Not quite past their first-year anniversary, Canby Gifts & Toys is planning a rebrand. Later this month, you’ll find it in the same location, between Wayward Sandwiches and B’s Bake Shoppe on NW 2nd Avenue in downtown Canby, but with a new name: The Dahlia Home & Garden.
The store is the brainchild of Mary Hanlon, principal of Hanlon Development — which built The Dahlia and is leading the redevelopment of the Canby Civic Block — along with her daughter, Maya Kinley-Hanlon and others.
Kinley-Hanlon, who does inventory for the store, said that they were worried the original name was a bit too pigeon-holed — and didn’t give a full picture of what customers might find.
“We realized we wanted to serve a larger purpose than gifts and toys,” Kinley-Hanlon told the Canby Now Podcast. “As we were growing, we realized the things that people wanted to see and the things that we were excited about having in our store were really making it more into a boutique.”
The store will still stock unique, locally made and Canby-exclusive gift items, as well as the toys for children (and pets!) that have proven extremely popular. But the new name will better encompass other popular lines the shop offers, including kitchen items, home decor, furniture and even bath, spa and body care products.
“Of course, we still want to be the place for people to come if they want to buy a gift for somebody,” Kinley-Hanlon said. “But we also wanted to have the ability to be a little bit more than that.”
Gifts and toys were a “jumping-off point” for the store to start out with, she said, but they always hoped and expected it to branch out into something more.
“You know, the idea that we really had was to be a place where people wanted to be,” she said. “To be a store that people felt comfortable in and where they could find something new or just explore what’s out there.”
The new name and branding will take effect on Monday, Aug. 17.
Canby Gifts & Toys — soon to be The Dahlia Home & Garden — has had an interesting first year, to say the least. It opened in November 2019, just in time for the holiday shopping season — or so they thought.
“One thing we’ve learned is that, in terms of ordering stock, the holiday season starts long before the fall,” Kinley-Hanlon said with a laugh. “When we started, we had some stock, but we were not necessarily as prepared as some of those veteran stores that know the drill. That was a fun way to start a store.”
The pandemic hit a couple months later, and Canby Gifts — like most retail outlets and other stores deemed “non-essential” — was forced to close. The store hurriedly pivoted to an online model — with some success — but it was a difficult time, she admitted.
Needless to say, the store and its staff were thrilled to be able to reopen when Clackamas County entered phase 1 in March.
“We have felt so excited and so validated by the feedback we’ve gotten since we reopened our doors,” she said. “It’s been amazing. It just seems like people really want us here, and that feels really nice. We’re feeling really excited about the future, and we’re hoping to keep that momentum as we go into the next holiday season.”
