When I met with Lisa Galante, a resident of Sleepy Hollow and the entrepreneur of Shells-of-Love, she sat me down with a glass of cold iced tea and soon impressed me with the ideology of her business.

All of us have had trying times but I’m not sure many of us feel on a day-to-day basis as blessed and thankful as Ms. Galante does, and even if we do, I’m not sure many of us have channeled that feeling into a business venture meant to help others feel similarly.

That’s exactly what Shells-of-Love, Ms. Galante’s July-born business, aims to do. Shells-of-Love, in conjunction with its sister, Rocks-of-Love, sells various sized shells and rocks painted with words of remembrance or inspiration, such as “Strong,” “Love,” and “Joy,” to remind people of the blessings in life for which to be thankful, and to remind people to be optimistic. The rocks and shells are various textures, sizes, and shades, and the color of the scribe on them aims to compliment their natural features.

In terms of starting a business in an uncertain economy, Galante spoke confidently, saying there were no overhead costs, so she’s not concerned.

But concern has been a part of her life and is, in fact, a contributing factor to the inspiration of her business that merges optimism and creativity. In 2002, she lost her uncle to cancer, and two years ago, she underwent brain surgery, to remove both a benign tumor from her optical nerve, and a growing aneurism. Rebounding from both situations, the overall experience emphasized for her the power of an optimistic perspective.

The moment of acute inspiration for Shells-of-Love came during this resilient recovery one morning while she was on her daily meditation walk. She noticed a beautiful rock, picked it up, and while holding it, thought, “I’m going to remember how blessed I feel at this moment.”

That feeling, combined with her artistic personality, lead her to collect various rocks and, soon, shells from the community, and to begin to paint on them words that reminded her of that moment; words of optimism. What began as her hobby soon became her start-up business, after a friend noticed her work and suggested she share it on a grander scale.

Since then she has built and promoted the business single handedly, designing a website, www.Shells-of-Love.webs.com, distributing community-wide business cards, and sectioning off an area of her house for her workspace. That is where her two daughters, though not involved in the business, periodically dabble in their mother’s art, and where, every now and then, all three bond over the originality of their creations.

Galante’s business not only disseminates an inspirational ideology, but it also aims to fight cancer, which is a personal mission after the death of her uncle. She donates a portion of her sales to the American Cancer Society and expresses, “I’m hoping that in my lifetime it’s done.”

According to the American Cancer Society, 34,190 people have died from cancer in the State of New York this year.

The scope of Galante’s business is expanding as she offers to design custom orders, and offers to make house calls to design garden rocks. Also, included in this expansion, is her photography, which like her rock and shell art, encompasses a similar celebration of nature’s beauty.

In terms of the future development of Shells-of-Love, Galante wants to own a store where she can display her artistic celebrations of life: her rocks, her shells, and her photography.