The Vintage Bridal Shower – an Ode to Downton Abbey

Posted on April 6, 2013 by housewifery.org

My lovely, young cousin is getting married this summer. She is an only child, an only niece and one of only two cousins – so this is a big to-do. Mom and Aunt (mother of the bride) have been busy planning the bridal shower. We are having a vintage themed shower – with inspiration from Downton Abbey.

This shower planning also coincides with my mother’s discovery of Pinterest. She set up a bridal shower “board” on Pinterest and invited us to share. Every since then, my inbox has been clogged with breaking news of every inspirational photo she pins. She has pinned food, drink, flowers, photography, favors, gifts, decor, games, fashion, and most of all – fascinator ideas. I can’t even imagine what it would cost to recreate this very pink, vintage inspired Pinterest shower in real life.

Our first mission was wardrobe. I happened upon an authentic 1920′s navy lace dress at an estate sale.

I bought this even though it is partially disintegrating and two sizes too small. Mom set out to make a dress. She found this pattern for a “one hour dress”

Seventeen hours later, she was nearly finished and it looked somewhat promising:

Then she tried it on. It was not the flattering flowy style that is shown on the pattern, but a stiff, derrière-enhancing tent. Mom named it the Humpty Dumpty dress. Needless to say, we both have backup dresses.

Next we needed headwear. I figured I’d wear a hat. My first exposure to the hat was at Royal Ascot in 2000. Here we are, a bunch of American women, trying to blend in. We were not very adventerous with our hats.

Hates are just not comfortable and they take up a lot of air space. Mom decided fascinators would be better – those lightweight little concoctions the British wear askew on the heads.

If you care to read about the history of the fascinator:

http://www.justfascinators.co.uk/about.asp

“A fascinator may be worn instead of a hat but to occasions where hats were traditionally worn — such as weddings in the U.K. — or as an evening accessory, when it may be called a cocktail hat. It is generally worn with fairly dressy attire. Modern fascinators are commonly made with feathers, flowers and/or beads. They attach to the hair by a comb, headband or clip. They are particularly popular at premium horse-racing events, such as the Grand National, Ascot, and the Melbourne Cup. Brides may choose to wear them as an alternative to a bridal veil or hat, particularly if their gowns are non-traditional.”

Interestingly, fascinators have now been banned in the royal enclosure at Ascot – they are still allowed in the grandstands. However, what passes for a hat at Ascot is questionable.

Mom decided to host a craft day to make fascinators for ourselves and the bridal party. She had pinned a dozen photos of Kate and other fashionable young women wearing different feathery fascinators. She watched a video on how to make your own. I had my doubts about this idea, but I agreed to try. Mom bought everything we might need – plastic flowers, feather, buttons, white stick-like things, fabric, fun fur and giant glue gun.

Here was my Pinterest inspiration photo:

The first step was to make the base from some kind of heavy interface material.

You hot glue a giant clip onto the back. Warning – you will hot glue your fingers several times during this project and it will really hurt.

Aunt and I were glue gun virgins, so it took us longer.

I decided to hot glue on a fun fur base. I was immediately regretting my decision as it looked like a 1970′s toilet seat cover, but there’s no going back once you put glue to fur.

Then I added some black tulle and a few feathers.

I topped it off with a little lucite bird and a vintage looking button in the center.

I must say that this turned out WAY better than I imagined. We were on a roll. Mom finished hers.

I tried a black and white one with flowers.

How do people wear these with a straight face?

Mom switched to pink

By this time Mom and I had finished five hats, yet Aunt was still on her first. She is a bit of a perfectionist. Her projects are always detailed and symmetrical. She had to leave before it was finished – so we added the white twigs after she left.

We whipped out a few more:

One for the bride:

Another long feathered black and white

I call this my “Scarlett O’Hara goes to Ashley Wilkes’ Birthday Party”

Now the real dilemma – which one to wear?

They are surprisingly cute and I will be sad to give them away, but really – what would I do with them?. Aunt suggested we sell them in a store or on eBay. One look at the underside and people would want their money back. I also fear a stiff breeze would tear them apart.

However, if Passing Fancy ever does another pop-up store I know what I’m making!

Strategy for Housewives – continued

Posted on August 2, 2012 by housewifery.org

Since about 1994 my friend, Sally, and I have tried to find ways to make a little money. We excel at the idea generation stage, but fall apart at the execution stage. I’m sure I have forgotten many of these potentially lucrative ideas, but a few gems jump out in my memories.

Our first business idea was to make little decorative 2D wooden models of famous landmarks in our town. Of course, this idea is not original. Every gift store in every vacation spot sells these. The Painted Pony in Pentwater, Michigan was where we first spotted these treasures.

We did a little market research and found that a company called Cat’s Meow would be our main competitor. They have a monopoly in the industry and have already replicated, in miniature, all the famous resorts. They also have apparently done some custom work for local towns, like the Bartlet Village Hall

Cat’s Meow had a few things we did not have – for example, they probably had an actual factory. They also had an entire category on eBay.

However, we were not deterred by the competition. We bought some wood, wrote a list of landmarks and stores in our town and then tried to figure out how to get the image on the wood. Painting these buildings was out of the question — we weren’t that good and we would not be able to keep up with the huge orders we anticipated.

We decided to photograph the landmarks, artistically filter them on Photoshop, and print them on transfer paper. I thought that I could just iron the transfer paper onto the wood with my Sunbeam. After a failed experiment and little more research I learned that we would need a professional strength heat press. These started at $350 and went into the thousands. This was getting expensive and our husbands were not enthusiastic (and we needed them on the jigsaw). So, we got as far as printing out a few pics and buying some wood. I made one final attempt to iron on the paper, using the entire force of my body weight – which amazingly was not quite enough pressure.

Our next idea was to open a book store. Our town was full of educated readers, but did not have an independent bookstore. The nearest one was at least four suburbs over. This would be a business we would love owning and working at.

Per The Secret, I visualized our successful enterprise. Here I am in my imaginary store:

Sally insisted that she also be in the vision.

Sally is, of course, wearing pink. Since it was my vision, I also shaved a few pounds off and lengthened my legs.

We fleshed out our vision. Sally said that we would have a fireplace and wear skirts. People would pass by and see us reading our Dickens, sipping tea in front of the fire. It would look so cozy and enticing, that people would be drawn into the shoppe and buy lots of books. We then discussed the decor. I knew that our styles might clash when I proposed a sturdy fabric for the chairs and Sally said it should at least have a little stripe.

We had one meeting with our husbands. They were even less enthused about this idea than the Cat’s Meow ripoff.

Sally’s husband: Why would someone buy a book from you instead of Barnes and Noble?

Us: Because we will have lots of personal recommendations based on our extensive reading. We will get to know our customers and their tastes and make specific recommendations – just like the people at the local video store

My husband: The one that went out of business?

Sally’s husband: Won’t they just listen to your advice and then go order the book on amazon?

Us: No, they will want to support a local business

When they heard that the start-up cost could approach $100,000 the conversation ended. If I had been thinking, I would have asked them to spring for that heat press.

Just when our dream was fading, a new building went up in town. A bank was to occupy half of the building, and they wanted one retail tenant. Rumor had it they actually wanted a bookstore in the space. We arranged to meet with the a bank president.

