Columbia Business Makes Preserving Memories a Creative Process

Columbia-On a Friday afternoon, Terri Stillman bustles around the Making Memories Scrapbook Store, located at 840 Columbia Center in the Marketplace Shopping Center, Columbia, helping customers pick out scrapbooking supplies and joking with one that maybe the scrapbook the customer is finishing will make her boyfriend cry. The customer laughingly responds that she hopes it does.

Perhaps it is this personalized service that has helped the Waterloo resident turn what began as a hobby into a viable business for the past nine and a half years.

“I worked in the health insurance field, but I fell in love with scrapbooking. I also wanted to have my own business since I had young kids and wanted a more flexible schedule,” says Stillman of the birth of Making Memories Scrapbook Store.

The store offers customers a full range of scrapbook and card-making supplies as well as Cricut supplies. Card-making is a huge market, according to Stillman.

The store is filled with colorful paper, scrapbooks, stickers, cutting tools, rubber stamps, and any other item a scrapbooking or card-making enthusiast could want. Also lining the wall are examples of the enlarged digital photographs she can make.

Stillman’s digital photo services gives customers the option of copying photos in regular sizes and scrapbook sizes, including 12x12, which can be used to make personalized background papers. She adds that the quality is so good that some customers frame the enlarged photographs as pieces of art.

Making Memories Scrapbook Store is also the only store in the area where customers can have their scrapbooks personalized with names or other items on the front of the book.

Another service Stillman provides are classes on scrapbooking and “crops” where people can come into the store to work on their scrapbooks.

Stillman, a native of St. Louis, moved to Waterloo in 1991 with her husband, Michael, her two daughters, and niece.

“We fell in love with it over here. We love the small town. I wouldn’t go back,” she says. She says she located her store in Columbia because 10 years ago Waterloo wasn’t as built up so there wasn’t an available location. Plus, she felt she could draw from Illinois residents as well as the St. Louis area from the Columbia location.

Stillman is also a supporter of the Think Monroe County First Program, donating a scrapbooking kit worth more than $100 for the October prize.

“I think it’s important for everyone to support the local merchants. It helps the community; it’s what our community is based on, the small-town neighborhood feel.”

Making Memories Scrapbook Store is open seven days a week during the following hours:
Monday-Friday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturdays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sundays: 12 to 4 p.m.

The phone number is 618-281-1991 or you can visit Stillman’s blog at www.makingmemoriesscrapbookstore.blogspot.com. The stores hours, class schedules and photos of projects can be found on the blog.