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Case study · 3D storybook website + store + owner dashboard

Hart of Christmas

A small-town Christmas shop with a home page you turn like a storybook, and a back office the owner runs from her phone.

Visit hartofchristmas.com →
Hart of Christmas: 3D storybook website + store + owner dashboard
The live site as it looks today.
Client
Hart of Christmas, Hartwell, Georgia
Type
3D storybook website, online store, owner dashboard
Stack
WebGL storybook on a static page, Node + SQLite dashboard, Stripe-ready store, phone barcode scanner
Status
Live, with monthly care
Where
Hartwell, Georgia, USA (delivered remotely from Greenville, SC)

The brief

Hart of Christmas is a year-round Christmas shop in Hartwell, Georgia. The owner wanted a website that felt like walking into the store: warm, a little magical, and nothing like a template. She also needed to run it herself, from a phone, without calling a developer every time a product or a song changed.

Most agencies would have offered a theme and a plugin. The 3D part is the point here: the shop sells atmosphere, so the website had to sell atmosphere too, and still load fast on a phone in rural Georgia.

What shipped

  • A 3D storybook home page you turn page by page, with falling snow and the owner's own music that starts on the first tap
  • A pinch, drag and double-tap reading mode so the book is readable on small screens
  • An elf door that opens a card from Grumblethorn, the shop's jewelry elf, with his own phone line
  • A live product catalog and store with inventory imported from the shop's point-of-sale export
  • A phone barcode scanner for stock, protected by a PIN
  • A dashboard with a visual blog editor, photo uploads, music slots, moderated reader notes and a built-in 'show me around' tutorial

How it was built

The storybook is a WebGL scene on a static page, so it is fast and cheap to host. Every page, song and product it shows comes from a small Node dashboard with a SQLite database that the owner edits herself.

The whole build was vibe coded: AI-assisted development directed and reviewed by a senior engineer, then hardened for phones first, because that is where the shop's customers are. Two owner-feedback passes followed, each shipped within a day of her notes.

Where it stands

  • The owner updates products, music and blog posts herself; no developer in the loop
  • The first owner-feedback round turned into live changes the same day
  • Hart of Christmas was the first building in Client City, our walkable 3D portfolio

One lesson

On phones, music and animation only start after a real tap. Designing the first touch as the 'open the book' moment made the whole experience work on mobile.

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