As I had a freshly minted MBA, I used my green financial skills to estimate our cash flow. We bought some info from a consulting company to get an idea of the costs of opening and running an independent bookstore. I set up a spreadsheet with all the costs and estimated the revenues. At first pass, even with a low rent and ambitious sales volumes, the business looked abysmal. I kept running the numbers. No matter how I looked at it, I would need every man, woman and child in town to buy a book a day. That just wasn’t likely.

With a heavy heart we went to our bank meeting. The man was very nice and was willing to offer us the lowest rent I had estimated. I showed him my spreadsheets. He asked to keep them and tucked them away in a file cabinet. We told him that we just didn’t think that it would work.

The bank ended up renting to a high end art store. The store lasted just a few years before it closed. I imagine even fewer people in town buy art than buy books. They currently rent to a financial services company.

Our next idea came after a shopping trip in South Haven, Michigan. (We steal our best ideas). We saw these adorable and unique necklaces made from dominoes and maps.

We quickly bought some vintage dominoes and mah jong tiles and all the supplies to make our necklaces. We cut up all the old maps we had lying around. The necklaces were kind of cute. I sold some at the local art league. Of course, they wanted cities I did not have, so I brought home most of my inventory and filled custom orders.

I can’t imagine why we didn’t sell Rockford, IL.

Our next idea was developed in our strategy group. Cari explained that she had a paperwork problem. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a housewife in possession of a problem must be in want of a solution” (Jane Austen, 1813). Cari’s problem is that she is much more organized than the rest of us. She actually buys maintenance agreements and maintains all her appliances. I once even saw her get an old toaster repaired. (Don’t you just buy a new one?)

Cari struggled on a daily basis with keeping track of her manuals, agreements, purchase and repair history, etc. She proposed a paperwork system to manage all this. I, who never maintains or repairs anything, did not see the need for such a system. However I thought I would like a way to organize my household info – like what paint colors I used, where I hid the safe deposit key, the date of my last sewer back up, and most of all financial info – like the “In Case of Death” box my mother has prepared. Jane wanted to organize medical records. Sally wanted to handle kids sports and decorating ideas. Mary Lynn wasn’t sure that her decades-deep piles of paper would fit into any system, but was up for anything.

So, the strategy group brainstormed our new idea. The possibilities were endless. We would have one system for medical, one for taxes, one for weddings. We would organize kids papers and college planning. Our products would be cute and functional. I bought some cheap cardboard magazine holders and glued on colorful fabrics as a prototype. I bought some iron on fabric and cut out a script f (for finance). We named our new business Gotcha Covered. Our offshoot product line for kids was called Little Sprouts.

Although Green Giant will certainly sue us.

We set out to the mall to do some market research. After a tasty lunch and a quick stop at the Vera Bradley store we went to Franklin Covey. We found one line of very functional (but not cute) document organizers. It was from a company called Buttoned Up. They had some kitchy products (like a chore list), but this was not what Gotcha Covered envisioned. I did buy the Life Docs notebook and ripped off their categories from their tax organizer (and just bought an accordion file).

I researched Button Up online, and they pretty much covered everything you would need to organize your life on paper. For some reason, however, we carried on with our business plan. Then one day in the middle of a meeting, Mary, who never comes to meetings, flies in the front door, listens to our idea and a description of the competition, and then states the obvious:

“Don’t they have this already?”

We dropped it right then and there. That was our last good idea. Cari has not yet abandoned the concept. She still thinks the existing products are missing the key component to organized home – the manual/maintenance organizer. We are still waiting to test drive her prototype.

Passing Fancy – the Pop Up Store

Posted on July 3, 2012 by housewifery.org

The “LilyPad Knits” etsy store was not a success. We were not willing to work for 50 cents an hour, and no one was willing to pay any more. You had to actually see our creations in person, we reasoned, to appreciate the fine craftsmanship. We needed a bricks and mortar store. However, rents were thousands of dollars a month (that’s a lot of scarves) and we would have to sacrifice all of our precious free time. Tracy, the most entrepreneurial of the knitters, was on a mission to find us a home. She had experience running home shows and selling through boutiques. She was ready to be her own boss.

Someone proposed starting with a craft fair. Sally and I tried a craft fair once. We constructed wooden displays from dowels to showcase our scarves (displays that fell apart within five minutes). We looked quite the amateurs in the church hall as the other vendors backed up vans of multi-tiered displays. We sat there all day watching crocheted toilet paper covers selling like hotcakes while our scarves lingered on their dowels. A friend once told me that “crap sells”. Did you know you can still buy these classics at your local craft fair?

I also tried a craft fair with my mother. She convinced me that people would buy my paintings and her silk flower arrangements. She spent weeks hunting down eclectic containers and stuffing them with fake greenery. I hauled a tent, weights, tables, chairs and a car-ful of art and sat on a blacktop with heat radiating through my flip flops. Nothing sold.

Tracy finally found a brilliant solution to our problem – the Pop Up Store. We would sublet retail space for one month around Christmas. We would have parties. We would sell everything in a few weeks and then pack up and leave.

Tracy negotiated a four week deal with a new art coop in our town. The owner, Mark, had painting classes in the back and hung some local art on the walls in the front. We would bring in our wares and man the store for one month. We would give him a percent of our sales. I accompanied Tracy to discuss some of the details with Mark. When I met him, it was clear he had no great interest in this venture. This was his business and he did not want partners. As he really wasn’t using the retail space, and because Tracy wore him down, he agreed to let us try.

We were so excited. We knit like crazy and pulled all the old projects we had out of storage. Of course, we had the felted wreaths that we hung in the shop window.

We borrowed displays and set up the store:

Tracy politely explained that she did not think the name LilyPad Knits made any sense and renamed us Passing Fancy. We put together a Kaper Chart and and we opened for business on a Tuesday.

This “store” was, until a month earlier, a dentist’s office and not really conducive to retail. It had what looked like a bulletproof window in the center surrounding an interior office. It looked a little unfriendly sitting behind the glass, so we sat in front of it (in the “waiting room”). It was a little crowded in the corner of the retail space. If we all came at the same time we filled up the entire store.

Within two hours of my first shift I remembered from my youth that retail is a very lonely, boring business. You sit there most of the time with no customers (especially in this location, we discovered). When the rare customer pops in, you have to walk the fine line between letting them have their space and letting them off the hook. I recalled some advice I received from another artist. He instructed me to greet the customer with an open ended response – “Let me know if I can help.” Don’t ever say, “Can I help you?” Now the difference may seem subtle, but apparently if they decline your help they may never buy anything as they have already decided they don’t need your help. Once you leave them to roam with your friendly, reversible greeting you wait for them to make the next move. If they compliment your work (which they will ultimately feel compelled to do), don’t ever, under any circumstances, say “Thank you”. That let’s them off the hook. They feel like paying you a compliment is just as good as paying you real money. You are supposed to respond, “I’m glad you like it. Let me tell you about it …” I am a terrible salesperson. I merely pretended to straighten up the opposite side of the store while they browsed.

Drop-in traffic was about two people per day. Most (OK, all) of the paying customers were either friends or family who felt obligated to come in and buy something from us. They spent inordinate amounts of time trying to find the lowest priced item in the store. As we had all been to their numerous shop-at-home parties, they at least owed us a small purchase.

I started studying what was selling and why. We had lots of hats, but few sales.

Then Tracey found a pattern for the “Brangelina” – a hat similar to one Angelina Jolie wore somewhere. I’m not sure why it’s called the Brangelina and not just the Angelina. Anyway, we knit a prototype and made a little copy of Angie’s photo wearing the hat.

