Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A Gift To Gab in LeRoy brings gifting and flowers under one roof

 

Tucked away at the end of a short stretch of gravel driveway and next to the LeRoy-Ostrander Public Schools sits one of LeRoy’s newer gems — A Gift To Gab.

The store, owned and operated by Christi Masters and her husband Kelly, is an all-in-one shopping destination doing its part to bolster LeRoy’s strong reputation of a little town with a lot of possibility.

A Gift To Gab is a gift store featuring all sorts of items from rustic charm to home-made candles to high school apparel from LeRoy-Ostrander and other nearby schools that include Southland and Grand Meadow Public Schools.

“We do homemade custom painting, my sign work, we pour our own candles,” Masters said. “We pour a lot of candles and people like that because it’s made by us. They can bring me containers to fill. We can custom that too.”

The foundations of A Gift To Gab were poured when Masters lived in Decorah, Iowa, where she worked in a floral shop. It was the first step away from the typical 9 to 5.

“I hated my desk job,” Masters said. “I’m not wired to sit at a desk. I would always, since I was little, be digging in an old barn for old pieces of wood I could paint on.”

Next up was an 11-year stint in Spring Grove and a gift shop there where she did much the same as she does with A Gift To Gab.

During this time she married Kelly, followed by the move to LeRoy, the perfect fit at the right time.

“We looked in Chatfield and Preston but there wasn’t a lot of availability or it was super expensive,” Masters said. “When we found this place, it was the one.”

It had everything Christi and Kelly were looking for: a homey field that was paired perfectly with the home they live in now, all on one property. It saved her from making a drastic decision.

“If we didn’t find something, I was willing to go find a real job,” Masters said. “(Kelly) said, ‘you do have a job.’”

During her time in Spring Grove and now LeRoy, it was always about just a gift shop, but along the way came the flowers.

“I basically started my shop with no flowers,” Masters said. “I am a gift shop that has flowers. It just kind of happened.”

However, the flowers have become a big part of what she does. Masters spends a lot of her time creating beautiful arrangements for brides as well as for funerals.

In the short time since A Gift To Gab has set up shop in LeRoy, Master has seen it become a destination for not only people in LeRoy and the area, but even further out as well.

“A lot of people just like where we are,” Masters said. “It’s cozy and we try to have pretty flower beds outside. Groups of ladies come from all over.”

While Masters is enjoying the success of A Gift To Gab, she considers them part of a larger success story. LeRoy boasts many attractions either in the community or just outside.

Masters said that A Gift To Gab fits perfectly into that small-town success.

“We always promote other places to go,” Masters said. “Spend the day in LeRoy.”

A Gift To Gab is located at 424 West Main Street in LeRoy. They can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AGiftToGab.