HAPPY & HEALTHY
Life Made Simple Boutique offers wide range of products
BURNT HILLS, N.Y. » New local business Life Made Simple Boutique, founded amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is aiming to help customers feel happy and healthy.
Ballston Lake resident Nicole Wilson has always dreamed of owning a retail store, and came across the opportunity to open one last fall while relocating her other business Life Maid Spotless and Simple.
Rather than continuing to operate the 15-year-old cleaning company out of her home during the pandemic, Wilson chose to move it into a commercial space in the Dollar General Plaza at 772 Rt. 50 in Burnt Hills.
When she did this, Wilson realized that the unit could also serve as a retail location, and Life Made Simple Boutique was born.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to have a retail store, I just never thought it would be achievable,” Wilson explained, “but because we moved our cleaning company and I had the space I figured I might as well try it.”
Since opening its doors in mid-November, the boutique business has quickly taken off. “I was just thinking about having a few things in here to sell, but it’s kind of been growing rapidly for the last two months,” Wilson said, sharing that the store is already nearly filled with merchandise.
The shop’s offerings include home decor pieces, gift items and self-healing products, as well as low carb keto snacks and winemaking start-up kits, which were both new additions in 2021.
“It’s ever evolving,” Wilson said of the store’s inventory. “We kind of have a little of everything.”
The boutique’s community-based “Hometown Collection” of local town-specific customized merchandise with labels such as Burnt Hills, Ballston Lake, Ballston Spa, Saratoga
Springs and Clifton Park have been extremely popular with customers.
Additionally, a total of 11 local women-owned small businesses currently have products featured in the store, which was important to Wilson when she started this endeavor. “As a small business owner for the last 15 years, I wanted to help other small businesses,” she said. “It’s my way of giving back.”
Shoppers seem to appreciate this initiative, Wilson continued. “Through the whole COVID thing, people have learned that shopping small is really important. That’s one good thing that’s come out of this last year. I think people have opened their eyes to it.”
Now a couple months in, so far Life Made Simple Boutique is living up to its name. “It is making life a little simpler,” Wilson said, noting that customers can shop a wide variety of quirky, unique and fun products for themselves and others, all in one place.
“I just want people to come in here and feel happy, healthy, and just at home,” Wilson continued.
Because Wilson also owns a professional cleaning service, she and her team are constantly making sure that the shop is kept impeccably clean, which is especially important to shoppers as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Beyond these measures, the boutique also offers online shopping and curbside pickup, or customers can even make appointments outside of normal business hours for a private shopping experience.
Looking ahead, Wilson’s goal is simply to offer products that can make people smile. She said, “When they come in here, I just want people to feel good.”
Life Made Simple Boutique is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, as well as by appointment Sunday through Tuesday.
More information about Life Made Simple Boutique is available online at www.facebook.com/ lifemadesimpleboutique or www.lifemadesimpleboutique.net, where online shopping is available for pick-up or delivery.
The store can be contacted by calling (518) 2801302.