AUSTINTOWN — When Jennifer Bacha made cutout cookies for her daughter’s birthday in 2017, she never thought that five years later she would have her own storefront, but Bacha Cookies Bakery just opened its doors in Austintown.

She got the idea to make strawberry-shaped cookies for the party on Pinterest. If you ask Bacha, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, they didn’t look very good, but to everyone else, they were a hit.

After that party, she started getting orders from friends. Pretty soon, she had a full-time job as an in-house photographer for a company, did event photography on the side and had a kitchen full of cookies. It was at this point that Bacha decided to make cookies her full-time job.

“It was like a snowball,” Bacha said. “It picked up speed so fast.”

Bacha was always passionate about art. Her mother is an artist, and she described her dad to be like MacGyver.

She wanted to learn photography in high school, but did not have a camera. Her parents gave her a camera for her graduation gift as she left to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography degree from Youngstown State University.

Although she may not be taking photos as much as she used to, Bacha said this skill really has helped her grow her business because she can take good product photos and design visually appealing cookies.

“I think back to some of my first art classes like 2D art and color theory when I am mixing colors and deciding what designs I am going to make,” Bacha said.

Her art background has helped her learn this new skill, which she has done without any formal training. Her cookies have featured watercolor, hand-drawn pictures, air brush, stenciling and sugar glass, and she taught herself all of it.

She said for the first two to three years, she was constantly adjusting her recipes and techniques until she got it just right. Bacha still likes to experiment and learn new techniques, but five years in, she has a good handle on what works for her business.

Over the past several years of working out of her kitchen, Bacha has earned a stable customer base. She has created cookies for a variety of events, such as a 100th birthday party, the governor and YSU events. One customer buys cookies for almost every holiday and ships them to family members in the Netherlands.

She started looking for a storefront about two years ago, but she and her husband hadn’t found anything quite right. One day, her husband drove by 6520 Mahoning Ave. and saw a ‘For lease’ sign. After the first visit, Bacha knew it was perfect.

“Since moving in here, I’ve fallen in love with my house again,” she said. “This business had long overgrown my home kitchen.”

Now that she has a storefront, Bacha is thinking about expanding her recipes. Most of her orders are decorated sugar cookies, but she also makes big chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, double chocolate and chunky peanut butter cookies.

Right now, she is accepting only custom orders, but she said she hopes to expand soon to have walk-in customers, at least for a couple of days per week. She said family comes first, and she doesn’t want to put stress on her family by working constantly.

Her family helped her through the whole process of learning this new skill, then making a career out of it. From bagging cookies to watching her daughter to cleaning out the building, which was previously a cat shelter, everyone in her family played some part in making the storefront a reality. Bacha and her husband, Chris, even got to do some demolition.

“(My husband) has been my rock,” Bacha said. He’s the one who believed in me and believed in my ability as a cookie artist to make this dream of owning a cookie shop a reality. He’s the man behind the woman.”

Bacha said she always wants to encourage others who are considering learning but to “never forget the customers. If you respect the customer, the customer comes back to you.”