The Rock Paper Sisters Studio
We’ve experienced a whirlwind of emotions over the last few weeks as we officially cut the ribbon on our new studio space in Hurricane, West Virginia. To say it is a dream come true would be an understatement. On a three-hour car ride in 2012, we spilled our hopes and dreams to our husbands of one day opening a “paper store” where could share our love for all things paper, crafting, quality goods and more. While we’re not quite to the “paper store” yet, this new studio space is our first step in that direction!
When we officially started Rock Paper Sisters in 2012 (just a day after that car ride!), we worked out of a teeny, tiny office space in Megan’s 1,200 square foot home. We popped up a card table for our assembly space and we used a desktop printer for our entire inventory. We started small but mighty with friends and family trusting us with their most precious stationery needs – wedding invitations, first birthday parties, birth announcements. We are so thankful for all the people that took a chance on us in the very beginning and helped us to grow!
In 2014, we officially moved our office space to Lindsay’s house where we had just a little more space to spread out. By this time we were sourcing some of our larger projects to print shops and we had upgraded our card table to a bigger pedestal table. During this time, we had a few babies (three between us!) and we put Rock Paper Sisters on a bit of a hiatus while learned how to become mommies! It was after the birth of Lindsay’s oldest that she decided to stay at home and run Rock Paper Sisters full time. We made a commitment to start slow, and at the end of 2016 we decided we were ready for the next level.
Enter the wedding expo in January 2017! We had no idea what to expect with our first bridal show, but we secretly set a goal for the number of wedding clients we’d like to take on in 2017. This wasn’t just from the wedding expo, but from all of our lead captures and referrals. By the end of the four hour wedding expo, we had met our goal in bookings! We were amazed at the number of people who had heard about us, seen our work and were ready to sign us as their stationer. We were humbled, thankful and incredibly blessed.
By mid-year 2017, we were out of space in Lindsay’s office! Between our wedding and regular stationery clients, we had now spilled over from the office space into the dining room and part of the kitchen. There was paper everywhere! In addition to paper, we had our printers, packaging materials, styling items and more just strewn about. It was time to make a change!
In late summer 2017, we started exploring some options for studio space. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, but we looked at a few different spaces in our area. We landed on a space on Main Street in Hurricane that upon further investigation we found out there were other plans for the space. Feeling defeated, we went back to the drawing board. A few days later, we received a call from the city manager to come check out a little space on Dudding Avenue. From the moment we walked in the door, we knew it was what we needed!
Our space had previously been a law office that was well-loved and needed some TLC. The City of Hurricane did an amazing job in helping us create our vision – tearing down walls, raising the ceiling, removing old carpet and creating a beautiful white canvas for us to create with. By the beginning of October, we were ready to move out of Lindsay’s house and spread out in our new space.
We worked tirelessly in the month of October to get things set up and moved in for our ribbon cutting in November. A lot of late nights, with kids in tow, led us to the space you see now. We’re thrilled with what we’ve created with the help of our amazing family, in particular Ryan Rexroad Woodworking that created our custom 10 foot tables, accent wall and hutch.
This studio space not only allows us to spread out, but it gives us the opportunity to spread our love of DIY and crafting in a whole new way. Our space will be utilized for various workshops and private events throughout the year to give people an avenue to bring their Pinterest dreams to life. While we’re not yet at the place to call our space a “store” or a “retail shop,” we do hope to one day expand in that direction. For now, we’re thrilled to continue bringing custom stationery visions to life and a whole new side of creativity to Main Street in Hurricane. Thank you to everyone who has supported our dreams. We love our #RPStribe!