We sold the hat. We made more hats and sold more hats. This was the key – celebrity knitwear! We envisioned an entire line of celeb hats – the chunky white one from The Way We Were and the red one from Love Story for the baby boomers; Twilight hats for the younger crowd.

Display was also critical. Tracy made these cute gauntlets but no one knew what they were. We cut out a hand and placed them on and – voila! I still don’t think they sold, but they got a lot more attention.

Noelle’s wig form was renamed the “Magic Head”. Everything we put on that head sold.

I reasoned that it was hard to envision knitwear, so perhaps any little display photo would help. I photographed myself wearing a scarf – no good.

When Mary Ellen and I were working, a young mom stopped in and hunted through our knitwear. “You know what you should make?” she said. “Baby legs. They are so expensive.” After a few minutes of discussion we ascertained that these were basically leg warmers for babies.

I ran down to the yarn shop and bought some sock yarn and tiny needles. I whipped up a pair of baby legs and a matching hat. It was adorable and only cost me about $20 and 20 hours of work. She wanted to buy them for $8. I still own them.

I did hit on one item that sold – the needle felted dogs. Be careful what you wish for. Everyone wanted a custom dog. I ended up making these little dogs every waking hour of the day for three weeks.

I also tried other felted holiday items.

One woman loved the dogs, but really wanted a felted squirrel. I made two. She bought one and now I am waiting for another squirrel lover.

I had a crazy idea to make a felted nativity scene. I labored over this thing for hours. I brought it to the shop on the night of our big party. Just as I was setting it out, a woman walked in and wanted to buy it. She could tell I wasn’t ready to part with it. I finally decided that was ridiculous and sold it to her. Then she ordered a custom dog.

We had one big party at Passing Fancy. We invited all of our friends and neighbors over for free food and lots of alcohol to induce shopping. We sold like crazy that night.

Overall, the pop up store was profitable. The problem was that we sold to everyone we knew in that one month. When we tried it again in the spring we added some new merchandise for the grad and dad crowd.

Sales were lower. Tracy tried one more time. Like most housewife endeavors – you can’t rely on your friends to support you forever. While we all keep trying – you just can’t build a local economy of housewives buying stuff from each other.

Retail is a tough business. Profits are low and the work is long and lonely. I think this was the tipping point that convinced several of us to go out and get real jobs.

LilyPad Knits

Posted on June 3, 2012 by housewifery.org

With the company of assorted fellow housewives, I have tried many ways to make money from home. I had an eBay store. I sold used books on half.com. I submitted my short stories for publication. I entered novels into Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award competition. I pitched screenplays over Skype to Hollywood producers. My total income over the last twenty years from these ventures is approaching the staggering sum of $3000.

The greatest share of this money was for co-writing a story with John Updike. (No one ever believes me when I say that). I did actually win $1000 in 1997 for writing about 500 words of a story (I will never see that kind of money again). The contest was sponsored by amazon.com and called Murder Makes the Magazine. John Updike wrote the first paragraph and then there was a daily contest to write the next paragraph. There would be 44 winners and Updike would finish the story. I was determined to win this contest. I studied the winning entries every morning to see what they were looking for — over-the-top flowery language and a cliff hanger. I could do that. Every night I entered, lost, studied the winning entry and fine-tuned my next submission. I knew I was getting so close. Finally on or about Day 35 I saw my name as the winning entry.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000335091

Here are my paragraphs:

I later learned that they received as many as 20,000 entries per day. I am slightly psychic (no one ever believes this either) and I knew that I would write one of the winning paragraphs. This was years before I read The Secret – I guess if I had then I would have understood the power of positive thinking and would have just written myself that check for $1000.

Many years later I met John Updike at a booksigning. The line was long and people were lugging stacks of their Rabbit books for him to sign. I chatted him up for about 4 seconds and mentioned that he went to high school with my father-in-law before the attendant (bodyguard?) moved me along. As I walked away I was kicking myself for forgetting to introduce myself as one of his Murder co-writers. I turned around to go back, but my husband steered me away. “I’m sure he’s tired of people asking them to launch their careers.”

While I have not sold anything recently, I continue to collect royalties from amazon of about 50 cents/day on other stories I wrote. Add that to the corporate pension I receive of $112/month and I can justify eating lunch out about twice a month. I could effectively double that if I merely cleaned my own house (perish the thought ).

So, writing was not generating any income. It was time to try something else. When etsy was developed I thought this was the creative outlet I was waiting for. Every week at our knitting meetings, the knitters would discuss potential jobs and say “I wish someone would just pay me to knit.” Here was that someone. (etsy, for the uninformed, is like an eBay for handmade goods.) We each had a pile of finished projects that none of our family wanted. We could turn that yarn into gold.

I have been surprised to hear that many people think that you can save money by knitting your own clothes. While I suppose that is a logical conclusion, it’s a little like thinking you can save money on groceries by buying a boat and fishing every weekend. It is a hobby, a craft, not a household chore left over from pioneer days. Handknit items are expensive. However, certainly people would pay for our unique output. Who would want a machine-made sweater from Macy’s when you buy a bespoke number from us for triple the price?

Setting up an etsy store appeared quite easy. We just needed a name. I started gathering inventory to see what I could sell as I pondered the store name. Then it came to me in a dream. It was so clear. We were to open a very successful etsy store and it was to be called Lilypad Knits. I woke up with inspiration and ran down to set up the shop before the details of my dream slipped away. Selling the rest of the knitters on the name was tricky. In the light of day it seemed just downright ridiculous. My friends did not believe that I was psychic and that I had foreseen our success with this name. However, as no one else had the energy or desire to set up the store they humored me. Tracey’s dog is named Lilly – so we used her picture in the banner.

We had our recycled sweater felted wreaths:

We had scarves:

I had felted bowls (you knit these and then boil them to turn them into rock hard wool). Notice how artfully I display them in the photo to create ambiance.

I had art:

I had assorted things that we tried to sell at the antique mall

and the felted dogs – which I had finally perfected and in a flash of inspiration threaded a gold cord through their backs and called then Christmas ornaments (if I were really psychic I never would have made these dogs as they would turn out to be very successful. but not that profitable).

In the first (and only) year I sold a total of 3 pieces of part (for about $40 each), two felted bowls and 11 dog ornaments. Absolutely nothing knitted sold.

Curious about our lack of knitted sales, I did a little market research. An etsy search for handmade/knitted/scarves returns 14,827 items. Then there are 27,708 “vintage” scarves. How does one even sort through all of these? I select a random scarf – an ivory long cabled scarf. It is made of wool and has 3 rows of cables. This would take (me) at least 10 hours to make. Misslovestoknit is asking $20. Assuming she got the yarn on sale and knits quickly – this is about $1.50/hour for her labor. I enter her store. She has loads of lovely winter scarves – all $20 each. She has a total of 1 sale and no admirers (I somehow have 8 admirers and I have no inventory?) This seller was not even the cheapest. I found scarves listed for $4. Why?

The dog ornaments sold quickly. However, everyone wanted a custom ornament that looked like their dog. No problem – I just asked them to email me a photo. They were only willing to pay about $25 for these dogs that took me up to five hours to make. They then complained about the spots being in the wrong spot or the hair not being curly enough. My strangest order was for a beagle with a large “organ”. I stopped listing the ornaments when a woman asked for a dachshund and then refused to buy it because it was generic looking and not “special looking” like hers.

