Mcpherson Main Street is home to some of Mcpherson’s best stores. Main Street offers stores varying from antiques, barbershops, bookstores, flower shops, and more. One of the most recent additions to Main Street is the She Shed. The She Shed opened on August 17, 2023. The She Shed is a boutique clothing store that features custom shirts and clothing prints. The owner of the store is McPherson resident Bethany Bliss.
Bliss has been a resident of Mcpherson for 8 years. Before moving here she lived in different places around the country from Arizona to Califonia, following her husband who was in the military. When her husband, Jaiden Bliss, retired he wanted to move back to the area where he grew up, so the family chose to settle in McPherson.
Over the past 17 years, Bliss started creating shirts out of her home for family and friends to earn some extra money. It was always just a side hobby that she enjoyed doing. But this past fall Bliss was able to turn a side hobby of hers into her full-time occupation. Bliss recounted that in her youth she had never imagined herself being a boutique owner and aspired to be a veterinarian. Bliss explains that the reason it took her so long to open up a store was that “I was scared people weren’t going to like it.”
Bliss proudly recounted spending her last summer working at the store with her husband and three kids. They had to renovate the whole thing, paint, put new floors in, and then decorate, but Bliss claims “the hardest task of all was picking a name.” She wanted a name that felt timeless and yet still trendy and modern. She settled on the name She Shed. She felt like it would well represent her store and others would find appeal to the name.
Bliss enjoys getting to collaborate and ask her daughters for their opinions and advice on the shirts she makes. She says, “My daughters and Taylor Swift are some of my best inspirations for my store.” Her shirts are mostly inspired by things going on in the community, and upcoming seasons and holidays. She wants to make shirts that people can wear to events to support the high school and community. So many of her shirts feature some bullpup pride and references to Swift.
She hopes that she can keep the business running over the years. She is also very thankful to live in such a supportive and good community. She explains that some people who live here might take having such a good community for granted, but as someone who has lived in other places before she can confidently state that Mcpherson is a very special town. She says that she is glad she gets to share something that she loves and is proud of making with other people in her community.
One way that Bliss has made an effort to involve her business in the community is by connecting with the high school. Bliss recently invited Reichenberger’s graphic design class. The class got to learn about what goes into making the products for a business. From designing the graphics on the shirt, printing and making the shirts, to then promoting and selling the shirts. The students in the class all got to make a custom shirt and be immersed in a real-life application of graphic design.
