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Now That's Crafty!
Lewisville business defies the tough economy with its impressive inventory of rubber stamps
Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman
Owner Marilyn Johnson has an inventory of 35,000 rubber stamps at the Enchanted Cottage in Lewisville. She plans to celebrate the store’s 15th anniversary this weekend.
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Published: November 15, 2008
LEWISVILLE - The sagging economy has some retailers worried.
Not Marilyn Johnson.
Since opening the Enchanted Cottage 15 years ago, she has learned that craft businesses such as hers weather turbulent economic times pretty well.
When money is tight, people continue to make crafts, she said.
"Things become more meaningful when times are hard, whether that is making handmade things or writing memories in a scrapbook," Johnson said.
Crafting is already a big business. According to the Craft and Hobby Association, Americans spent more than $13 billion on crafts in 2007. Of that total, they spent $749 million on rubber stamps.
Johnson got into rubber stamping just as it was about to sweep the East Coast. Her store, the Enchanted Cottage, specializes in stamps, which crafters use for all sorts of projects, from cards to notebook covers to scrapbooks. Some projects may not involve much more than stamping something cute on the back of an envelope; others might involve fashioning elaborate cards with handcrafted paper.
With more than 35,000 stamps in its inventory, the Enchanted Cottage has become a sort of Mecca for stampers. Johnson said she believes that the store has the largest stamp inventory in the country. The store uses about 6,000-square feet in an old roller mill that is one of the town's iconic buildings.
Cindy Owens, who has worked alongside Johnson since 1993, has noticed some interesting reactions from people when they come to the store for the first time. "Usually, they stop at the door and they open their mouth and just drink it in," Owens said.
With its large collection of stamps and scrapbook supplies, the store has become a destination for people all over the Southeast.
Roger Fowler, a member of the Lewisville Town Council, said that the store has boosted the town's profile.
"I was always blown away by the out-of-state license plates in parking lots," Fowler said. "You'd see three or four church vans from Charlotte or Raleigh."
Johnson, a transplant from the Midwest, has dabbled in all sorts of crafts, such as tole painting and wreath-making. When her sons went to college, she decided to buy a monogram business to fill her time.
After a few years operating the business from her home, she decided that she wanted to move to downtown Lewisville. She found the perfect spot -- an old cottage on Shallowford Road next to the mill. Johnson and her husband, Bruce, restored the cottage with the plan of selling some crafts and running the monogram business out of a back room.
Johnson devoted one shelf to rubber stamping, a craft she had just become familiar with. A customer came in and convinced her that rubber stamping was the hot new thing. At the time, rubber stamping was big in such places as California and Texas and was beginning to creep eastward.
To introduce local people to the craft, she started offering after-hours classes at the store. Johnson said she also benefitted from a story about her store in a national crafts magazine. "This was not a business that I had a plan for," Johnson said.
In need of more space, she moved into the mill, a rustic building with wide-plank wood floors and a deep front porch where men can sit in rocking chairs while wives shop. The bigger space allows Johnson to offer classes during store hours.
The store has benefited from the boom in scrapbooking, which produced $2.5 billion in sales across the country last year, according to the Craft and Hobby Association. Scrapbookers often use stamps to add pizzazz to covers and pages. Johnson started carrying scrapbook supplies several years ago. She declined to give sales figures for her store.
June Hayes of East Bend is a regular visitor to the store. She likes to go there for classes and to buy stamps, which she uses to make cards for friends, she said.
"I'm in awe whenever I go in there because of what they have," Hayes said.
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lodonnell@wsjournal.com.
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