Come on – he looks special!

One woman wanted a discount if she bought two golden retrievers. I thought I might change our store logo to Hey this isn’t Oriental Trading Company!

So basically, etsy is a sweatshop for housewives. I really should just stick to shopping there. You never know what you will find. For $4.99 I can buy this cute cat cowl with vintage buttons.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/95955206/cute-cat-cowl

Anyway, we pretty much abandoned etsy. There is still the shell of a store there:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LilyPadKnits

What we needed, we agreed, was a real store …

I am not an Antiques Dealer

Posted on April 26, 2012 by housewifery.org

As the months passed in the antiques mall, we realized that there was absolutely no money to be made in this business. Half of our sales were made to other dealers (who were convinced that we were underpricing the item and they could sell it for more). Of course, these dealers all demanded a large discount as “a professional courtesy”. The rest of our sales were to haggling customers who talked us down to just under what we paid for the item. This lack of profit quickly drove the more sensible dealers out of business. This created a revolving door of dealers through the mall.

The new sellers came in with big dreams. Jeff, the owner, was so Quixotic. He had the ability to make them believe that the world wanted what they had, and if they just worked hard enough they would strike it rich ( I finally conceded that the only person coming out ahead was the owner of the real estate). The new dealers, inspired by Jeff’s vision, shopped and sewed and stripped and painted and stocked their booths with their treasures. They waited, along with the rest of us, for the sales that would support them in retirement; sales that never came.

Among these new dealers was the young woman who made pillows from vintage handkerchiefs (she threw in an occasional sachet). We had crafty dealers who painted shabby chic furniture (what they lacked in talent they made up for in vibrancy). We had a young man who blew his own glass – he made beautiful objects, but sold only a few. I bought some of his letter openers for gifts to get him started. Sadly, I think I was his only customer.

We had a Christian lady selling nightmare-inducing dolls. We had the rug dealers from Pakistan. A Moroccan furniture dealer gave it a go for a few months. The kitchen gadget lady had a little success, but at an average sale of ten bucks she eventually gave up. There was man who sold dead animals in any form (stuffed, mounted, skins, horns). I should see if he wants to buy husband’s deer hoof (I have been trying to get rid of this thing for 30 years).

Over the years I made many transitional friends at the mall. My favorite dealer, however, was Sonia. Sonia was a tidy, well dressed, older woman with an unusual accent and a sharp tongue. Sonia was not one of the original dealers – she came in after about a year and rented a large glass case right in front of the cash register. She was crystal clear with her intentions and told us vehemently that she was not a dealer. She was simply selling things from her personal collection. “I am not a dealer,” she repeated to each and every customer. “I’m probably leaving next month after I clear out a few things from my home. I give no discounts. Everything is authentic English or Japanese. Nothing cheap from China. I just have too many things. I own 17 sets of china.”

Sonia did have a lovely collection – small pieces of decorative ceramics, tea sets, pottery and art from Europe and Asia. She felt her inventory was better than the rest of ours (she had clear disdain for all things American). She didn’t seem to need money. Her late husband was a doctor and apparently left her enough money to maintain their large historic home. She was very energetic for her age (I would guess she was in her 70′s). She always dressed in a skirt with hose and heels. She claimed that she even gardened in heels.

Sonia was on a mission to improve the mall’s reputation – which apparently required spreading her treasures across the store. She was very persuasive and Jeff had no backbone. Soon Sonia’s personal collection had crept well beyond her glass case onto the surrounding walls and floor space. While most sellers would occasionally offer sales, Sonia refused to budge on her (quite high) prices. She said her items were special, one of a kind, and worth far more than the price. Her art collection was all professionally framed and pricey. Any hapless soul who wandered into her space was treated to a lecture on the style and setting and artist. Her furniture looked lovely. but as she always stretched ribbons across the arms and PLEASE DO NOT SIT signs on the seats, no one was allowed to actually test drive them.

Most dealers only popped in once or twice a week to check on their inventory. Sonia hovered over her goods; standing guard for eight hours at a stretch behind her case (in those heels). If someone wanted to see something, she took it out, cradled it in her hand and provided a complete provenance. She then placed it on top of the case for them to admire. She stared them down, waiting for them to realize that this was a rare gem that they needed to own. The trapped customers had to look her in the eyes and tell her that they did not want it.

Sonia was quite the saleswoman. It was a mistake for any of us to admire anything in her collection because we would soon own it. Here are a few things I admired which are now in my house

I also loved this teapot but had to draw the line somewhere. She told me I was really missing out, clucking and shaking her head before putting it back in her case.

Sonia spent her days in the mall dusting, rearranging, and talking to the customers and dealers. I think she was lonely. She was not, however, terribly kind or politically correct. She and cashier would walk around the store and rip apart all the junk or the horrendous condition of everyone’s booth. “Joan’s inventory is cheap,” she said at least once a week. “She just goes to garage sales. No one wants that crap. Jeff needs to tell her to leave.” No one escaped her shrewd, tasteful eye. The pottery dealers lacked class, the animal guy was a slob, the kitchen lady was passing off plastic as Bakelite. Under it all she really did have a good heart. Once she got to know you and trust you, she would defend you forever.

Sonia loved opera, as does my father-in-law. Every new season I would ask her advice on which operas he should buy. She went to the Lyric every month, driving her ancient Jaguar to a garage where the owner always saved her a spot.

Over the months, Sonia revealed tidbits of her earlier life. There were apparently multiple tragedies, the details of which she dropped dramatically into mundane conversation. I mentioned traffic on the Dan Ryan and she told me that he son had been killed along the shoulder of that expressway. Jeff mentioned someone’s heart trouble and Sonia told us of her son who died very young of a heart attack. She said these things as if we already knew or if they happened to everyone. She did not want any sympathy, she just wanted us to know her. We also learned that her son-in-law died mysteriously in her house and she became the sole support for an ungrateful daughter and her unruly children.

Sonia’s sales were volatile. Her rent (for the case) was pretty low, but so were her sales. As her prices were high, one good sale would tide her over for 6 months. Sonia explained that she had to pay her rent out of her own checking account (as she wasn’t a real dealer). Did she think the rest of us had big corporations funding our rent? We were all losing money. We all continued to moan about how we were ready to pack up and leave. We would just give it a few more months or we would just wait until Christmas. Quixotic Jeff always had a reason for low sales – there was a Bears game on, the weather was lousy, gas prices were high. Things would turn around next month. Always next month. The real reason we all hung in there was that we had too much inventory. We didn’t want to move all of our stuff. And then what would we even do with it? We had to sell it.

Month after month Sonia stayed. She was a bit secretive about parts of her past. If anyone asked about her accent she would say that she was “European”. We learned that she was from the Ukraine. She lived there as a child until the Communists came through her house. Shuddering, she described how they had touched her cheek and said something about her beauty. I know she was in Vienna during part of WWII. She described going to a church with an aunt – when they came out they discovered all the buildings around them had been bombed. She had cheated death, but it sadly hunted her for the rest of her life.

While Sonia was full of contempt for messy dealers with cheap merchandise, she hated cheap customers even more. Sonia always had a theory about which ones were shoplifting or switching price tags. She was handy to have around during spikes in shoplifting. She shadowed customers as they walked through the mall. When a large set of sterling was stolen she was sure she knew who did it. “Mark” was a dealer at another mall. Sonia didn’t like him because he had misplaced an item she left with him for appraisal. Whenever Mark came into our mall she would whisper, quite audibly. “Watch him. He steals.”

Most customers, Sonia explained, were stingy and only wanted a good bargain. While Sonia complained about how poorly she was treated in her life, she had no empathy for other immigrants or races. When a customer tried to talk her down on price and left dejected she said, “Typical Arab, wants something for nothing.” When I mentioned something positive about Obama she turned to me in horror. “You Americans, you will get the president you deserve. Just you wait.”

She was vague about her religion. She belonged to some sort of Russian orthodox church and seemed to attend these marathon sessions of up to ten hours. Once Jeff asked her if she was really Jewish. She said yes but offered no more info. We had no idea if she was kidding or if this is why she fled to other parts of Europe.

I never questioned the fact that Sonia was wealthy and did not need the income from the mall (good thing) or if she was really a dealer in disguise. However, one day I was driving to a local consignment store (looking for some of those underpriced treasures). I saw Sonia in the parking lot. She was also heading to the consignment store. She had nothing in her arms so I can only guess she was going to actually buy inventory. She was shopping just like the rest of us lowly dealers. I don’t know why she hid this from us. Maybe she thought she was better than us, or maybe she wanted to preserve her image as a wealthy European. She preferred to say she had inherited her items or purchased them when she lived in Europe. I really wanted to shop that day, but didn’t want to embarrass her. I don’t know why – she would have relished the opportunity to expose one of us. I drove away.

I eventually gave up the antiques business. I slashed prices until almost everything was gone. I donated all my books to the library. I didn’t visit the mall for many months. Then it was a new opera season and I thought I would stop in and see Sonia for some recommendations. When I walked in the door the mood was very somber. I looked at Sonia’s booth and saw a black ribbon draped across her glass case. Jeff told me that Sonia had just died yesterday. She had a brain bleed.

I hope she didn’t suffer. People were pouring in to pay their respects. Her items were selling quickly. I bought one final thing from her.

Edna’s Nephew

Posted on March 4, 2012 by housewifery.org

After a few months, our antiques business was in full swing. We were getting the hang of shopping the sales, pricing, displaying and actually selling a little. Our booth was actually filling in. From the sparse conditions on day one:

To a few months later:

One thing I did not know about antique stores (this was before the days of Pawn Stars) is that people walk in off the street every day and try to sell you things. The ratio of people wanting to sell versus buy is about 3 to 1. Some of these sellers are the “pickers”. They travel around in vans and try to buy what dealers want. Whenever I saw a picker walk in the door, I would hide in back room. Jeff, the store owner, had a good heart and really tried to find a dealer to buy every piece of junk that came in off the street. I also could not say no – so knew it was better not to look. Jeff would say, “Why don’t you just go see what they have?” The pickers would then lead me outside to their car and pop open the back to show me their treasures. Sometimes they did have amazing things, but mostly it was awful.

Other sellers were relatives of the recently deceased wanting to sell the “antiques’ they had just inherited – often large piece of ugly 1960′s furniture. The big stuff was easier to turn down, as I had limited space in the booth.

The book sellers always targeted me, as no on else was interested. People assumed that anything old was valuable. They lugged in Reader’s Digest books, book club editions, obscure titles, and beat up Modern Library editions. It was very rare for people to walk in with a valuable book. My shelves started to fill with worthless volumes.

I did meet a few interesting book buyers; people like me who loved rare books. One day a man walked into my booth with a 3-ring binder containing a giant handwritten checklist. He examined each book in my booth and compared it to his list. I noticed he was especially interested in my Edna Ferber books This was unusual. I love Edna Ferber, but most people don’t know her, or only know she wrote Showboat.

This man looked like he was probably in his 60′s and very thin. I tried not to bother him as he was giving the impression that he did not want to be disturbed.

When he finished shopping I asked him about his book collection. He showed me his notebook that contained a list of all the books he already owned, so that he would not buy duplicates. I asked him if he liked Edna Ferber.

“She was my aunt,” he said.

“Really?”

“Joe” went on to tell me the story of his life. His family was living in eastern Europe and he was placed in a Nazi labor camp as a boy. He told me that the Nazi’s were terrible to them and that they actually cut off his penis.

At this point I was horrified, and I tried really hard not to look down at his pants.

His mother, he explained, asked Edna to see if she could do something. Edna went to Europe and somehow used her connections to get him released. He then went on to work at the University of Chicago (as Edna did) in some sort of mental health role. He told us heartbreaking stories about some of the people he worked with in Chicago. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did. Something between orderly and doctor, but it was hazy.

Joe stopped in a few times over the next year and I heard him repeating this same story to Jeff. Then he disappeared.

I was very interested in his story, so I tried to research the possibility of him being who he said he was. According to various internet sources, Edna Ferber was the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish storekeeper.

Notable American Women says that she is the second daughter; so she did have a sister. The girls were born in the Midwest and went to high school in Wisconsin. Her sister, Fannie, married Jacob Fox. Fannie Ferber Fox apparently published a cookbook in 1923. Fannie had a daughter who was an actress. So I don’t see how her son could be in a European war camp in the 40′s. Perhaps Edna wasn’t Joe’s regular aunt, but a great aunt, or maybe even a cousin.

Edna took her first trip to Europe in 1914. She traveled quite a bit and was in Europe during World War II. I found this article written by Edna Ferber in Paris after the release of people from the camps. April 30, 1945.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19450430&id=a7hRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wWkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2588,1747519

So, she was in Paris and had witnessed the release of camp survivors. However, it sounds very impersonal. If she had a relative there I imagine she would have mentioned it.

In 1941 she wrote a broadcast drama called Cable from Lisbon funded by the Joint Distribution Committee. I was not able to listen to the broadcast, but it is described as a drama about refugees in a French town.

In this day of internet access I was frustrated to find no more information. I then remembered that we had a library in town with real books. I had them order Edna Ferber’s last autobiography, A Kind of Magic.

On page 83 I found something interesting. Around 1940 Ferber was in the US and that “Heartbreaking pleas poured in faster and more more frantically from doomed Jews of Germany, of all Europe.” Now I’m not sure how she saw these pleas. She says that she did bring 4 children and 3 adults out of Germany before they were sent to concentration camps. The 4 children were from a single family (Hollander) and they were the grandchildren of her mother’s cousin. Her English publisher helped with their rescue.

These children eventually came to Chicago. The oldest boy, Gunther, was a brilliant physics student and went to University of Chicago at age 15. Tragically he was killed by a bus in his first year at school. If you Google Gunther Hollander you will see he was a “war refugee” who appeared on Quiz Kids. In his obituary they mention that he has a brother recently discharged from the RCAF and had another brother in the US Navy.

So could Joe be one of the other brothers? It doesn’t really seem possible – these children were rescued before they were imprisoned (their parents were sent to camps). So, Joe’s claims about Eastern Europe and a labor camp don’t match. He also didn’t look quite old enough to be in this family. It seemed more likely that he was in another camp and rescued later – possibly a camp run by Soviets in an Eastern Bloc county.

The interesting part of that story is the name Hollander. There are known Holocaust survivors who moved around Europe and through Holland – changing their last name to Hollander.

Sadly, Ferber mentioned no additional refugees. In the book she described going to Buchenwald after its liberation. Then she stayed in Paris and met people searching for survivors and wanting her help. She then visited Nordhausen – a camp that built the V-2 bomb. She was deeply affected by these visits and was unable to write for years. She finally set out to write a play about refugees that was a flop. She then went on to write Giant which was a huge success and James Dean’s last movie.

