Case Study · Launched September 2026 · Custom Websites

odditydecorstore.com — a dark, museum-inspired home for two very different kinds of work

Madison Ruple is the artist behind Oddity Decor Store in Fort Lupton, Colorado, where handmade oddity decor, animal memorials, and beetle-cleaning services serve people in very different moments. Madison and I shaped a custom multi-page website around those differences, with a practical estimate calculator based on her pricing and branded materials that support the same customer process.

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odditydecorstore.com home page — a next-show strip above the header, the headline Weird & Wonderful in a cream serif beside a candlelit photo of a small skull in a teacup with red mushrooms, and two doors below it: Pet & animal memorials in lavender and Skulls, bones & curiosities in orange

The live home page: a near-black ground, brass and gold details, the next show above the header, and Madison's skull-in-a-teacup in the vitrine frame. Select any screenshot to enlarge.

The brief: "dark and moody, museum-inspired — and keep the memorials apart"

Madison's intake asked for dark and moody: gothic detail, natural textures, gold accents, and bright pops of orange, purple and blue. And it drew one line that shaped everything else: her custom pet memorials had to be clearly separated from the retail oddities while the whole thing still reads as one brand. Someone arriving at the memorial page may have lost an animal very recently. Someone arriving at the gallery wants a skull in a teacup.

The answer is one design in two registers. The gallery, shows and skull-cleaning pages run warm — orange accents, short quick copy. The memorial page switches to a lavender accent, drops every exclamation mark, and slows down; the beetle-colony photo never appears beside memorial copy. The seam is drawn on the home page as two doors, side by side, and memorial content never shares a page with anything for sale.

"Museum-inspired" turned out to be the most useful phrase in the brief. It became the vitrine-style frames, the small labels used only where a piece needed naming, and the ✧ sparkle carried over from Madison's printed price list. The palette was checked for accessible contrast, so the dark presentation did not come at the cost of readable text.

The Pet & Animal Memorials page — lavender accent, a serif headline, and in the vitrine frame a line drawing of an arched memorial cabinet with a butterfly, a fern, dried flowers and small corked bottles in its compartments, then the start of the how-it-works section

“From the very beginning, Dave provided phenomenal service and truly took the time to understand my business and everything we offer at Oddity Decor Store. Pet memorial work can be a delicate subject, but he did an incredible job showcasing the services in a way that feels professional, meaningful, and informative while still keeping the site warm and lighthearted.

“He brought my vision to life perfectly, and we couldn’t be happier with how the website turned out. We absolutely love it and would highly recommend Dave to anyone looking for someone who genuinely listens, understands their business, and delivers an amazing finished product.”

Madison RupleOddity Decor StoreShared publicly on the Oddity Decor Store Instagram account.

The memorial page draws itself

The memorial page opens with a line drawing of a cabinet coming together piece by piece. It gives the page a quiet, grounded introduction before the practical steps and family stories begin, while keeping the memorial experience separate from the brighter retail side of the site.

A practical estimate, built around her pricing

Skull-cleaning prices vary by animal, service tier, quantity, and add-ons. Instead of asking a customer to total the table by hand, the calculator follows Madison's verified pricing and produces a clear estimate that can be copied, emailed, sent through the inquiry form, or printed. Memorial work stays inquiry-based, so that side of the tool builds a project summary without inventing a price.

The skull-cleaning price table — five animals down the side, three tiers across, with the gag fee, pet memorial line, and the wild-game rule beneath it — **Madison's pricing as the source of truth**Five animal categories, three service tiers, and the related add-ons and terms carry through from her existing price table.

The estimate calculator mid-use — Elk, the full cleaning tier, quantity two and the gag fee selected, with a running total of $570 and a plain-text summary ready to copy, email, send or print — **A practical customer tool**A customer can work from the same pricing Madison uses, then carry the details into an inquiry instead of starting over.

Site highlights

Four parts of the finished site that show how Madison's decisions shaped the visitor experience. Select any screenshot to enlarge.

The memorial page's four-step How a memorial comes together section and its Two ways to remember them cards, in the lavender memorial register — **The memorial page, unhurried**Four unhurried steps, two ways to remember an animal, and language that treats the animal as an individual and the owner as family.

The gallery page's top half, What to see at our upcoming shows — a grid of square photo tiles with no captions: a butterfly cloche, a lit apothecary jar, a skeleton lamp, a painted skull, a snake skeleton in a brass box, and more, in full rows of three — **A gallery in two halves — her call**Madison chose not to sell online, so the shop became a gallery: pieces coming to the next show above, sold and commissioned work below, and one inquiry route for each section. The former shop URL redirects to the gallery.

The shows page's From the booth section — the heading Oddity and Fear Fest with the venue and dates, Colorado Springs Event Center, September 19 & 20, 2026, above rows of uncropped booth photos with no captions: a skull in a glass globe, a taxidermy duckling beside red roses in a glass case, an oak cabinet holding a starfish, a bell jar, a beaded frame, a framed death's-head hawkmoth, and a brass lantern, then a See 9 more photos button — **A shows page that keeps up with the calendar**Added after launch when the full show list proved too easy to miss on the About page. The home page carries the next show in a dated strip that hides after the event. After Oddity and Fear Fest in September 2026, the show moved to the past list and Madison's photos from the booth went up in their own section — uncropped and caption-free, like the gallery.

odditydecorstore.com home page on a phone — the next-show strip, the hero, the teacup photo, and the two doors stacked in a single column — **Responsive from the start**Because much of Madison's existing presence was on Instagram, the phone experience was part of the design from the start. All ten pages were checked at phone width with no horizontal overflow, and the pricing table now becomes a readable block for each animal rather than requiring sideways scrolling.

