"I've shopped here with my parents as far back as I can remember," Jason Amott said Tuesday as he picked up a nutcracker designed by store owner Craig Zimmerman. "It's hard to imagine Zim's not being here anymore."

The Zimmerman family has sold its huge Murray store location on 300 West to a floral company and is leasing a portion of the building to sell remaining inventory during the next week or two. The Salt Lake City store on State Street, which is up for sale, probably will remain open until early next year.

"It's been a great ride," said Zimmerman, 65. "Today you can't be in business if you're not selling to one of the five major big-box stores. But years ago we decided to sell to independent dealers, and we couldn't go against the people who had kept us in business."

Eleanor Zimmerman, 88, who founded the store with her late husband, said she plans to shoehorn some leftover inventory into her garage to make decorations to brighten friends' homes or perhaps for a craft or watercolor class she will teach.

"I'm having fun," she said Tuesday, while pricing merchandise for the final sale. "It's been wonderful to be a part of the community for such a long time."

Barbara Guevara, a 28-year Zim's employee, cried as she remembered her mother, who had worked at the Murray store long before she did. Her mother died in 2000, the same year as store founder Cliff Zimmerman.

"It was hard losing them both," said Guevara. "And now the store is closing."

The business was much like a family. Employees remember the afternoon when the Salt Lake store, with its balcony and long creaky staircase, was turned into a wedding chapel for a worker whose fiancé didn't like churches.

The company dates to the 1940s, when Cliff Zimmerman's father ran a stamp and coin shop in downtown Salt Lake City. The shop gradually became a craft store when Cliff began selling merchandise he had purchased from a hobby shop in Idaho.

Zim's started out at 240 E. 200 South until a telephone company traded the family's Salt Lake City property for a location across the way on 150 S. State St. The Murray complex was built in the 1960s.

The two stores stocked nearly 100,000 items, including paints, brushes, glitter, yarns, ribbons, beads, doll parts, tools, wires and cake decorating gadgets. Zim's also was wholesaler to 14,000 small craft stores nationwide.

Cliff ran the business while Eleanor taught classes. Many Wasatch Front families may recall some of her earlier creations, which were endlessly copied to decorate many homes. Remember the tabletop grape arrangements? The feathered flowers or the dip-and-drape holiday figurines under the Christmas tree?

For her work, the 2008 Downtown Alliance is honoring Eleanor Zimmerman with its retail merchant Legacy Award.

On Tuesday as shoppers scooped up remaining arts and craft supplies, some paused at the front counter to sign a guest book.

"Thanks for all my memories," says one entry.

"No Zim's?" reads another. "The world is coming to an end."

dawn@sltrib.com

* Year started: 1947

* Employees: 30

* Salt Lake City outlet: 150 S. State St., probably open through December.

* Murray store: 4370 S. 300 West, open until inventory is sold in coming weeks.

* Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday; 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday.