Clothes, bakery treats to make people happy | It’s Your Business

You may not think beautiful women’s clothing and fabulous baked goods have much in common, but for Margaret Shoffner they are the perfect recipe for two successful cottage businesses she operates out of her home in Oroville.

“I love to make people happy,” said Shoffner. “And nice clothes and homemade bakery items do that.”

Shoffner has been disabled for 46 years after an accident “crushed” both her legs between two cars leaving her so severely injured she was told both her limbs would have to be amputated.

“Ultimately, the doctors were able to put me back together,” she recalled. “They rebuilt my legs. I had muscle transplants, bone grafts, skin grafts, and I have artificial knees and a hip.”

After the healing, it was eight months before she started to learn to walk again but she said, “I never let it get me down. I still don’t. I just go.”

And “go” she does, hitting her kitchen at about 4 a.m. four to five days a week and working into the late afternoon baking everything from dessert breads to fruit pies and cakes to candies including fudge and “pucks,” which are chocolate covered Oreos or small cakes covered with a candy coating that look like hockey pucks. She also bakes cornbread, cupcakes and cookies and offers many sugar free and gluten free items. All of these treats are sold through Maggie’s Sweets, her bakery business.

Everything Shoffner whips up for Maggie’s Sweets , including special orders, is made from organic ingredients and when a recipe calls for eggs, she heads out back to her chicken coop to gather fresh organic ones.

“No boxes, no cans, no added preservatives” she said. “The better the eggs, the better the flavor.”

As a kid Shoffner loved to bake, especially “fancy Christmas cookies,” so when she was 16 and had the opportunity to take some baking classes at Wilton Baking School in Saratoga, near her home in the Santa Cruz mountains she went for it. She also sewed and between making clothes and baking was able to earn some pocket money throughout high school.

While baking was a first love for Shoffner, Maggie’s Sweets grew out of California Charmer Girl, a women’s clothing business Shoffner opened in 2002 and continues to operate.

The entrepreneur was living in Magalia at the time and had a job placing foreign exchange students in homes when someone told her “you need to sell things. You need your own business.”

“I thought ‘what the heck’ and started selling Italian charm bracelets,” said Shoffner.

Expanding into women’s clothing just seemed like the next right step so Shoffner added dresses, pants, jeans, top, boots, sandals and handbags to her offerings and began selling at local fairs and festivals including Feather Fiesta Days, the Salmon Festival, Johnny Appleseed Days, Red Suspenders Days and the Arbor Day Festival as well as Oroville’s farmers markets.

She had a store front downtown for a couple of years but found the events were both more profitable and fun so she moved her store to two custom buildings behind her home. Now customers shop her private stores, which offer a variety of styles in sizes as small as 12 months to 4X with nothing priced over $40, by appointment.

“I love coordinating outfits for people,” said Shoffner. “When I had the store in town, I had women come in in their slippers and pajamas and say, ‘OK outfit me for work.’ Now people shop at my home store and really like the personal service.”

When she sold at the different festivals, Shoffner would bring baked goods to share with other vendors who enjoyed them so much they encouraged her to open a bakery business and that, she said, is how Maggie’s Sweets was born in 2021.

“I have customers, both for clothing and bakery goods, who have been with me since day one,” said Shoffner. “They follow me around to the different fairs, festivals and markets. I love it. I really enjoy talking and kidding around with them. And it makes me feel good to see how happy the clothes and what I bake make them.”

Shoffner posts her clothing, baked goods and schedule as well as her phone number on her Maggie’s Sweets and California Charmer Girl Facebook pages so customers can see products offered through both businesses and upcoming events she’ll be attending as well as contact information to make an appointment or special order.