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Life’s Sweet: Living life outside the shoebox

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Contributed by: Lisa Hawthorne on 6/19/2008

Editor's note: Visit our Faces of Highlands Ranch page, where YourHub.com staff and readers can introduce you to more people who make this part of the metro area what it is.

Soraya Cartwright turns love of memories into a thriving business for customers throughout Colorado and across the nation

Every creative and successful business endeavor has had a unique inspiration and solves a critical need.

As a new mom, Soraya Cartwright, founder of Life's Sweet, didn't want to forget a single day of her son's life: his first step, his fingers reaching for the birthday cake icing, or the ornery grin of a three-year-old looking for mischief.

Cartwright worked long hours as an executive in the corporate world and cherished every moment she was able to spend with her family. When she had extra time, she wanted to spend it with her son not working on intricate scrapbooks or organizing pictures into albums.

She knew that the "shoebox", her computer hard-drive or stacks of photo CDs was eventually going to become the resting place for these cherished moments. The thought of these precious memories being potentially lost or forgotten was simply not acceptable.

Cartwright weighed her options (which were few), and discovered an emerging market in need of a simple, time-saving way in which to convert priceless memories of friends and family into enjoyable, easy to share photo books and music DVDs. What began as a personal journey has become a service for customers across the nation.

Soraya knows just how important family memories and being able to share them with others truly is.Coming to America in 1979, as a student, little did she know when her plane lifted off the tarmac that 5 years would pass before she would see her parents.

During these years, as she learned to speak English, and worked hard to put herself through school, she developed a deep-seated value for preserving memories of family and friends.This love of memories intensified when she had a son of her own and had a yearning to know more about her own childhood and things she did as a child. Knowing that many of these memories had not been preserved and were gone forever broke her heart.

Today, Cartwright feels strongly that every child, every family, deserves to have the memories, moments, and milestones of their lives preserved in beautiful books to share and enjoy for generations to come.

Life's Sweet opened its first retail store in July 2005 to make printed photo books both time- and cost-effective for every family.In February 2006, corporate leadership traveled to Florida to accept the Best of the Best Award at the International Photo Marketing Symposium, where they competed against hundreds of companies from around the world for the top award in creative marketing of photo products and design.

Since then, her growing business has created thousands of books for those who share her value of preserving what matters most. They've created treasures like a heritage book for a 100-Year birthday, a memory book for the daughters of a terminally ill young mother with cancer, books filled with all of a child's kindergarten artwork, 50th Wedding Anniversary books, and even just the simple day-to-day memories of any family's life.

"Life's Sweet's purpose is to change the way people preserve their memories. I fear if I don't wake America up, future generations will not have their photos memories: they'll be stored on computers, hard drives, CDs or shoeboxes," says Cartwright. "I see parents taking their kids to sports, dance, etc. They use their digital camera to take so many pictures. It breaks my heart: these kids will never see their pictures: they'll be stored somewhere, buried and forgotten.

"I really started this business for people who want a memory partner -- one that does all the work, while they get all the credit for beautifully preserving their most precious memories. I also wanted to help women see that they can follow their bliss and that there is life after Corporate America -- and it is sweet."

Life's Sweet is located at 9227 E. Lincoln Ave., #500, Lone Tree.

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