Women of Main Street: Stefani Welch Henshaw

EDITOR’S NOTE: Stefani Welch Henshaw, owner of the The Cranky Queen, is one of nearly 100 local businesswomen who will be recognized Sept. 23 during Main Street Manning’s annual meeting. The Manning Times will be featuring a few of these women each week throughout September in The Manning Times, and posting stories daily on manninglive.com. Just across from the Clarendon County Courthouse square you will find Stefani Welch Henshaw and her Cranky Queen boutique. Located at 19 W. Boyce St. in Manning, The Cranky Queen opened March 2014 as an outlet for Henshaw’s creative craft endeavors in her Manning home. Henshaw said her mother was always crafting in their Harleyville home, and she latched onto those skills as a child. As a stay-at-home mom, Henshaw taught herself how to sew and embroider, and her home became a showcase of bargain finds and curbside treasures that she, her mother and two daughters painted, sanded, re-made and re-worked to become beautiful and interesting one-of-a-kind pieces. Henshaw nervously set up a booth at the annual Holly Daze Market and said she got “great feedback from the community.” Her shop’s name, she added, came after her mother reminded her of her “occasional personality flaws,” and she decided she couldn’t just fill her shop with her own one-of-a-kind designs. “I decided during renovations that I needed something to fill the space once my items sold, until I could make more items to replace them,” she said. “I ordered several lines of boutique clothing and vowed to sell my items at a reasonable price.” “Even with the demand for these items, you will always be able to walk into my store and find my one-of-a-kind treasures, which include door hangers, hand-painted old windows, recycled barn wood crafts and much more,” she said. Stefani Welch Henshaw is married to Jason Henshaw, and the couple has two children, Hannah, 18, a student at The College of Charleston, and Emma Claire, 6, a first-grade student at Laurence Manning Academy.