About the Owner
Tiffany was born in Nairobi, Kenya to missionary parents many years ago. She studied Photography, English Literature and Documentary Film in college. She is married to her husband, Andrew, who is a video editor/producer for a non-profit organization called Adventist Mission. They are each other’s biggest fans, which can resort to laughing to themselves over their own really bad jokes.
Tiffany’s dream of owning her own children’s store came from her love of children’s literature, which began when she was just a little girl, and her mother gave her a copy of "The Little Prince". She fell deeply in love and has never stopped searching through piles and piles of children’s books to find others that spoke to her the same way, or in a different way. She has quite a collection of children’s books by now, and can usually be seen in the children’s section of bookstores sitting on a chair that is too small for her. After her many years in retail as a sales associate and a manager, she realized how much she would love to pursue her own store, and not only carry children’s books, but all kinds of children’s products that spoke to the imagination and beckoned you to dream the way the books could.
The name “The Pajama Squid” came to Tiffany about 5 years ago when she was watching a documentary about Squids on PBS. A tiny blip about a Squid called “The Pajama Squid” came on the screen, and she watched as these funny little creatures danced together while wearing black and white stripes on the ocean floor and knew this would be the name of her store. To her it was a perfect name for a children’s store. So she held on to this name through college, through countless jobs, through her marriage to her husband on October 2006 and so on, until she decided in December 2007, it was time to open her own store and throw her pounding fear aside.
She is pictured above with her best friend, Addis Olivia, a smelly English bulldog that falls asleep with one paw always in her food dish.
Update!
Tiffany opened her brick and mortar 2 years ago, and a couple of months after opening, she started an Online store. She ran both stores completely by herself, and loved every minute of it. As things grew, Tiffany decided to go fully Online starting in January 2010. It was not an easy decision to make, but one she understood was the best for her family, business, and for herself. She would like to open another brick and mortar someday, but for now is loving the individual time she can devote to her Online store, and looks forward to unraveling all of her ideas through it.
Tiffany was responsible for every ounce of work done in her store, down to the little door knobs that lined the hand painted black and white stripped walls. She has a deep well of love in her heart for her first brick and mortar, and will never forget how it seriously changed her life, because it was the first time she had ever actually breathed a dream into existence. It was amazing to watch it form into everyday life. She is truly blessed.
You can see the pictures here.
Illustration Love
So you might have noticed some mysteriously lovely illustrated children on my website. Those are the work of Genevieve Marquis. You can find the rest of her fabulous illustrations for sale here and you can read about what she is up to here.