SCRAPS! is more than just your average store

Pioneer Times photograph/Gloria Austin
TOGETHER — Together, from left, Lisa Winship, Bev Rowe and son David have made SCRAPS! work in downtown Market Square. The shop offers an array of scrapbook items, tools and of course, conversation.
By Gloria Austin
Staff Writer
    It’s so much more than a store. That seems to be the consensus among those who visit and for co-owners Bev Rowe and Lisa Winship.
    SCRAPS! at 23 Market Square, Houlton, has developed into a haven.
    “We’ve each heard so many stories from all of our customers – some sad and some good,” said Winship. “We try to validate and celebrate each person when they want to share an experience with us, or a story behind a picture or a project they have created and brought in to show us. It’s a place where we can be safe and validate one another and be there for each other.”
    “These women get together and they are close,” said Rowe. “They have met here and formed very close relationships. They are each other’s support system. It has grown into something that we had no idea it would be.”
    When Rowe’s son, David, was getting ready to be deployed to Iraq as a crew chief on a Blackhawk with the United States Army National Guard, he knew his mother needed a distraction from worrying about him.
    “He was concerned I’d be glued in front of CNN,” she said with a smile.
    “I thought it was a good idea,” said David Rowe. “There was no place around town to do [scrapbooking], so it is a business the town wants, there is a demand for it and I was able to rent this place.”
    The storefront was empty, so the Rowes looked at it and liked it.
    “It was a family effort to get this started,” said Winship. “Bev’s husband Glen is a fabulous carpenter.”
    “Glen built everything and I climbed dumpsters for some of it,” Rowe said. “When you have an idea and you need to make it work, you figure out a way and that is what we did.”
    Before that, Rowe had a little box under her bed and when the kids would go to sleep, she’d pull it out onto the floor and work on it.
    “I had never been in a scrapbooking store before the day that David left for Iraq,” she said.
Pioneer Times photograph/Gloria Austin
NEW TREND — Smash Books are the latest trend in scrapbooking, as Bev Rowe, left, and Lisa Winship, co-owners of SCRAPS! look over the new inventory.
    SCRAPS! opened October of 2005. With David paying the rent for her monthly, Rowe was able to reinvest in her store.
    “Any money that came in, it bought new product,” she said. “There were no resources and limited access to scrapbooking items. I started with a very small inventory. I didn’t take out a loan because if no one came through that door, how was I going to pay suppliers? So, I bought all the items as money came in. As people bought more, I would buy more.”
    Rowe worked six days a week.
    “Thank goodness for Eva (McLaughlin) my niece,” said Rowe. “She would come in and give me a day so I could do all those things you can’t do when you are somewhere six days a week. She was ever so helpful. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
    But after a year of laboring, she decided to close on Mondays, allowing herself two days of rest.
    After her son’s two tours in Iraq, he was discharged and coming home.
     “David came home from Iraq and I no longer needed a distraction,” said Rowe. “I didn’t need something to keep my eyes busy, so I had decided to close the store.”
    Winship’s husband, David, would hear of women at their church scrapbooking and encouraged her to start a pastime.
    She replied to her husband, “I don’t have time for scrapbooking, but he kept bugging me. So, I went and I tried it and I loved it. Especially when I found out it’s more than just a hobby. It’s a way that I am preserving my photos and telling the story behind them too. It is worthwhile and I absolutely love it and I am so excited about it.”
    As Winship’s excitement grew, her husband urged her to talk to Rowe about maybe going into business with her.
    “When I asked Bev, I didn’t know she was thinking about selling the store,” Winship explained.
    “The timing was perfect,” Rowe added.
    In April 2007, Winship went into partnership with Rowe.
    “It was great when Lisa came along because she took over the things I really wasn’t good at,” said Rowe. “She is the neat one and I’m the messy one.”
    With a laugh, Winship added, “We compliment each other.”
    The ladies split the schedule working two and a half days each and then worked together a day to talk over the business.
    “We scrapbook totally different,” Rowe said. “She orders product I would never think of having in the store.”
    “And, it’s vice-versa,” quickly added Winship.
    “I get weird, funky stuff that sometimes doesn’t sell, but she indulges me anyway,” quipped Rowe. “And, I like to get traditional yet fun stuff that appeals to everyone. Especially paper!,” Winship said with a laugh.
    With Winship on board, the two decided to create a scrapbook lounge at the back of the store.
    “The back room had just been all storage,” Rowe explained. “We took Lisa’s investment and cleaned out the room, painted, put in new carpeting and tables and it became a classroom.”