Supporting materials for the same customer process

The website was only one part of the customer process. Madison already used a printed price list and estimate forms, so those materials were re-typeset around the same pricing, terms, and brand details customers see online. When she found her intake agreement, it was added to the same visual system.

Page one of the printed price list on cream paper — Dermestid Beetle Cleaned Skulls, three tier columns by animal, an Additional section, the wild-game rule, and the deposit and pickup terms — **The price list, page one**Three beetle-cleaning tiers by animal, the add-ons, the wild-game rule, and the deposit and pickup terms. Page two covers memorials and custom displays.

Page one of the beetle-cleaning estimate form on cream paper — estimate number and date lines, customer and specimen fields with checkboxes, the standard price menu, selected services with quantity, rate and amount columns, and the totals block — **The beetle-cleaning estimate**Her working estimate form, re-typeset around the same fields, pricing menu, and seven terms. The intake agreement it refers to was added in the same visual system a few days later.

Her phone number is printed on every page of the originals and is left off these previews on purpose — it stays off the web.

Light paper, dark site — on purpose. The website is near-black on screen; the documents stay cream because they need to print and photocopy clearly. Their serif type, tracked capitals, and ✧ sparkle follow Madison's existing materials, while the pricing, fields, and numbered terms were checked line by line against her originals. The editable source also makes future price or wording updates straightforward without redesigning the documents from scratch. See more supporting materials →

After launch: the site kept moving

A launch is a starting point. In the first week, Madison sent new photos, refined the presentation, and made decisions that changed the site. Those updates were carried through while the project context was still fresh.

Her photos, her words, her calls

Within the first week, the shop became a gallery when Madison decided not to sell online, and a dedicated shows page was added when the event list proved too easy to miss. Thirty of her photos arrived in three batches — beetle-colony and finished-skull images, sold work, and pieces coming to the next show — then were prepared for the web and placed in the right parts of the site.

She sent draft copy about the beetle colony and asked for help making it sound more like her. I helped refine it in the first person while keeping the facts intact; when she sent her final version, that became the page copy. She also asked to remove captions from every photo, including the enlarged view, so the gallery became the spare, inquiry-led experience she wanted.

Each batch went through the same repeatable audit used at launch, and each decision went into the build log so later work could start from a reliable project record. That continuity — not a frozen launch-day handoff — is the clearest Website Care story here.

The skull-cleaning page's photo section — a finished deer European mount, a skull in a chest freezer, beetle-tank shots, bones sorted into labeled tubs on a double-width tile, and a small skeleton laid out on wood

A stronger hero image without changing the artwork

The skull-in-a-teacup piece needed to lead the home page, but Madison only had a phone photo taken on a busy bench. The piece was separated from that setting, placed in a dark tabletop scene that matched the site, and then restored from the original cut-out so the artwork itself stayed unchanged.

The original phone photo: a small skull in a white teacup on lit moss with red mushrooms, on a cluttered workbench with a tumbler, a glue bottle and tools around it — **1 · The phone photo**Busy bench, mixed light, a glue bottle in shot.

The same piece with the background removed cleanly, on a plain dark ground — **2 · The cut-out**Background removed, the piece untouched.

The finished hero shot: the same teacup piece on a dark walnut tea table by candlelight, with a tarnished silver teapot, stacked saucers and dried roses out of focus behind it — **3 · The hero shot**A candlelit tea table generated around it, then the original pixels layered back on top.

Only the surroundings were generated. The photographed piece was restored from the original cut-out so the site did not invent or repaint Madison's work. See the product-visual process →

What supports the finished site

The visible experience rests on careful customer flows, supporting materials, accessibility, testing, and launch work.

✓

Custom multi-page websiteHome, Memorials, Skull Cleaning, Estimate, Gallery, Shows, About, and Contact, plus branded utility pages — built around how visitors browse, inquire, and prepare for a service.

✓

Two visitor experiences, one brandWarm orange for retail and service content; quieter lavender for memorials, with copy, imagery, and navigation kept appropriate to each context.

✓

Estimate and inquiry toolsThree photo-enabled forms and a calculator based on Madison's pricing, with a summary-only path for individually quoted memorial work.

✓

Supporting business materialsA price list, two estimate forms, and an intake agreement aligned with her existing print style and checked against her source material.

✓

Accessible, responsive experienceKeyboard-usable interactions on the client site, reduced-motion support, measured color contrast, and mobile checks across all ten pages.

✓

Search, launch, and continuityCanonical metadata, social sharing, structured data, sitemap, HTTPS, a repeatable audit, and a build log for future updates.

What does a project like this cost?

At current founding-client pricing, a project with this scope would start with the Complete Site tier at $2,000, with the estimate calculator and supporting materials scoped separately based on what the project needs. Website Care is available after launch from $59/month. Final pricing is confirmed after a scope review.

See website pricing →

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