Inspired Creativity Supplies and More opens in Merrill

BY TINA L.
EDITOR

Inspired Creativity Supplies & More, a new store offering craft supplies, is dedicated to inspiring creativity among those who visit to search for specific items or to browse the entire selection.
Tanya Robl has opened a new store in Merrill at 705 S. Center Ave. Suite C. This was the former Stark Automotive building. The building is now divided into suites, which are used by a wide range of businesses. Robl likes the spacious location, with plenty of parking and space to grow.
She opened her doors on August 21, 2023 and celebrated with an Aug. 26 Grand Opening.
“This has been a lifelong dream of mine,” Robl said. Robl grew up near Merrill. Years ago, the Ben Franklin sold some crafts, and Walmart now sells some, but she wished for a place that crafters could gather to be inspired and get the materials they need.
“I’ve always been a crafter,” she said, “And thought it would be a good idea to bring something like this to Merrill.”
She was an agronomist at VanderGeest Dairy, and she planned to retire soon. This gave her the perfect opportunity to open the store of your dreams. Her husband encouraged her in pursuing that dream. “You should open your craft store,” he said.
Robl said she had also been doing a “side hustle,” creating customized products like shirts, can koozies, and ornaments doing “sublimation, DTF (direct to film) transfers, vinyl transfers, and stuff like that” and she will continue to offer those ready-to-go products at the store.
“I like to share my creativity with other people,” she said. She can now do this and inspire others to be creative with her new store.

Renting personal craft space
The back area of the shop will feature a private workspace that crafters can use to create, enjoy some personal time, and utilize her machines and equipment. “I will have the machines from my house, like my Silhouette, and I do have a heat press and a sublimation printer and stuff. Then there are some craft supplies for people to use. They’ll have access to a computer that’ll be in here, printing capabilities, stuff like that. I’m hoping before December … it’s a work in progress,” she said.

Crafting workshops
Inspired Creativity offers workshops in addition to the craft supplies they sell. The classes will be taught by local instructors, and held in a private room located at the rear of the store. The instructors will rent out the space and charge what they want for their classes. Class supplies are included in the cost. Robl will help promote the classes. The first two teachers are Robin Harder, and Rachel Olson. Classes could include everything from painting signs to making beaded earrings, to any other craft. She plans to run workshops for children.
“Kid workshops are on Saturdays and adult workshops are on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, but Saturday mid morning is our kids ones. We’re going to try to do at least one a month for kids. Right now for the month of October and November, we have two scheduled for each month,” she said.
Robl said she is pretty much self-taught. For instance, she taught herself to crochet in a weekend, when she was couch bound after a surgical procedure, she said. But she recognizes that many people learn better from someone else demonstrating in person and providing assistance, so her workshops and private crafting area help all types of learners.
Inspired Creativity also has a make-and-take table with less expensive quick crafts customers can do right at the table in the store. “There’ll be a kids one available and an adult one every week,” Robl said.
Examples of recent make-and-take crafts include a macrame keychain and a beaded bubble wand for the kids. She anticipates there will be quite a few paper crafting projects, too, “just cause those are easy make-and-takes; you don’t really need somebody over there to explain it,” she said.
“There’s lots of crafts you can do, like easy crafts you can do with toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls. stuff like that. Or even clothes pins,” Robl said. Many crafts will focus on an upcoming holiday theme, she said.

Yarn and markers and paints, oh my!
Robl said she conducted an informal online survey prior to starting the store “to get a feel for what other people were looking for in town” so she could try to stock in-demand items in the shop.
Inspired Creativity is large and spacious, handicap accessible and handicap friendly, with wide aisles and lots of room for growth. The store already stocks lots of products: basic sewing notions; supplies for yarn crafts including crochet hooks and knitting needles, crochet thread, and Bernat yarn; needle felting supplies; paracord for necklaces and bracelets; fat quarters (fabric) for quilting and crafts; Coats and Clark thread; fiberfill; kits; embroidery floss; macrame materials; dye markers, tie dye kits, etc.; clothing and fabric dyes, fabric markers; pouring paints; resin art supplies; Distressed ink pads and Distressed Paints; acrylic and tempera paints, paint brushes, foam brushes, stencil brushes, and blanks (canvases and wood blanks for painting); wood shapes and blanks like the alphabet and seasonal cutouts (many cut by a local crafter), cutting boards, etc.; crafting tools; adhesives like craft tape, E6000, and glitter glue; Mod Podge products; scrapbooking and paper crafts; coloring books, adult coloring books; heat gloves; Silhouette supplies; basketry supplies; model kits; school supplies like crayons, markers, and construction paper; laminating pouches; gel pens, calligraphy pens, and drawing pens; kids craft stuff including Color Wonder, a few beads, some window art, loops for looms, a sculpting wheel, mosaic tiles, modeling clay, and Diamond Art diamond painting. Robl said Color Wonder and diamond painting are popular right now.
Some items almost flew off the shelves. “We had word search books and Sudoku books and stuff, but those are sold out already,” Robl said. Their inventory of models was going fast, too. “These are the only two I have left,” she said pointing to the shelf. “Before we put the price tags out, we sold two of them.”
And “I had 3D puzzles up here, which were the first thing to be completely sold out, which was nice.”
Signs on their shelves remind customers: “Our shelves may look bare, but that is only because we are saving space for some awesome new inventory that will be coming in the next few months.”
“We will be getting more in,” Robl said. “A lot of our stuff is on back order yet. It’ll be trickling in until the end of November.”

Up and coming trends
So far Robl has already seen that 3D puzzles, word puzzle and Sudoku puzzle books, and model kits are incredibly popular.
“Macrame is also a big up-and-coming craft right now,” she said. “It’s coming back for sure. That’s one of the hottest up-and-coming crafts,” Robl said.
“Basketry is kind of making its way back,” she said. “I love doing basketry. We will be doing some basketry courses, coming up probably after the first of the year, because right now we’re on holiday crafts.”
“And one thing I’d like to carry in here eventually is stained glass,” she said. “But it’s hard to come by, because there’s only one main company, Delphi Glass, in Michigan. So it’s not far away, but shipping is hard for stained glass. It weighs a lot, and it’s very breakable.”
Robl said her distributors set her retail prices, so she’s assured her prices are competitive even though she’s a smaller retailer. “From what I understand, I am cheaper, if not the same price as other places,” Robl said. She said she can see what the retail price will be when she places an order. “If it’s something that I feel is too expensive, like for me to purchase, I’m not going to want to get it in my store because other people aren’t going to want to purchase it either. … So, if I see it’s way out of line, I’ll be like, no, I just won’t carry that. Or I’ll look for a different brand of it.”
Inspired Creativity Supplies and More accepts credit and debit cards and is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.