In 2024, Amanda Sharpe started selling her homemade bath products, body lotions, body fragrances, and wax melts. Now she owns a brick-and-mortar storefront where she sells her products, including homemade soaps and room mists, as well as items from other makers and hosts community events. She also offers a flower bar inside the store and a flower cart that can be rented for events.
Sharpe opened Variegated Roots in Hampton in 2026, just a few months after a layoff prompted her to consider taking a chance. Weeks after receiving the keys to the storefront, Sharpe opened. She credits friends and her husband Ryan with helping to prep the space.
“Last fall, if someone had told me this is where you would be in six to 10 months, I’d have all these questions of, ‘but what about this, what about that,’” she says. “I couldn’t have imagined that I’d be where I am right now.”
Despite the challenges with becoming a full-time entrepreneur, Sharpe says taking the leap has been worth it. “One of the things that surprised me the most is, it’s a huge undertaking, but I’m less stressed doing this than I was working for someone else and trying to operate my business on the weekends and at night,” she says. “It’s been the people that come in that don’t know me and aren’t familiar with my store or my story, but immediately they feel welcome in this space, and the compliments and the feedback that they give of their experience in this space.”
A feature of the store is a large farm table displayed front and center to welcome people. It’s part of Sharpe’s commitment to creating a third space for people to gather. “My goal was to not only be this retail shop and this collective for small businesses called The Cultivated Ground, but to also act as a third space for our kids in the community that they can come and be in, and get to interact with other people and connect, and be welcomed in,” she says.
Sharpe’s plans for Variegated Roots include hosting more workshops and events, such as a recent glass suncatcher workshop and a pre-concert get-together inside her store.
“We’ll have classes and workshops and give that opportunity to bring [the] community together,” Sharpe says. “[To] act as that third space that people can come and have experiences in a safe environment because I know that there are people out there who want to maybe try different things or even just connect with their community.”
