Support Johnston Businesses With Small Business Saturday

While hard-core shoppers hit the stores early this morning, one local business owner hopes shoppers still have stamina Saturday.

, 5800 Merle Hay Road, celebrates taking part in its first Small Business Saturday.

The Second Annual Small Business Saturday is a day dedicated to supporting small businesses on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

The idea is to support local retailers, while helping to fuel the economy.

"I've been fascinated by it and I'm a very, very small business," said Tom Perrine, owner of Frame Works. "Often, the big retailers that have tons of money have insane things going on for Black Friday. This is sort of an interesting piece."

Perrine, who has owned Frame Works for four and a half years, said he hopes the day brings in new customers.

"It's basically free, so you can't beat that," he said.

For those thinking of using Frame Works for a custom holiday gift, coming Saturday has its own benefits.

The store is offering a 30 percent off coupon for custom framing Saturday only. The coupon must be printed and brought to the store.

"Because we are a small business and in Johnston there aren't too many big box stores around us, usually for Saturday (after Thanksgiving) we hardly see anybody," Perrine said. "But as they say in the ads, one sale makes a difference for a small business."

Small business and community is what Frame Works — which specializes in custom framing — is all about.

"We call it thinking outside the frame," he said. "We'll try to be as creative as we can when putting together frames. We specialize in shadow boxes, keepsakes for framing. We do traditional, straight-forward framing. We do custom mattes and mounts.

"We tell people, if they can carry it through the door, we can frame it."

Another incentive for shopping Frame Works is the quick turnaround. 

"We're pretty fast, usually ten days to two weeks from when they place the order to when it's built," he said.

The was unaware of other businesses in Johnston celebrating Small Business Saturday.

"I'm a firm believer that small businesses are the grassroots of the economy," Perrine said. "If you support the small businesses, it's going to help your community. We're not opening at midnight, but we'll be here all day."