Craig Nyholm is gearing up for a busy February. The head of Nyholm Supply, a truck and auto parts supplier in Milwaukee, has a side business making dozens of varieties of candy concoctions.

The Brown Deer resident started tinkering with candy making about four years ago. "I went to the store to buy some candy for the women in the family and thought, ‘This is really expensive,’" he recalls. Seeing slabs of chocolate, he figured he could make his own creations and set out to prove that he could. Nyholm now has 13 flavors for his fillings and numerous molds for making specialty items.

Word spread about Nyholm’s candy talents and now he’s kept busy supplying goodies for corporate gift boxes, receptions, parties and weddings, including happily getting the order for the September nuptials of his youngest daughter, Carrie.

"I get a call and it’s hard to say no," Nyholm indicates of this growing side business, which he calls Heavenly Treasures. He even has a patent pending on a chocolate sauce that remains soft when it is poured over ice cream. "I have three flavors: Avalanche, Mudslide and I’m thinking of maybe Quicksand in keeping with the disaster theme. That’s the one with caramel," he says.

Nyholm is also part-time chef at the White Birch Inn near the yacht club in Door County’s Sturgeon Bay. It’s here that Nyholm also works on his candy making, each creation more sinfully wonderful than the next.

"Valentine’s Day, of course, is a big time for me. I make a lot of hearts," Nyholm says, who, incidentally, is not a big chocolate eater himself.

He regularly leaves chocolate items for guests in their rooms at the White Birch Inn, which are certainly more-than-the-mere-mint-on-the-pillow toss aways. In addition, the Piggly Wiggly store in Jackson and another outlet in Sturgeon Bay are stocking his wares. And without a doubt, Nyholm’s automotive clients love when he drops by with samples. For more details about Heavenly Treasures, call (414) 699-9675.