I went about a year without seeing Joe again in the antique store. Then, one day, Joe came back without his notebook. He seemed confused and wandered around, but eventually stopped at my books. I asked him if he was looking for Edna Ferber books. He looked at me, clearly confused, and said, “No, why?” He offered none of his usual background info. Then, right before he left, he mentioned that he had a stroke and did not remember much about his life.

I will never know how much of his story is true. Edna Ferber did have a history of rescuing relatives from the Nazis. She was the type of woman who had the resources and determination to rescue someone like Joe, but it is odd that she did not mention it. Perhaps he read one of her dramas and internalized it. Perhaps he was suffering from memory loss and just had the details wrong. I wish I knew. Joe never came back.

The Antiques Business – Estate Sale Shopping

Posted on January 27, 2012 by housewifery.org

With one month of sales behind us we were off and running with our new “Antiques Business”. Our business plan consisted of shopping and decorating – it was our dream job! We didn’t just shop for antiques – we also shopped for books on antiques. We had to educate ourselves on the values of our china, glass and books. Sally was doing tea cups, so I focused on depression glass. I was never a big fan of the colored glass that looked like it came free in boxes of Breeze (or were those towels?). However, we had a steady stream of customers looking for depression glass. I educated myself on the finer points of depression glass, carnival glass, milk glass, and vaseline glass.

The experienced dealers in our mall were always talking about “the good old days” – when you could actually make money in this business. Now we had two major hurdles — antiques were going out of style, and eBay. For years, these depression glass hunters would scour the shops and markets looking for that last piece to complete their collection of Hazel Atlas cobalt blue. Then along came eBay, and suddenly they could find a dozen sellers who were naively offering identical sugar bowls for two bucks. As I write this, there are 31,222 items listed under depression glass on eBay. Mall customers would inform me that they saw my same piece on eBay (where I probably bought it) for half the price. “But,” I explained, “you can’t see the piece. You have to ship it.” Besides, what was the fun in buying online?

Jeff, the mall owner, was also new to this antiques business. He had been a collector and had pretty high-end taste. He was horrified by some of the things the lady dealers were selling. Did you see Ruth is selling doll heads for $26? Not attractive doll heads. Hideous doll heads. It was true. Ruth had a giant old bed for a display, wrapped in chenille and covered with an assortment of old dolls, doll limbs and heads. The rest of her booth was shabby chic – which to the untrained eye (and Jeff) looked like rusty or paint-chipped garbage.

I quickly realized that Jeff could not tell us apart. There were 6 of us in one booth. He knew Sue, as she was blonde, but the rest of us where average sized, middle aged brunettes. This was an advantage, at first. Jeff did not approve of some of our inventory (he had recently called us questioning the structural soundness of a tea cart) but he wasn’t sure whom to address. I was also sneaking in new items, which I know he didn’t want. He took to writing monthly letters addressed to us all; sort of a group chastisement. Here is a small excerpt from the first monthly letter:

I am most concerned with quality and uniqueness and will make exceptions to newer merchandise as long as it is tasteful.

Please remember that I do not want any RESIN products here at all. Nothing indicates a “fake” antique store as much as products made out of this plastic type material. Please remove these items.

There were 12 additional bullet points reminding us to be helpful and authentic and not touch other dealers’ merchandise and to make an appointment if we had any complaints with management. I soon realized it was going to be an us against them mentality in this business. The dealers thought they were in charge, but Jeff thought he was.

Jeff did take pity on us and lend us an old cabinet as a display case.

We filled it up with our “smalls”. Sally was quite talented at arranging our merchandise – notice how she arranges our napkins with the point hanging over the edge of the shelf and her use of seasonal produce along the top. Simple tricks (like running the red ribbon through the inexpensive milk glass plate on top) were surprisingly helpful. However, we soon learned that people don’t like to open cabinet doors (unless they want to steal something). In 3 years we never sold a single item from inside this cabinet. Back in the corner you can see the display corner cabinet that Mary Lynn garbage picked for us.

An important source of inventory for the dealer is the estate sale. This was a new and fascinating world for us. People die and their “estate” hires someone to sort through all of their treasured belongings – they arrange them, price them and then let strangers trample through their house and ridicule them. Everything is for sale – from expensive paintings and sterling silver right down to the Depends.

If it’s a good sale, the people arrive early to get on a list. Then the crowd gathers on the front lawn while the numbers are handed out. The doors finally open and they let in about 5 people at a time. The rest of us mill around the yard scrutinizing the house and the neighborhood. We watch every exiting customer, lamenting all the good stuff we missed.

There are two groups of estate sale customers – dealers and scroungers. I don’t know where these scrounging people come from. They must plot out their routes in the morning and go from sale to sale. They always come in pairs. Most of them smoke. They buy all the cheap stuff that you never imagine would sell.

I tried to surreptitiously snap this photo of a few customers waiting to get into the sale of a local hot dog mogul. From a distance I thought the couple on the right were youngish. When they got closer I saw that she was in her 70′s with a wig, and he had to be 105. I couldn’t figure out why you would disguise yourself or try to look so good on your estate sale outing. Perhaps they were in witness protection, or it was really Uncle Lewis from Christmas Vacation. As we waited to get in, everyone by the pool house was mumbling about the vulgarity of people having enough money to build pools and they swore the driveway was even heated (I think it was). You should have seen their faces when we got inside and they saw the 18 black toilets and leopardskin carpet runners.

Then there are the dealers. They have their own giant shopping bags and they rush in and claim their stuff. I was always after the books. There was one dealer that I had several run ins with. She would go to the books, grab them all and put them in a pile. If I touched a book on this pile she would tell me that they were hers. “All of them?” I asked in my most challenging voice. “Possibly,” she said. “I have to go through them all.” This hardly seemed fair. Could I claim the entire house until I go through it all? I sat there staring her down as she slowly inspected each title, apparently hoping I would go away. I decided I could wait her out, and hovered annoyingly over her pile. She was determined that I not get a single book. She draped her coat over the books and flagged down the estate sale lady. She offered a group price for them all, and smiled at me when it was accepted. I hope she got nothing but book club editions and mildew.

Even the dealers in our own mall were not very friendly to us. We were the newbies, the dilettantes. We were just stealing their market share and potentially exposing all their secrets. They were not always the most honest bunch. Mostly they were just trying to make a living in a tough market, but we actually saw one woman switching price tags at an estate sale. These were cheap items, but still, she was stealing from the dead.

One Friday, Sally and I scanned the local paper and planned to finally beat the other dealers to a sale. We were in luck – there was a sale in our town. We got there a few minutes before the opening time. Oddly, there was no one else there, but as the homeowner was running her own sale (instead of hiring an expert) she probably did not know where to advertise. We hurried up to the home. The garage door was open and the folding tables were neatly lined with treasures. We started examining everything and picked up a few vintage ornaments.

There was a large handmade sign on the garage wall with a giant arrow pointing to the door to the inside of house. It said “More Inside ==>”. That must be where all the dealers were, we realized. They were beating us after all. We quickly opened the door to the house and stepped inside the kitchen. A woman was sweeping her floor. We must have startled her. She jumped and then turned her broom sideways and thrust it toward us, as if to hold us back from all the good stuff inside.

Her: Do I know you?!!

This seemed like an odd question.