    Now, it is not only for classes, but used for birthday parties, coupon group gathering to Girl Scout meetings. The room is also available for open crops.
    “People bring their own stuff and go out back and play with the toys and tools,” explained Winship. “They scrapbook or make cards. As long as we are open, that back room is open to the public.”
Pioneer Times photograph/Gloria Austin
LIKES WHAT HE SEES — David Rowe, who helped his mother open SCRAPS! in downtown Market Square likes what has happened with the store, as he looks over some new items that have arrived.
    As scrapbooking has become more popular, Rowe believes the store serves a purpose.
    “I think we got into it at the right time,” she said. “We have a lot more business, it seems to be growing. When I first started out, there would be days that I would just see the postman.”
    In the beginning, scrapbooking hadn’t taken off. But once it did, it exploded.
    “When we started advertising and word got out, they started coming,” said Rowe. “But, I didn’t have enough inventory to satisfy people. When Lisa came and started spreading the word, it was instantly big.”
    “When you’re excited about something, it rubs off on other people too,” Winship noted. “That’s where a lot of our volunteers —who have now become close friends of ours — who come into the store to work one day a week got started because they got into scrapbooking.”
    For the volunteers, Rowe and Winship offer discounts on products or send them to events free to repay them for their time spent in the store.
    “It’s a collaborative effort,” Winship said. “Everyone chips in.”
    When new inventory arrives, not only are the co-owners unboxing, pricing and stocking, so are the volunteers and others who enjoy scrapbooking.
    “It’s like Christmas for all of us when new inventory comes in as we’re all excited to see what’s arrived and what it looks like in person,” said Winship. “We have friends who are just as excited as us when inventory arrives, and they come to help us put it all out.”
    “We are like a big family,” Rowe said. “I actually had a woman tell me SCRAPS! has changed her life. She was so lonely and through us and the good women at the store, she has made some good friends that have truly helped her. We have a good crowd of people, and we have people who visit every day.”
    Winship shook her head in agreement.
    “It’s great,” said David of the store’s identity. “It seems like a lot of people just come here to hang out and talk. It’s like a clubhouse.”
    One of the more popular events that SCRAPS! started was Scrapmania in September 2008.
    “Lisa does all of the Scrapmanias,” Rowe said. “That is our most successful event.”
    Scrapmania is a two-day event held at the Full Gospel Assembly on outer Court Street. It is open to the public for $15, which secures a seat, guaranteed door prize and a chance to win the grand prize.
    “Pastor Hatch and his wife Kathy are very gracious,” Winship said. “They take a donation to use the church to host the event in town in a place that is easy to find, has great parking, a beautiful kitchen for potluck and a hall with great lighting.”
    Scrapmania started with 15 to 20 participants and has grown to larger ones from 35 to 40.
    SCRAPS! is also part of the Women’s Expo in Presque Isle and a group attends the annual convention for scrapbookers in Presque Isle, as well.
    “A lot vendors come from all over – southern Maine all the way up to the northern tip of Maine — and Canadian customers come. It is huge,” said Rowe.
    “It gets a lot of people interested in coming to Houlton,” Winship added.
    SCRAPS! does not want to be in competition with other local stores.
    “We want to support other stores just like we want to support other demonstrators,” said Winship.
    SCRAPS! carries K&Company, October Afternoon, Basic Gray, Little Yellow Bicycle, Bow Bunny, Karen Foster, Kaiser Kraft, Cricket and Sizzix products to name a few.
    The partners say they try to keep current in their items from embellishments to paper, along with tools of the trade, as well as keeping prices fair.
    “We have a lot of regular customers who are avid cardmakers,” said Winship, “but, having individual paper and our prices are comparable or better than at a high-retail store even with a coupon. We get a lot of Canadian customers saying our prices are better than they are finding other places and we take Canadian money at par.”
    “When we get a deal, we pass on those deals,” said Rowe.
    The newest craze in scrapbooking is Smash Books and SCRAPS! carries the entire line.
    “Old-fashioned scrapbooking is coming back,” Rowe explained. “It’s the unplanned page.”
    SCRAPS! also takes special orders for customers.
    “We can’t carry a huge inventory because the store is small and it’s expensive,” said Rowe. “But, we very seldom are not able to find what someone needs. If you don’t like the item once it arrives, you are not obligated to take it.”
    SCRAPS! is open by appointment, with normal store hours Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. To reach SCRAPS! call 532-0810 or check out their Facebook page.
    “You can scrap anything,” Rowe said. “When you were a kid and you had the paste stick, paper and scissors for Craft Day, it’s like that every day for us. It never gets old and we always meet new people.”