Owner Marinell Walz announced she plans to close specialty stationery shop My Sentiments Exactly on Jefferson City's High Street Wednesday after 29 years in business.
"After 29 years, it's like a child that you tend to every day; and it was time for me to close and do other things," Walz said.
She originally opened My Sentiments Exactly at a different High Street location as a ROCS (Recycled Original Concept Shops) store in 1986 with her sister, Kitty Gordon. The shop offered cards and stationery as well as other fun gift items.
"By mid-summer, they had come out with a calligraphy machine called "Inscribe,' and I decided that would be wonderful so we could do invitations in the store. It actually picked up a pen and did calligraphy on the page," Walz said. "I had the first one in Missouri. Nobody else did in-store printing then."
The expanded printing capabilities helped Walz decide to shift the store's focus entirely to printing, prompting her to move after five years to the shop's larger, current location at 103 W. High St.
"It's not at all what we started out with. Now it's stationery and invitations, totally," she said. "It's really been a complete transformation."
My Sentiments Exactly already is offering clearance prices on remaining inventory at a 60 percent discount.
Walz said she plans to keep her business phone number and supplies to continue doing limited printing work, but not in a retail setting.