I get a lot of questions about the origin of Cut & Paste. Is it a franchise? No, well, then how did you come up with the idea? Were you an art teacher? What is your background? Has this always been your dream?
I’m not an art teacher, but I have a long history of crafting. My mother taught me to sew when I was 10. My sister taught me to embroider and then to cross stitch. I’ve done needlepoint, painted t-shirts and ceramics. After my kids were born I began scrapbooking my photos. When they started school I started Girl Scout troops for them, which of course, involved much crafting.
Opening a craft studio was never a dream of mine. I have a degree in marine biology, but when life kept me in Lexington, instead of on a coast, I pursued other careers. When my kids were close to college age I was working part-time at Lexington Family Magazine and beginning to feel a need for a change.
As an avid scrapbooker, I was sad when both our local scrapbook store and the biggest national scrapbook store shut their doors. A friend and I were playing “what would I do different” to keep a scrapbook store open. Hmmm…maybe a espresso bar, maybe a playspace for kids. But I soon realized that most people rarely take their photos of their phones any more. Scrabooking is just not as popular as it once was.
But I kept playing the “what if I won the lottery” game. What sort of craft business would I open? My friend and I kept bouncing ideas off each other, and the first seedlings of the Cut & Paste idea began to grow. One day, I told my husband about this idea where adults and kids could craft together, thinking he’d say “sure, when you win the lottery.” Instead, he said “Hmmm…why don’t we run some numbers and see if you could make it work.”
Apparently, I did win the lottery, 29 years ago, when I married that man.
That was June of 2014. We starting planning and researching, looking for ideas and inspiration. In January of 2015, I quit my job, and with knocking knees, signed a lease for our location. Then began the serious planning.
I hired my dream team, including my daughters Aimee, who was just graduating from college, and Melissa, who was about to start her senior year in high school. Melissa recommended two of her friends, Collin the artist, and Addie the actress. I met Addie’s mom Tanya, a long time crafter, and hired her, too. We sat around the table in my kitchen, making crafts for two weeks while the workmen put the finishing touches on our studio. Then my intrepid staff and I built all the shelves, the tables, the check-out counter, the displays and the workbenches, running to Meijer to use the bathrooms because the water wasn’t hooked up yet!
On June 22, 2015 we opened our doors to our first customers. Just 2 weeks ago we celebrated our 3rd birthday and our 475th birthday party plus thousands of customers and hundreds of class students, and dozens of camps.
Cut & Paste isn’t quite what I envisioned in those first “what if I won the lottery” conversations (what happened to that espresso bar?), but it is a bright, comfortable, messy, happy studio and THAT was my ultimate goal!
