Profile: Carolyn Huresky

By Dawne Belloise

What started out as child’s play, turned into a business venture for Carolyn Huresky when her daughter begged for a Cricut, a smart cutting machine about the size of a printer, that makes personalized craft items like stickers, decals, cards and t-shirts out of paper and vinyl. After a couple of weeks, her daughter was bored with it and Carolyn began enjoying creating with the Cricut. She started making paper art and shadow boxes that incorporated local scenes and themes. She even illuminated some of the shadow boxes for a dramatic effect. She realized its creative and business potential and that was the start of the endeavor she calls The Creative Garland Company.

Carolyn hails from Marietta, Georgia, just north of Atlanta, where her family moved after leaving Chicago when she was five. Her dad took a finance position with Coca-Cola and her mom was a teacher. Carolyn claims she was a typical American kid growing up and always pretty shy, especially in her younger years. Even as a child, she enjoyed doing crafts, played piano and smiles that she was a “girly-girl.” She felt that living in the suburbs didn’t offer a lot of opportunity for many outdoorsy things but through the local YMCA, she was able to participate in their many programs like camping and horseback riding. 

When her mom tragically passed away from breast cancer in 1990 at the age of 42, Carolyn was only 11 and in fifth grade. It profoundly affected the family and Carolyn became very close with her brother and father. At a young age she tells, “It made me realize that you never know how much time you have and life is precious.”  

While in high school, Carolyn got more into sports, running track and cross-country and she played basketball. She graduated high school in 1997. “I like sports and now I do more individual sports,” she says of her Crested Butte lifestyle. Her hubby Gary Huresky tried to get her to play softball here, but she explained to him that, “I suck at it, and I really did,” she laughs, but she humored Gary and went to play anyway. “I struck out twice and that was the extent of my team sports.” 

After high school graduation, Carolyn had no idea what she wanted to do, however, she enrolled at the University of Georgia in Athens. “It’s got a big music scene,” she tells of the home of groups like REM and the B52s, and she spent a lot of time at music venues there. At first, she ended up in the business school, somewhat following in her dad’s footsteps, “Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life and figuring it would be a good option.” 

She focused on Management Information Systems, since it was an up-and-coming field which entails putting together computer systems and software.

“College life was awesome, I definitely got the work done but I really loved going to concerts a lot and being young and having fun,” she says. She graduated in 2001, hoping to get that job her father told her would be practically promised with her specific degree. However, that job didn’t materialize and Carolyn moved back in with her dad for the summer while applying for corporate job positions. “I wasn’t very excited about it. I think in my heart I knew it wasn’t for me. But I was trying to do the right thing and be an adult,” she muses.

After her mom died, Carolyn’s dad had taken her and her brother to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. “That was my introduction to the West, and I remember being in awe of the big sky, the natural beauty and the mountains. Living in the suburbs of Georgia, there are mostly strip malls and not a lot of beauty.” She was so enamored with the mountains that after her college sophomore year, Carolyn moved out to Jackson Hole for the summer. She didn’t have a job lined up but just rolled into town and landed a front desk position at a motel. “I lived and worked at the motel, and it was a cool experience. I made friends and it was my first independent venture away from home,” she recalls of that magical time. She returned to school in the fall with fond memories and an even deeper love of the mountains.

When she couldn’t find work in her field after graduation, she started waitressing at a restaurant. She had returned to Athens for a visit to see some college friends when one of them, who had grown up in Frisco, Colorado, told her to check out Crested Butte and Steamboat. In the fall of 2001, just after September 11 happened, Carolyn checked out Crested Butte Mountain Resort which had a job opening for computer help desk. She applied online, passing the required test, “To see if I knew anything about computers,” and they offered her the job. She packed up her car with everything she had and headed west just before Thanksgiving, hitting Monarch Pass in a huge snowstorm. She had never driven in snow before, her car was only two-wheel-drive and it snowed all the way to Crested Butte. “I didn’t get that beautiful first view coming in. I got what CB really can offer though,” she laughs of the harrowing driving and massive dumpage.

Her job at CBMR consisted of things like taking apart computers and replacing hard drives if needed, but she laughs that she really didn’t know what she was doing. “Maybe I was pretending I knew what I was doing but I didn’t and it was pretty much on-the-job training,” she grins. 

Carolyn moved into an apartment on First and Whiterock. She had only skied once at Keystone with her dad when she was in high school and a couple times on a mountain in north Georgia, but she implies with a grin that the latter doesn’t really count. Carolyn had started work at CBMR immediately, about a month before the lifts opened. “I loved it. I loved being in a small town in contrast to where I grew up, which was big. I felt that this was my place. I met people through work, and I loved the vibe of the town, people smiling at you on the street. It was right up my alley.” 

Her work with CBMR was only for that one season so afterward, she worked various jobs at the Timberline and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, scrambling to live the dream. It was at the Bacchanale that she met her now husband Gary. “He was a bus boy just starting his real estate business and was also on ski patrol. We just clicked. He made me laugh.” They married in July of 2005, their daughter Hailey arrived in 2007 and their son JD in 2009. 

Carolyn moved on to work at Stewart Title closing real estate transactions, which became hectic after the Callaways sold the resort. 

At one point Carolyn was closing six to 10 transactions a day because everyone wanted a piece of CB. “For a couple months it was seven days a week and long hours,” she recalls. Carolyn left that job after it calmed down a bit. “I had had enough, pretty much,” she says, although, she did still work for the title company on and off. “It’s what I knew and I think I was pretty good at it.”  

Meanwhile, she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do as far as career. “Nothing ever really clicked. I was always creative,” she felt, although she didn’t do much with that creativity. It was during the pandemic, when Covid slowed down life around the world and in town, and after Gary recuperated from a bad case of it that sent him to the hospital, that Carolyn discovered the art of polymer clay jewelry. “It’s like playing with Play-Doh. It’s so much fun because there’s so much you can do with it.” She eventually started selling her jewelry creations at the Art Market in conjunction with the CB Farmers Market, and at the Gunnison Arts Center in 2021. 

She started creating pieces with the Cricut, and she sold her shadowboxes alongside her jewelry. “I loved it. It was something I created with my own hands and people were buying my things and it made me so happy,” she laughs. “I started doing the Art Market every summer.” 

She also sold her work at the annual holiday Maker’s Market, creating her trademark garland. “It’s a chairlift garland to hang on the tree, mantle or window.” She explains that it was so popular that she had to take orders and make more. She then invested in a more serious piece of equipment for her blossoming business, a laser cutter machine and with it she now makes a variety of garlands, including acrylic outdoor ones. The majority of her garland creations are made from very thick card stock.

You can still find Carolyn at the CB Sunday Art Market. She recently attended her first trade show in Denver to reach wholesale buyers. “It went pretty well,” she says. “Christy Sports placed an order and my garlands are in those stores across some states. I’m working on getting into mom-and-pop stores and growing the wholesale business.”  

Carolyn also delivers food for Living Journeys once a week and she does books for local lawyer Beth Appleton. But she laughs that she’s, “Hoping for world garland domination. I want to see where I can take it. I want to go to a bigger trade show. The Creative Garland Company is my pride and joy right now and I’m excited to try to grow it.” Meanwhile, completely entrenched in this community, Carolyn feels, “I’d like to call CB my home forever.”