attracted the burgeoning crafty-set, and even mass merchandisers like Target Corp.

The company also listed between $10 million and $50 million in assets.Ĭompetitors such as Michaels Stores Inc. The filing estimates the company has more than 200 creditors who are owed up to $10 million.

The company’s top 20 unsecured creditors are owed about $2.6 million, according to a filing in U.S. Plus, an activity like compiling a family photo album “is an easy thing to put off,” Olsten said in an interview Tuesday. When the recession hit, Archiver’s core customers pulled back on spending, particularly on discretionary items. (Archiver’s, which is privately held, doesn’t release annual revenue figures.) Within seven years, the industry ballooned to $2.5 billion before going through a painful retrenchment in recent years. When Archiver’s opened its first store in Apple Valley, the nascent scrapbooking industry generated just $250,000 annually. “When we started in the scrapbooking business, it wasn’t even recognized as a retail category,” said Archiver’s CEO Jann Olsten, who was also Thomson’s business partner in the venture.

The superstore, which dubs itself “the ultimate creative haven,” offers a variety of products used to preserve, organize and display photographs and other mementos, such as invitations, greeting cards and important life announcements. A tough economy and the growing use of digital technology has so deeply challenged Archiver’s, the scrapbooking retail chain, that the Golden Valley-based firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.Īrchiver’s, which has about 40 stores nationwide, including seven in Minnesota, will use the temporary respite from creditors to retool its retail strategy and reorganize its business.įounded in 1999 by Twin Cities entrepreneur Bruce Thomson, Archiver’s grew rapidly as the scrapbooking craze took off.

Archivers scrapbook store