Hey, sweet thing!
First things first, thank you for being here! The Purple Wagon quite literally would not exist without you guys - our customers. We feel so lucky to get the chance to introduce ourselves!
-2001: 7 year old Karlee meets soon to be BFF Bre while playing outside. Quickly attached at the hip, the girls have Karlee’s dad, Mark, redo a red Radio Flyer wagon into the cutest, purple, slumber party, baby doll, arts and crafts supplies transporter, which they use between their two houses for years to come.
-2013: The girls graduate high school, and head off to the University of Iowa together. Late night creating (rather than studying) led to a spontaneous Facebook sale of hand-painted signs and thrifted goodies; ‘The Purple Wagon’ was born just hours later!
-2014: Feeling like the real deal, TPW is accepted into their first markets! Karlee’s mom, Danielle, joins the party with handmade baby headbands, and TPW becomes a real family biz. Traveling the Midwest, TPW continues to grow and evolve, and the girls continue to create whatever feels right!
-2016: Oh baby, baby! We notice all the new mamas starting to follow us, and really lean into creating items for littles. Bows, bummies, and nursery décor become TPW staples. Karlee dives into the world of screenprinting and design, and the business shifts.
-2018: Karlee and husband Sam welcome their first daughter to the world - Frankie Rae! The Frankie Bow is established!
-2019: Karlee leaves her full time job at the screen print shop to focus solely on TPW - which is at the very beginning of going nationwide with their first ever website! TPW is now 100% baby + mama focused, with Danielle creating, cutting, and stitching every garment in her home, and Karlee designing and printing every onesie and tee locally in Cedar Rapids, IA.
-2020: The entire world changes, but our followers carry us through, in a BIG way. Markets are cancelled, but orders come in far + wide, and more states are crossed off the ship-to list!
-October, 2020: Bricks and mortar! We discover The West End Diner, and the five tiny shops that all come together to
create the most wonderful experience. Breakfast, lunch, mimosas, shopping - all on one city block in the heart of Marion, IA, right here, where we live! On a whim, we decide to go for it, and officially open the very first TPW Storefront!
-2021: Having a storefront brings more growth and evolution, as TPW expands to carrying a thoughtfully curated line of baby, mama, + home goods made and sold by other small and local businesses, in addition to TPW favorites.
-2022: We expanded and opened a larger storefront just a block up from our tiny shop with so much space to shop and play and dance! Both shops are jammed full of goodies that all the babes love so much.
-2023: Our tiny diner shop grew up a bit. Changed her name and put her big girl purple wagon pants on. Frankie P’s opened it’s doors in the spring and with it, got some brand new items + upped her sizes to grow with all the babes.
