B&B pampers scrapbookers

By Juanita Westaby
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS –There’s a difference between scraping by in the bed-and-breakfast industry and scrapping yourself to success.

The owners of the Lasting Impressions Bed & Breakfast, located in Heritage Hill, can say that for certain. They cater to those women, mostly who are crazy about placing photos in carefully matted and labeled scrapbooks.

Although they “scraped by” in the summer months with regular tourists, Karen and Jerry Ruis (pronounced Rice) are booked now through January.
The main demographic for scrapbooking is a mother with children, Karen Ruis pointed out. The kids go back to school and mom goes away for the weekend.

By contacting 30 local scrapbooking stores, the Ruises have had a steady draw from about a 100-mile radius of Grand Rapids.

The bed-and-breakfast, which started 10 months ago, was an outgrowth of the couple’s scrapbooking store in Siren, Wis.

When their grown children here asked them to move closer, the couple combined their business knowledge with their own tourist’s knowledge of what the bed-and-breakfast business should be like.

If the women from Livonia who visited recently are any indication, the Ruises have it right.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you’re walking into,” said Kim Schlatterback, whose group has visited bed-and-breakfasts four times a year the past five years.

“We’re really particular about cleanliness.”

http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/index.ssf?/base/business-4/1161183388317000.xml&coll=6

Continued at http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/index.ssf?/base/business-4/1161183388317000.xml&coll=6&thispage=2