I built it. I sold it. I lost it. Then I fought to get it back.
Founder, Persnickety Prints & Persnickety Box
I'm a mom of seven and a photographer who started a photo lab with no business plan. This is the story of how it grew, the years that took a lot from me, and the August day I got the keys back.
A mom with a camera and no business plan
I didn't have a business degree or investors. I had little boys, a new digital camera, and prints that never looked as good as they did on my screen. I wasn't trying to build an empire. I was trying to fix a problem.
The scrapbook pages
I taught myself Photoshop so I could make scrapbook pages of my boys. Every print I ordered was a letdown, so I went looking for a better way to print them.
All in
I took a loan against my car and maxed out a credit card to open Persnickety Prints. When labs closed in the recession, I bought their equipment, and the front desk from a Borders bookstore that was shutting down.
Growing up
We grew 500% in three years, made Utah Valley's Fastest Growing Companies list twice, and expanded into a bigger shop on Orem Blvd. Later came Persnickety Box.
Then life happened
While the business grew, so did my family. Seven kids, weddings, and all the milestones I'd spent years telling customers to print.
Then I started losing people. My mom in 2020. My dad in 2023. My brother Nathan in 2025.
I had built a whole company around the idea that photos matter. Grief showed me what that really means. Someday, the pictures are what you have left.
A season of perspective
In June 2023, after 13 years, I sold Persnickety Prints so I could be there for my family when they needed me most.
Stepping away gave me something I never had time for while I was building: perspective. I saw how much Persnickety meant to the families who trusted it with their memories, and how much it still meant to me.
Those years taught me more about business, trust and myself than the thirteen before them. And they made one thing very clear. My story with Persnickety wasn't finished.
Coming home
In August 2026, I got the keys back, and Persnickety Prints came home.
I walked in with fresh eyes and a long list of ideas. I'm rebuilding systems, training a wonderful team, and reconnecting with customers who have been with Persnickety since the beginning. The shop isn't the one I left, and I'm not the woman who sold it. I think we're both better for it.
I'm here because I love this place, and I love helping families hold on to what matters most. This is Persnickety Prints 2.0.
Same dream. Different woman.
Persnickety Box
Most of the best photos of our lives never leave our phones. So I created Persnickety Box, an app that turns your favorite phone photos into 30 archival 4×4 prints every month, delivered in a keepsake box.
It's the easiest way I know to stop scrolling past your memories and start holding them.
My childhood is on VHS tapes I can't play
I'm not convinced we'll be able to open today's photo files in 20 years, either. This portrait of my mom will hang on a wall long after every phone we own is gone.
That's why every Persnickety photo is printed in a real darkroom, on paper made to last 100+ years.
You can lose things you spent your whole life building. You can make mistakes and go through losses you never saw coming. And you can still have a good next chapter. I'm still figuring out mine, and I hope my story helps you believe in yours.
"We're not printing photos for today, but for the next generation."
