By Susan Shinn

For The Salisbury Post

Eight years ago, Traci Burleyson started her interior design business. Since then, she’s expanded into seasonal wreaths and hand-painted signs.

She attributes these offerings to “the need to craft.”

“It’s an addiction,” Burleyson admits.

Although Burleyson’s wreaths are big sellers at the holidays — she uses deco mesh, burlap and grapevine, or a combination of the three — her signs sell pretty much year-round.

“I do a ton for graduation gifts,” she says. “The girls like to put signs on the doors of their college dorm rooms.”

Burleyson is always on the lookout for scrap wood to make the signs. She and her husband, Pat, have renovated their 114-year-old farmhouse, and she kept all of the wood leftover from that project. She also scrounges through the pasture for cast-off wood — and yes, she does wipe off the cow poop before unleashing her creative genius on a future sign.

“That’s the trend now, to upcycle,” she says.

Upcycling is the practice of repurposing items that would otherwise be disposed of.

Burleyson paints Bible verses or popular sayings on her signs.

She kept a headboard from a twin bed for a long time before deciding to decorate it with a small house and a verse from Lamentations: “His mercies begin afresh each morning.”

“I choose different elements for each piece,” she says. “Sometimes, the wood tells me what to do.”

Burleyson has no formal art or design background.

“My whole life, I’ve designed things,” she says.

She went to school for travel and hospitality — which makes no sense to her now. “I hated it. I’m a home girl. I can’t be away from home.”

So Burleyson decided to start her own business to be home with her three daughters, now 12, 13 and 15.

It also fed her crafting addiction.

Traci Burleyson will be part of the Holiday Market Dec. 5 from 4 to 8 p.m. at Grace Ridge Clubhouse.

For more information, contact Traci Burleyson at 704-431-7228 or find her on facebook.