Garden City residents Muriel Hard and Roberta Cerwinski have been friends and business partners for years. They first met at Twigs, a Winthrop-University Hospital Junior Auxiliary branch workshop, 25 years ago. "We just both enjoyed making things," Hard said. Volunteering for 20 years with Twigs, they began working out of their homes 10 years ago. Now the duo provides area residents with creative custom and boutique items at their own shop, Gracious Gestures, located at One Nassau Blvd. in Garden City South.

It opened last September when Hard was "driving down the beaten path and saw a sign that Barnes Gallery was moving across the street. "We took advantage of the situation and everything really fell into place," she said. "It was just meant to be."

Creativity oozes from the shop, with silk and dried florals, home accessories, antique gifts, interior design ideas and complimentary gift-wrap. "There's always something here if you need to buy a small or large gift," Hard said. "We love doing this. It's the first job in my entire life, besides raising my children, that I can't wait to get to."

Gracious Gestures offers full service interior designing, Cerwinski said, "where we pack up the store, go to a home and help them move in. We come in and in a day it looks like a finished home."

Hard said she and Cerwinski only buy items for the shop that they both like, a philosophy they've stuck by for years. "We agreed on that a long time ago and we really stick to it," she said. "We only buy what we love and what we'd want in our own homes."

With a reasonable price range, Gracious Gestures offers a variety of Christmas decorations and ornaments and beautiful gifts for the holidays or any time of the year to liven up home decorating.

"Our customers are right across the street so it's a wonderful location," Cerwinski said. During this time of year we provide our customers with holiday decorating, fixing up their mantels, banisters, trees and tables. We just finished a house in Manhasset for a fundraiser. We use faux greenery since people often call us the following year to decorate again. We can keep reusing the greenery. We now have a following."

"Last year, it was a major part of the business. We decorated 11 homes last year," Hard added.

Customers also have the choice of borrowing various catalogs from the store to order furniture, artwork and more. "These are catalogs of companies we regularly deal with. Customers can borrow the catalogs and order items for their home," Cerwinski said.

Gracious Gestures celebrated its one-year anniversary Sept. 16. Hard and Cerwinski look forward to many more years on Nassau Blvd., providing quality craft items for its customers. "We hope to do this for a long time to come. This really is a dream come true," Cerwinski said.

The shop is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Gracious Gestures is closed on Sundays and Mondays, when the ladies work on many of their interior design projects. Call Gracious Gestures at 505-5008 for more information.