TURNER – Venture into a world filled with unique glassware and furniture. Find the gourmet items you need for that special dinner and dessert. Thank your customers with a custom-made, truly unusual Maine-made product or decorate your own home with items that reflect your taste for something different. All of these things and many more, can be found at Murdock Country Creations located on Route 4.

Have you ever tried to find a special gift for a bride and groom? How about a set of handpainted wine glasses with a matching pitcher or a slate welcome sign for their front door? Need a small but unique something for a good friend and been stymied by the ordinary offerings? How about a regional cookbook and the music to match or a vase covered with your friend’s favorite sunflowers.

Owner Kellie Murdock has filled her Route 4 store with such a wide variety of offerings that finding the perfect present will not be a problem. Following her first year in business, during which Murdock test-marketed dozens of products, lines such as gourmet cooking ingredients and Maine-themed glassware are being expanded. Catering to companies that want to recognize their valued customers, Murdock has also begun a new line of gift baskets designed to reflect New England products and ingenuity. But those same gift baskets can be made up individually for Mother’s and Father’s Day as well as Valentine’s Day or a family celebration such as the birth of a baby or a house warming.

Based on the likes and dislikes of her customers, Murdock is bringing in a new line of retro housewares including tinware and expanding her line of unique baby gifts and products. To introduce everyone to her new gourmet food products, there will be a Gourmet Night held this spring for those who like to sample. Have you tried apple syrup on your pork chops or maybe raspberry curd for those special tarts. The store features culinary delights from a wide range of producers including Stonewall Kitchen’s jams and relishes, Rowena’s southern favorites such as carrot jam and praline sauce as well as finishing sauces and flavored oils from Bittersweet Farm.

A new dimension is being added to the store later this spring with the introduction of a custom-made furniture department. The store now features furniture reproductions of pieces handcrafted in New England in the early 1800s with raised panels and distressed finishes.

For the bride that wants more than bath towels and sheets, the store provides a bridal registry and will customize champagne or wine glasses for the event as well as favors for the bridal party and guests.

The store is laid out with areas done by themes including Victorian, lodge, Shabby Chic and country so several items for a room can be purchased together such as furniture, pillows, pictures, vases and collectibles. Items throughout the store are done by local artists including painted furniture, photography, greeting cards, painted slates, custom-made signs and pressed flower glass items like picture frames.

Murdock good-naturedly relates that everyone’s first response when they come into the store is “I can’t believe how big it is!” The store does look small from the outside, she says, but really isn’t.

So the next time you need a gift for yourself or someone else, come and explore the wide variety and unique offerings at Murdock Country Creations. It’s only 15 minutes from Lewiston and Auburn but its like walking into a very creative world that could be much farther away.

Murdock Country Creations

Route 4 in Turner

about one mile north of Route 117

Telephone 207-225-2477

Mon-Sat – 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Planning a fund raiser?

Murdock Country Creations has been helping local schools and non-profit organizations with several very successful fund raising activities. The custom made glass ornaments featured at the store can be the center of a fundraising initiative.

Owner Kellie Murdock will help organize the activity, provide brochures and, depending upon items chosen, provide a 40 percent return to the organization.

For more information on planning a fund raising activity, call Murdock Country Creations at 225-2477.