Us: I don’t think so.

Her: Why are you in my house?

Us: Did we forget to get a number?

Her: What the #@&$* are you doing in my kitchen?

We suddenly noticed that absolutely no one else was inside the house either.

Us: Aren’t you having an estate sale?

Her: Tomorrow!!

We backed out of that house, dropping the things in our hands, and made a run for the car. “You should not have left your garage door open” we yelled as we ran. We sheepishly checked the ad and, indeed, she was right. We did not return the next day.

The next big “shopping” event in our area is the annual spring clean up – or “garbage day”. That is the one day a year when you can throw out anything you want and the garbage men will take it away. I love this day because I can clean out all the junk in my house and try to sneak in some of my husband’s remaining bachelor crap (every year you see sets of giant speakers on the parkways). My goal is always to have all of my trash garbage-picked and not wind up in a landfill. I attach helpful signs to my stuff, like “Works Fine”. I sit in the front window and watch in glee as each piece is scavenged. My feelings are hurt when my pile is bypassed.

My neighbor, Karla, dreads garbage day. She clings to each piece of treasure that her husband, John, hauls from their house. “Someone can use that,” she insists. “That is a perfectly good avocado electric range. Hey, I haven’t read those papers yet.” John is usually able to pry a few things from her hands or he pays us to take Karla for the night. Once, Karla was out of town, and you never saw a happier man as he wheeled barrels full of junk out to the parkway and chuckled as it disappeared into the garbage truck. It was months before Karla spoke to him that year.

The kids love garbage day because it is a giant treasure hunt, and they hunt in packs. We call it Wilding – or Lord of the Flies night. Middle school boys claim the town as their own. For some reason there is always a leader and he always carries some sort of garbage-picked walking stick (like an old ski pole or hockey stick). He climbs to the top of each pile of garbage and then swings his stick. Sometimes he points to something that one of his pack grabs. Sometimes he instructs them to just swing and smash anything that looks fragile – mostly giant computer monitors.

Strangers pour in from a hundred-mile radius to come to our garbage day. We must have good stuff. They troll the side streets in giant vans or open trucks. There are the metal collectors who take anything metal. There are the furniture shoppers. Then there are the antique dealers. I had no idea that garbage was such a rich source of mall inventory. This must be where Ruth got her doll heads.

I will do almost anything, but I draw the line at garbage picking for antiques, especially in my neighbors garbage. Mary Lynn didn’t quite understand why I wouldn’t go out picking with her. It was killing her that all the good stuff was being taken. She left to go out on her own. Mary Lynn was definitely our best bargain finder. She could negotiate a $50 item down to 99 cents, and then still have buyer’s remorse. The problem for her was the selling. If an item had any value, she could not part with it. So she bought lots of stuff, but only a few pieces actually came to market.

While the other dealers were out picking, I watched my garbage pile dwindle. It was getting dark. All I had left were a few broken down old chairs that I decided were beyond repair. Finally, a huge vehicle pulled up, and Ruth hopped out. She looked around to see who was watching. She inspected the chairs, gave them a little wiggle, and then tossed them in her truck. I imagined I would be seeing them at the mall next month.

Antique Dealing

Posted on January 14, 2012 by housewifery.org

A recurring topic in our “Strategy” group was how to make money without getting a real job. We were willing to work up to five days a week from 10:00 – 3:00 with summers off. Shockingly, these jobs were scarce. But we were smart and educated – there had to be something we could do on our own. Then, in a flash of insight, we came up with the concept of antique dealer. We had seen other women in the neighborhood do this. They shopped at estate sales, sold at the Jackson Square Antique Mall and made lots of money (or so we thought).

Jackson Square was underwhelmed with our collective lack of experience, desire to split a 100 sq ft booth among six people, and our lack of concept (we just didn’t know if we wanted smalls or furniture, or if we were shabby chic or mid century). We were placed on the bottom of a waiting list (No. 38). After two years we had moved up to 36. We played around on eBay and nearly gave up our dream of turning trash to treasures when our luck changed. I spotted the following ad in the local paper:

New antique mall opening. Dealers wanted.

It was fate. We elected Sue to call and negotiate, as she had prior sales experience. The owner of the new venture, Jeff, seemed happy to rent to us in spite of our lack of direction or experience. We signed a lease for 100 square feet of space for $210/month. That was only $35 per person. It was perfect.

Mary planned to make and sell baby soft furnishings from vintage fabrics. She would buy the linens in Chicago and ship them to her sister in Florida for assembly into heirloom quality gifts. Sally would become an expert in tea cups. I would focus on books and art. Sue and Mary Lynn decided they would shop for bargains and also try to sell some excess stuff from their homes. Mary Lynn reminded us not to overlook garbage picking as a source of good stuff. Meg’s tenure in the business was very brief but she did bring in one item that ultimately led to my verbal smackdown from another dealer.

Opening day was two weeks away in November. We busied ourselves coming up with a clever name (Old Town Treasures) and making cute price tags with colored stock and scissors that cut in zig zags. We also shopped. You would think that filling up 100 square feet with the inventory of six people would be easy. We combed through our own homes looking for antiques, or at least anything old. Then we hit the resale shops and one estate sale. We brought in everything we had collected over two weeks and tried to arrange an attractive display. We soon discovered the concept of fixtures. Piling a bunch of teacups on a concrete floor wasn’t going to cut it. We spread our meager pieces across the booth – using a high chair and a side table as displays. Sally arranged an artful display of six vintage Christmas ornaments on the tray of the high chair. Sue snuck in an urn made from resin, which we quickly learned was one of Jeff’s pet peeves.

I brought in a quilt rack in anticipation of the bounty of baby linens we would soon have to sell. I also framed a Currier and Ives print that I bought on eBay (that the seller had apparently ripped out of a book). I found this “pie crust” table (I was quickly learning the antiques lingo) at a consignment store. Why I ever thought that I could buy from one store and sell it for more at another is beyond me (hindsight).

I placed my chest and antique typewriter on the floor and tried to dress it up with some books.

The more experienced dealers wheeled in giant pieces of furniture and cabinets with locks (their necessity would soon become apparent). They had vans full of clear totes stuffed with “smalls”. They opened their holiday totes and loaded their booths with vintage Christmas items. We made a mental note to shop for holiday items.

November:

Jeff and his wife Jody opened the business to a great deal of publicity. People flocked in from neighboring suburbs to see the new mall. Unfortunately, the mall was located in an industrial area that was not surrounded by the high income homeowners of our target market. Perhaps that wouldn’t matter. We would become a destination store, Jeff assured us. We were conveniently located between the Root Busters plumber and a notoriously bad railroad crossing that could tie up traffic for 40 minutes. I suppose if we were actually trapping our customers on the right side of the tracks, that could be beneficial.

Jeff was the eternal optimist, and I initially thought he might be right. Within the first few hours someone bought my trunk for $300 (which was almost what I paid for it in an overpriced antique store in the English countryside) and asked if they could get a dealer discount on some of my books. After learning that when another dealer buys your merchandise it is considered common courtesy to offer them ten percent off, I happily agreed — after all I could certainly give a little on some six dollar books after my big sale. This was going to be so easy! Why wasn’t everyone doing this? I quickly calculated how much I would have to buy and sell to start generating a decent income.

