Old Joann Store Revived for Creative Fest in Torrance

An old Joann fabric and craft store is getting new life, if only for a weekend: Hundreds of Southern Californians are expected to visit in search of new art, clothes, decor and an afternoon of communal crafting.

That's the mission behind Lauren Tetef's Open House Creative Fest, which will run June 27 and 28 from the old Joann location at the Del Amo Fashion Center mall in Torrance, California.

The event is part artisan market, part workshop series where guests can learn new skills directly from the makers behind what they're buying.

"As an attendee, you get a little taste of what somebody does," says Tetef, 40, a long-time events producer. "You get to sit down and metaphorically break bread with them, have a conversation with them, get to know them. And by doing that, you're so much more invested in their business."

A weekend of shopping and crafting

Admission to the Open House Creative Fest event is free to walk around and shop from roughly 25 vendors, each of whom will also host their own crafting workshops. The creatively inclined can purchase an activity passport, starting at $40, which will give them access to do each booth's activity.

For example, a participating florist plans to host sessions where she'll guide visitors on arranging dried flowers onto a greeting card for people to keep; another vendor who sells clothes plans to show people how to make a keychain by upcycling old selvage material.

The activity passport will also give shoppers free range at the event's "activity garden" with tables full of fabric, paper, paints and other art supplies to create their own projects.

"This is my dream come true," says Tetef, who attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles and was inspired by the campus's free materials library. "I just want to go to a thing where everyone's sitting down making stuff."

Saving roughly $24,000 after a layoff

Much like the temporarily revived Joann space, Tetef's creative fest is a kind of comeback.

In March 2025, Tetef started a corporate marketing job but says the import-heavy business was impacted by the Trump administration's new tariff policy; Tetef says she was laid off just six months later in August. Despite the unexpected turn of events, she says, "it was a good opportunity for me to figure something out: What do I do next?"

She started brainstorming Open House Creative Fest and sees it as an amalgamation of everything she's done in her career.

Tetef had previously worked as a director of events and produced dozens of meet-ups, from large-scale pop-up markets to intimate influencer events. About two years ago, she also started her own business, Flourish Locally, which hosts networking events for small businesses and creative workshops like charm-making sessions.

Tetef says she and her family lived off her severance check and her husband's income. She took on events clients through her own business and put aside all of her earnings to go toward the creative fest, saving roughly $24,000 in just a few months.

'It was such a special place to all of us'

When Tetef was scouting for a location, she says a leasing agent at the Del Amo Fashion Center pitched her the old Joann fabric and crafts store space.

In February 2025, the company announced it would close all of its nearly 800 of the fabric and craft stores after it failed to find a buyer to stay in business.

Tetef paid $3,000 in rent, plus a $1,000 security deposit, to rent the Torrance mall space for a month, and got the keys on June 1. Tetef says she's spent an additional few thousand dollars on expenses like a cleaning crew, a construction crew to work on some of the store fixtures, decor and rugs, vinyl to wrap the store front, a photographer, supplies for the activity garden and more.

The event has seen nearly 500 RSVPs across Eventbrite and Partiful and 70 pre-sale passport purchases, Tetef says, and she's hopeful weekend foot traffic to the mall could entice other visitors.

The significance that Tetef's event is posting up in an old Joann store isn't lost on her.

"It was such a special place to all of us," Tetef says, "where you would just get your shopping cart and you would wander the aisles and something would spark your imagination," she says. "If [people] were in a creative roadblock, they could come here and find a solve for it. Everybody has been touched by this space."

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