24-04-2025
AMC Collective looking to expand
SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — A Sioux Falls business that touts itself as a 'year-round craft fair' is celebrating a year of being around.
In April 2024, AMC Collective opened its doors on South Minnesota Avenue to serve as a showcase for locally handmade crafts and artwork.
And the business is already experiencing growing pains.
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There's plenty of conversation amid the creativity in the back room at AMC Collective.
'It's a lot of talking about where do you get your wool, where do you get your yard. And we talk about our kids and social things, too,' vendor Kathryn Daniels said.
Kathryn Daniels is one of the vendors who sells her needle-felting products at AMC Collective.
'The needle has barbs on the end of it and every time you stab into it, it tangles the wool together and solidifies it, so you're sculpting with a needle,' Daniels said.
Daniels' own business is called 'Ouch I Felt That.'
'Because I stab myself every day. Not intentionally, inadvertently,' Daniels said.
Vendor Cheryl Pappadackis sells her handmade coasters at AMC Collective.
'And then I take a needle and weave and they come right off the loom and it looks like this,' Pappadackis said.
Owner Carrie Thompson opened AMC Collective in April 2024. She has 25 vendors selling their products in her store. AMC stands for artists, makers and crafters.
'It's all about the artists and all about the art and being creative, and community,' Thompson said.
This is a family enterprise. Thompson's mother sells her artwork at the store.
'I do a little of everything. That's one of my paintings. And then I do fabric garlands and lot of different fabric things,' Cindy Thompson said.
Carrie Thompson says AMC Collective, like any other business, has had its ups and downs in the year it's been open. She says the tight economy plays a role in the down times.
'People are scared to spend their money sometimes you know, and hand-made items tend to be a little more expensive because there's a person behind it that has their expenses they have to cover,' Thompson said.
'Usually, you don't get compensated for time when people buy your things for your time. But you're doing it because you enjoy it,' Pappadackis said.
One way AMC Collective gets more customers through the door is by hosting crafting workshops and classes, including how to crochet.
'I try to show people the different things that they can make and educate them so you can make them lovely dolls, flowers. But the way it all starts is with a nice ball of yarn,' crochet instructor Anna Flowers said.
The business is always trying to recruit new vendors, as well. One of the newest, is Alicia Cafaro, who brought her New Jersey-based cookie enterprise into the store this month.
'I make biscotti. My company's called Bits-scotti, because they're miniature. But they are crunchy little Italian cookies, normally served with coffee or wine,' Cafaro said.
AMC Collective is entering its second year in expansion mode. They've already added an extra room into their workshop. Now, they're looking at adding an additional 800 square feet in a storage area behind the shop.
'People with like furniture or larger sculptures or something like that, we could have a home for those kinds of things to be sold here because right now, we really don't,' Thompson said.
Vendors say AMC Collective offers them exposure of their products they might not receive by going it alone. They find strength in numbers by stitching together this productive business arrangement.
Thompson also plans on hosting birthday parties at her store.
She's added five new vendors this month alone. Those vendors can work three-hour shifts to help cover the cost of their rent.
You can learn about upcoming events and store hours on their website
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