FEATURE
Touring Mrs. Grossman’s sticker factory in clouds — and thus was born the concept of Stickers Petaluma, Calif., is like getting the golden by the Yard. Grossman debuted her stickers at a ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. national stationery show and could barely keep up
The 110,000-square-foot building is home to a with the orders. There was nothing on the market host of busy machines, a crew of friendly folks, and like these cheery, decorative decals, and folks just more stickers than you’ve ever seen under one roof. couldn’t get enough.
Smiles abound. It helps when your job is making teddy bears and rainbows and you work for a company of true crafter integrity.
Like many a great invention, Mrs. Grossman’s stickers started as the result of a fortunate accident and the zeal to come up with something new. In 1979, Mrs. Grossman’s Paper Company (MGPC) was run from the dining room table of Andrea Grossman, at the time a freelance graphic designer. She specialized in stationery, wrapping paper, bags, and notes bearing old woodcut images from seed catalogs.
One of her clients, Pine Street Papery in Sausalito, wanted little red heart “seals” for Valentine’s Day embellishments. At the time, no such thing was made locally, so Grossman took it upon herself to cut a perfect, fat heart out of black silhouette paper and send it off to a local label maker.
When her order arrived, the stickers had mistakenly been printed on rolls instead of the sheets Grossman had expected. Despite their unconventionality, the rolls were beautiful, and she displayed them at the paper shop with a yardstick and a pair of scissors, for sale individually or by the yard, like ribbon. Customers immediately embraced the little stickers, and the shop sold 4,000 the first week.
Seizing this unexpected opportunity, Grossman quickly made nine more designs — duck, goose, bear, kiss, rainbow, star, pig, lightning bolt, and
“Taking one off the backing and putting it on paper is a mini act of creating,” says Grossman, explaining people’s attraction to the stickers.
In less than two years, Mrs. Grossman’s went from having two employees to 50. “Stickermania” was in full swing, and Grossman was credited by People magazine as sparking the trend. Kids were actively collecting and trading stickers and displaying them in photo albums. There were sticker conventions, sticker stores, even a magazine called Stickers. By 1983, Mrs. Grossman’s stickers were sold in at least 15 different countries.
Then, without warning, in the fall of 1984, the fad suddenly faded. Kids were no longer interested in collecting stickers. They had moved on. The chain stores closed, the magazine folded, and retailers wondered what to do with their overflow inventory.
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