By the end of the day my trunk sale fell through and I learned that no one wants to pay full price for antiques. That first month we sold a total of twelve items for $410. After rent, commission and store charges we netted $145. My share was $63, which after cost of goods sold was a profit of $19.28. I was feeling pretty good. Then a dealer named Betty came over and told me that, in the future, I should sell any and all antique sterling spoons to her – because she made jewelry from them. She would only pay me $10 however and I sold mine for $25. Also, she informed me that I needed to price my jewelry much higher (and really had no business selling jewelry). In hindsight, I should have paid much more attention to Betty.

I am not a Portrait Painter

Posted on January 11, 2012 by housewifery.org

I painted my first painting in 1976 in Advanced Art at Lincoln Junior High.

I don’t know what possessed me to enroll in Advanced Art in 8th grade. Probably it was to be in a cool class instead of just advanced math. The Advanced Art studio was a different world. We had an enormous space in the school basement. We sat on metal bar stools and listened to Elton John’s Greatest Hits over and over. We had a cool teacher – Ms. Braakman. She had one brown eye and one blue eye. She wore short skirts and flirted with the cute Biology teacher.

The administration left Ms. Braakman alone to do whatever she wanted in that basement — we mostly gossiped, but did experiment with some unusual media. She was not overly concerned with safety. One day we were given blocks of asbestos and scalpels to create whatever we wanted. We would probably all have mesothelioma today except that she told us to keep the blocks wet to make the easier to carve and minimize dust. I pretended that I knew what I was doing. I was just fascinated by my fellow artists – cheerleaders, pot smokers, and trash talking burnouts. My good friend, Kim, was also in the class.

Our final project was an oil painting. I was inspired to reproduce a postcard of a sled propped up against a barn. Kim selected a giant picture of a chimp face (why??). I guessed it might be easier to paint a monkey face than a human one.

My painting was progressing nicely. I looked over at Kim’s. It was a hideous cartoonish looking thing that would give anyone nightmares. I told her it looked good. Kim looked at it doubtfully and said “we should both start over”.

Somehow Kim talked Ms. Braakman into letting her take the painting home to fix it up. She brought the painting back in on a Monday and it looked like Renoir had touched it up. Now Kim’s dad was an artist, but she always refused to admit that he had helped her. I didn’t call her on it as I had just received an A on a perfect replica of the Apollo 11 spaceship (that even broke apart into the stages). My teacher was so thrilled that she asked to keep the model for the classroom. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my step father labored over that spaceship for weeks and really wanted it back.

Here is my finished painting.

Ms. Braakman was very impressed and told me I had better take art in high school. I never did. That was much too fun and impractical. I went back to advanced math.

Flash forward to 2002. I was window shopping at a gallery and saw a beautiful oil painting. It was $2000. I wanted it, but knew I could never convince my husband to buy something that expensive. My mother insisted that I deserved it. I then remembered my painting background and thought I could do that. It was just some boats on water. So I went out and bought a basic art set and set to work. I selected a scene of a lighthouse in Michigan.

If you look closely you will be very impressed with the shading on the white fence and the fact that I remembered to add shadows. I’m not sure what’s going on with the horizon – there must have been a tsunami rolling in. This was just my first effort and, even I, realized it was pretty bad. I sold this at a garage sale and was horrified when a woman down the street bought it. I was concerned about her lack of taste but she told me it was for a kid’s room. Apparently I had that simple outsider art style.

I decided that I needed to nurture this nascent talent and enrolled in a painting class at my local art league. I slowly improved and create a few landscapes that were worthy of (cheap) framing.

Then I discovered I could paint people, if done from the back:

I gave this one to my mother-in-law. She never took it out of the packaging.

I expanded my repertoire to include pastels. Soon my very kind friends requested paintings and most of the followed my rules – I only paint your kids from behind. This was for Sally:

I imagine them posing for Sally as she told them to try to look natural — like they always sat side by side and stared out into the desert.

I went crazy painting and passing them out as presents, whether people wanted them or not. Then people actually wanted to commission me. This pastel was for a neighbor:

This for a childhood friend:

People hear that you paint and they eventually want you to paint their family — from the front. I tried to dissuade them. One neighbor was insistent. Her husband would love a family portrait for his birthday. As I have the inability to say no, I just said “well, it might be beyond my abilities”. I explained that I might be able to do it if they were in the distance or from behind. She then presented me an extreme close up portrait of her 3 kids and the dog. She had never seen any of my work, yet she was trusting me to create a masterpiece for her husband.

I tried … I really did. I even got out my projector to try to get the nose placement on the faces. I sketched and erased and painted and painted over it. I tried to create that look where the face is just suggested with shading (it looked like I was trying to wipe out their faces). I tried painting the features in clearly (looked like dirt). It was hopeless. I did not even attempt the dog. I ended up with this mess:

I could not even show her. I begged for more pictures and finally settled on a photo of the kids from a distance and this was better:

I even got the dog in this one!

Needle Felting and Why Chelsea Must Die

Posted on December 16, 2011 by housewifery.org

A few years ago I was at a Fine Arts Fair in Michigan. As with most of these events, the word Fine was stretching it a bit – copper fountains, quilted vests, cheesy watercolors of lighthouses, tables made from polished cross sections of trees, and so on.

I quickly ran from the shade of one tent to another, seeing nothing but the same old stuff from previous years. I suddenly stumbled upon a new vendor – a young woman surrounded by shelves of tiny little wool creatures. I had never seen anything like this – they were adorable. Dogs, cats, gnomes, wrinkled people. I had to have one. I didn’t know which one yet, but I had to own one of these things and figure out how she made them.

I selected a little cat with his paw raised. Then I checked the price – $145!! For four inches of folk art?? What the hell? This wasn’t a lladro.

My husband’s radar went off – someone he sensed (all the way from the kettle corn booth) that I was about to make a purchase.

Husband: “What’s that?”

Me: “I’m not really sure, but isn’t it cute?”

Husband: “How much?”

Me: “One hundredish”

Husband: snort and sneer

Me: “You would spend that much on a case of chewy bars at Costco. This will last forever.”

Husband: “Can’t you make one of those?”

He steered me away with his false praise and belief in my crafting skills. I left empty handed.

The next week I described the little creatures to the knitters. “Needle felting,” they told me. You buy something called roving and stab it with a barbed needle and it “felts” – the same concept as washing all those sweaters in hot water. Somehow the needles bound the fibers together. I ordered a book. I ordered roving and needles and brushes and glass eyes on wire.

A mini homage to Chelsea was my first attempt:

She was pretty floppy and unattractive. But I was not discouraged. I then remembered that I saved some fur from my recently deceased collie, Kayla (don’t ask me why). I read that you could add real animal fur to the roving. Here is much improved technique on mini Kayla:

Wow! This actually looked like Kayla and she could even stand on her own. I snapped this pic and ran to email it to the knitters.

I then went to retrieve my new treasure from the dining room, but she was gone. I looked under the table, but no sign of her. Chelsea eyed me suspiciously from the living room. No, I thought. She couldn’t be that cruel. Besides, I was only gone for a moment. I ran up to her, peeled apart her clenched jaw, and extracted a leg from her mouth. I screamed; quite loudly, “Where is Kayla?” I hunted around and eventually found body parts all over the house. How could one dog do so much damage in two minutes?

I yelled at Chelsea as if she could understand why she had ruined my day. Not only had she destroyed my work of fine art, she had eaten all that remained of Kayla. I couldn’t get that back. I was able to at least reconstruct the body so I knew Chelsea did not require surgery to remove a glass eye on wire.

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