How Annie M's Collectibles became Make it Yours Crafts

Within 2 years she was using her garage as a warehouse and shipping packages daily around the country and the world and found it was time to expand to a "brick and mortar store" and the Lenth's and 14 month old son Griffin packed up and moved to the rural town of Welton.  They secured property that contained an old retail store and warehouse for a feed store and a house and some outbuildings.  It was a fixer upper, but suited their needs.  They would have a walk-in store and continue to ship over 20 packages daily across the world from website orders.

The store was painted & carpeted and the warehouse set up over the summer.  The grand opening was held on August 21, 1999.  Then the first of 3 festivals honoring the movie's canine hero Toto, was held in May of 2000.  Meinhardt Raabe was guest of honor, he played the Munchkin Coroner in the 1939 movie, proudly pronouncing the Wicked Witch of the East dead, after Dorothy's house "dropped" on her.  Other munchkins in attendance at the festivals included Margaret Pelligrini who was a sleepyhead and a townswoman and Clarence Swenson, who was a soldier.

Ann closed the doors to Annie M's in 2005, to spend time with her growing family that included 7 year old son Griffin and 4 year old twin girls, Gretchen and Gillian.  It was time to move on, but was very hard to say good-bye to all of her friends and customers she had met over the years.

The store was used as storage until it was converted into a craftroom for Ann in the summer of 2009.  Soon Ann knew her new passion needed to be furthered into a business and once again, the building was turned back into a retail store which is of course now, Make it Yours Crafts.

Please come back later this week for more information on the business and what is in store for customers!