Dana's Hallmark opens, offers artisan merchandise

There's a new Hallmark store at an old Hallmark store location featuring a new twist on merchandising.

Confused? Keep reading for the translation.

Dana's Hallmark opened in early August in Cape Girardeau's Town Plaza Shopping Center in the former location of Carol's Hallmark, which closed last winter. Cape Girardeau's other Hallmark outlet, Kirlin's Hallmark, closed about two years ago.

The new store is owned and managed by Dana Swoboda-Grace who has been interested in becoming affiliated with Hallmark for several years.

"I had always wanted a Hallmark store," said Swoboda-Grace, who had previously worked at StevMark Home in Cape Girardeau. She said her persistence paid off. "Over the past five years, I had reached out several times to the company. After Carol's Hallmark closed, they finally called back."

A decorative inlay in a poplar dining table for sale is seen at Dana's Hallmark Store on Wednesday in Town Plaza in Cape Girardeau.TYLER GRAEF

Like the previous Hallmark stores, Dana's Hallmark features greeting cards for every occasion as well as merchandise ranging from Christmas ornaments to seasonal gifts, but unlike those stores, Dana's Hallmark also features unique merchandise made by artisans throughout the region and as far away as Colorado.

"This is something that makes sense to me because of Hallmark's platform," Swoboda-Grace said and explained Hallmark gives its stores some latitude when it comes to store merchandise, so she has chosen to offer retail sales space to a half-dozen artisans who hand craft a variety of items ranging from jewelry and candles to leather goods and one-of-a-kind wood furniture.

Depending on how well those items sell, the people who make them could potentially have access to retail space in other Hallmark stores, Swoboda-Grace said.

"Hallmark monitors the sales performance of outside vendors in each of its independent stores," she said. "That data is compiled into a 'top performers' list, accessible by all Hallmark store owners and a nationwide network of stores."

Grace said she discovered some of the area artisans through word-of-mouth and while others sought her out after learning about her plans to feature handcrafted merchandise made in the area such as the iron decor created by Dennis Winter of Anna, Illinois, who connected with Swoboda-Grace through social media. "I had posted some of my stuff on the internet," Winter said. "She saw it there, contacted me and one thing led to another."

Two other artisans whose items are available at Dana's Hallmark are Lucas and Addie Pecord of Vail, Colorado, who recently created a business called LA Antler Company. The Pecords "repurpose" the antlers Lucas finds while hiking in the Vail area to create necklaces and antler "accent" pieces for wall, bookshelves and so forth. Addie Pecord explained her husband is originally from Cape Girardeau and is distantly related to Swoboda-Grace. "We have LA Antler items in a couple of stores in Vail and hope they sell well in the Cape Girardeau area as well," she said.

Dana's Hallmark is open from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. every day except Sundays and holidays when the store is closed.

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