Mrs Grossmans Sticker Factory

Are you in the Bay Area? Do you love stickers? Last week we went to Petaluma to visit Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory, a small, family-owned company where a fat red heart is the company symbol, where people smile a lot, and where dogs wander freely around the office.

The tour lasted about an hour. First we watched a twenty-minute video about the company and the sticker-making process. All the kids paid surprisingly close attention, perhaps because the video was narrated by Angus the Dog (Mrs. Grossman's pet), or perhaps also because the tour guide told the kids she would quiz them on some video facts and give stickers out to those who got the correct answer.

The second part of the tour was a walk on the actual sticker factory floor (which smelled strongly of ammonia; The Pea walked the whole way pinching her nose). At the end of the tour, we were ushered into a room with lots of craft tables and given a sticker goody bag (grownups included!) and a postcard to decorate.

The factory sticker store, not surprisingly, was located just outside the craft room, so sticker-hungry kids and their parents, after being tantalized by rolls and rolls of cute stickers on the factory floor, could buy Mrs. Grossman's stickers to their hearts content. We all got coupons for $3 off any $20 purchase, so guess how many families chose at least $20 worth of stickers? With sticker sheets ranging from 50 cents to $3 (sticker sets and books cost more), spending $20 was easy. For cheapskates like me, I would definitely recommend buying the sticker grab bags for $1.99. No sticker in the bag was truly crappy anyway, and my kids had hours of fun trading stickers with each other.

So was it worth the 1.5 hour drive to Petaluma (for a 1 hour tour) and the $3 per person tour fee? Absolutely. We got to have a nice little day trip (we brought a packed lunch and ate at their visitors' picnic center), thereby avoiding the dreaded late-afternoon-"I'm bored"-syndrome. The kids had a blast, I got to release my inner sticker-loving-little-girl, and we all got to take home a ton of stickers. My kids have already used up all their stickers, but like a good girl, I've stashed my own goody bag away for future bribery needs.