on the side of the building.

Since their monthlong opening, both owners are ready to host a second grand opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 7 with a BBQ and orange sherbet, according to their Facebook.

“We’re looking at a possible membership, like premiering a membership where they (customers) would get items, like they would get specific things from the store that would save them some money overall and that would be an absolute great gift for somebody,” Strickland said. “They would get things like a class discount and a free use of the (longarm) machine each month, so we’re gonna premiere that at the grand opening cuz that’s kind of fun.”

Joey Evans, 15, makes dog treats on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in his family's Bettendorf kitchen.

, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Davenport.

, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Davenport.

, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Davenport.

, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Davenport.

Dog biscuits, one of 25 homemade products produced by Joey's Famous Dog Treats, are on display Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Bettendorf.

Joey Evans shows the dog treats he makes on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Bettendorf.

, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Davenport.

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