Emily Cole, 12, of Warrenton, Va., and her mother Mary Cole look at Peeps merchandise Wednesday at the Peeps & Company store at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. The shop sells 850 different Peeps products, including plush toys, china and even a hand-blown glass Peep. The store is owned and operated by Bethlehem, Pa.-based Just Born, the maker of the chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallow treats.

OXON HILL, Md. — It's almost Christmas, but one company wants its fans thinking about chicks and bunnies — year-round.

Just Born, maker of the chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallow Easter favorites called Peeps, is officially opening the first store devoted to them on Thursday. The shop, in a mall near Washington, D.C., sells 850 different Peeps products, including plush toys, china and even a hand-blown glass Peep.

"Our fans have asked us for years, 'What about a store?"' said Kathy Bassininski, who oversaw the creation of Peeps & Company stores for Just Born, based in Bethlehem, Pa.

Nearly 30 newspapers held Peeps diorama contests last Easter, and the company said 100,000 people are registered with its Peeps fan club.

The store is a monument to the marshmallows, with ultra yellow awnings, chick-shaped door handles and 3-D chick tilework behind the register. There are chick-shaped mouse pads, sweatshirts that say "DC Peeps," a 42-inch-tall plush Peep and the china, from 130-year-old tableware maker Lenox. The one-of-a-kind Peeps artwork on the walls also is for sale.

Most of the offerings are not edible, but the store does sell the spongy chicks, which have a shelf life rivaling Twinkies' and were first produced in the 1950s. Bunnies in six colors later joined them, and the new store will stock seasonal marshmallow treats such as Valentine's Day hearts and Christmas trees, as well as other candies produced by the company.

Planning for the store at National Harbor, a mall and convention center just south of Washington that will someday house the National Children's Museum, began more than a year ago. Privately held Just Born, which also produces Hot Tamales and Mike and Ike, plans to expand an online store and possibly to other physical locations.Other stores devoted to mega-brand candies exist, like Hershey's seven-year-old store in New York's Times Square. But Peeps followers take their devotion or distaste to extremes. Try searching online for "Peeps jousting"; it's a microwave sport.Washington artist David Ottogalli, who repairs MRI equipment by day and has crafted artwork with Peeps for more than a decade, sometimes uses thousands of them in a single sculpture. Ottogalli, who made some of the work at the store, said he particularly remembers a woman who once watched him assemble a piece."Thank God you found something to do with those things other than eat them," she finally said.

Artwork made from Peeps is one of the many features inside the Peeps & Company store at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. The store is a monument to the marshmallow treats, with ultra yellow awnings, chick-shaped door handles and 3-D chick tilework behind the register. There are chick-shaped mouse pads, sweatshirts that say "DC Peeps," a 42-inch-tall plush Peep and peep china from 130-year-old tableware maker Lenox.