It all started with a friend's baby shower.

Timmie Coon and Chris Hjelm, a mother-daughter team who own a Spokane Valley business called The Basket Cases, hosted that baby shower in early 2008 and purchased what they considered to be a rather expensive gift basket for their expecting friend. The women say, though, that they were extremely disappointed with their purchase after a closer look.

"It was a big basket and there were only four things in it and a ton of filler and a big bow, and I was not okay with that," says Hjelm. "I got some more inexpensive things and made it look good and got some shrink wrap and everyone (at the shower) said, 'Where did you get that?'"

After Hjelm told the inquiring guests that she'd put together the gift basket herself, many of them told Hjelm that if she started making her own gift baskets, they'd buy them from her.

"So my mom and I started out small working out of our homes," Hjelm says.

The Basket Cases became an official business two months after that baby shower. For two years now, the business has occupied a 900-square-foot leased storefront in a Spokane Valley retail center at 1014 N. Pines, Coon says.

Besides making and selling customized gift baskets, The Basket Cases shop also has an array of gift items for customers to buy individually. Those items range in price from less than $2 to about $90, and the selection includes coffee mugs, jewelry, home decor items, cooking utensils, bakeware, baby items, greeting cards, and various knickknacks.

"It started out with just gift baskets and now we are a gift store that also does baskets," Hjelm says, but she adds that putting together gift baskets still makes up the majority of the business's sales.

Prices of the gift baskets vary, depending on whether a customer buys one that the two owners already have put together to sell on the store's sales floor, or instead pays to have separately purchased items artfully arranged into a container or basket.

"A typical basket can range between $20 and $100 and everywhere in between," Coon says.

Coon and Hjelm say their goal for every basket they put together is to make sure that the entire collection of items is usable "from the container to the bow."

The women say that they also avoid using any wicker or woven baskets, unless one is specifically requested by a customer, because most often those types of containers are discarded. Instead, they'll use something to hold all of the items such as a large bowl, decorative box, or even a miniature Radio Flyer red wagon.

The most popular themed gift sets that Coon and Hjelm compile include baby shower items, wine and food assortments, cooking or baking gifts, girls-night-out themed baskets, movie night baskets, and baskets for bridal showers.

They add that they put together lots of baskets that are auctioned off at various fundraising events in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area. Many of those baskets are donated by business owners to support a nonprofit organization's fundraising efforts.

When putting together gift baskets for various occasions, The Basket Cases offers customers a variety of options.

Coon and Hjelm say the business has completed several large orders placed by companies that then send the baskets to clients as appreciation gifts.

"We do lots of baskets where we incorporate companies' logo products in the basket," Coon says.

The cost for orders for which the corporate client supplies all or most of the items that are to be arranged ranges between $5 and $20 per basket, she says.

"We just put it all together and put a bow on it," Hjelm says.

The women also say they'll offer the same services to a noncorporate customer who would like to have already purchased items placed into a container in a visually-pleasing arrangement with clear plastic shrink-wrap around it and a bow.

"We've had some unusual baskets—one with a hula hoop and one that was a big bucket of painting supplies," Coon says.

Adds Hjelm, "We charged that customer $25 to put everything together into a big bucket; it had paint rollers, paint pans, snacks, sodas, and everything else you might need to move in and paint your home. It was huge and very heavy, and I came up with a way to put it all together and had it ready for the customer in one day."

She says that once she has all the items that are to go into a gift set, it could take between five and 30 minutes, depending on the number of items, for her to arrange everything so that it's all visible and the arrangement looks pleasing.

"We are both very visual and creative," Hjelm asserts. "You want to be able to see everything in the basket, especially if you are paying between $75 and $100, and it should all be usable and look nice."

In addition to putting together items into a basket-like container brought into the shop by a customer, Coon and Hjelm also will repackage gift sets purchased elsewhere.

"We have redone baskets where you couldn't see anything," Coon says, adding that the business sees a lot of customers who use that $10 service.

The mother-daughter team says they also offer free personal shopping services to customers who are seeking specific items not carried at The Basket Cases gift shop, or who don't want to go out and look themselves for the things they want included in a gift set.

Hjelm says the business doesn't charge anything extra for its shopping services but does get reimbursed by a customer for the actual cost of the items she and her mother pick up. There is a fee similar to what the business charges to repackage or put pre-purchased items together into a container, she adds.

She says another reason the business doesn't charge for personal shopping services is because she and her mother enjoy looking for the items themselves and because customer service is a high priority for the business.

"I'll call a customer if I am not sure about an item they've asked me to purchase; I'll text them a picture or something," she says. "I've never had anyone say their purchase wasn't what they wanted. Most people say it's above their expectations."

The women assert that giving their customers the option of having The Basket Cases owners shop for and completely assemble a custom gift basket for them also often is more convenient for people who might not have time to come into their shop.

"People can place orders over the phone so they don't necessarily have to come into the store, and a lot of people don't even see the basket before it's done," Hjelm says.

The Basket Cases also offers free delivery services to clients who may want the basket dropped off at their home or workplace, or directly to the gift's recipient.

Says Coon, "I love delivering a basket and watching people's reaction of, 'Oh my gosh, I have never seen anything like this!' and knowing that they are fully satisfied."

While Coon and Hjelm say they've seen the business's sales double each year since it launched almost four years ago, they have yet to make a profit but say that they're close to doing so.

"We keep ordering more product and are advertising so it's very close to becoming profitable," Hjelm says.

Before they opened The Basket Cases, Hjelm says she was a stay-at-home mother and Coon, who will be 70 years old this summer, worked as a sales representative for various gift-product vendors. Coon adds that her familiarity with that industry has come in handy now with her and her daughter's business venture.

Hjelm's daughter, Stefani, also helps out in the shop and in putting together gift baskets.

Within the next five years, Coon says their goal is to have a second storefront in the Spokane area.

In the near future, the women plan to sell fresh-baked cupcakes at The Basket Cases store, and say they currently are perfecting a list of recipes for different cupcake flavors. The treats should be for sale there within the next several weeks, Coon says, adding that the business plans to contract with a local bakery to bake the cupcakes fresh each day from their family's original recipes.