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Believe it or not, from a three-foot length of bamboo cut from a common fish-pole, you can make three dozen pairs of unique earrings that will result in a net profit of as much as $50 when sold at retail prices. I did it. In fact, I am doing it constantly. And if I can do it so can you, for I know of no easier material to work than bamboo.

Although I am over 71 years of age, a retired white collar worker with no special craft skill, I worked out a plan of action with the help of bamboo that is now making for me and my wife, a fairly decent living. True, we have a small pension and a small social security income, but not nearly enough to meet our needs.

A LITTLE selling experience behind the counter of a gift shop owned by a relative in Florida where I now live gave me the idea. We were selling Guatemalan dolls, tiny, peasant-garbed items that we bought attached to ear-screws and sold for novelty earrings. Not too attractive in themselves, but women bought them. Then came the inspiration to place these odd little costumed men and women in some sort of a tiny frame. I had been working with bamboo in my little hobby shop making planters, ash-trays and many other items, so I turned to bamboo for my little frame,

By cutting narrow sections on the bias from small diameter bamboo, I fashioned an attractive setting for the miniature dolls. My first efforts were clumsy and not too pleasing. Gradually I mastered all of the original difficulties. If you will follow my instructions carefully you will be spared all the mistakes I made and you can be assured that you can easily make a saleable and profitable product at almost the first try.

As a result of this experimenting I am now able to turn out several dozen pairs of bamboo earrings daily. These I can retail at from $1.50 to $2 the pair. However, the difficulty of selling direct to the consumer, or should I say "wearer," naturally limits the quantity, so I reduced the price to $10.20 the dozen pairs and sold them in lots of two and three dozen direct to gift shops of which there are hundreds along or near U. S. Highway No. 1 from Jacksonville on the north to Key West on the south. It was only necessary, when I needed the money, to pile a gross lot in my car and drive north or south of where I live at Dania, Florida, visiting each gift shop on the road.

But I soon found it advisable to sell through jobbers. This reduced my profit and increased the need for a larger output, but it saved the time it took to sell them by myself and saved money used for gasoline. So now with three jobbers on my list, whom I met, incidentally, while visiting gift shops where I ran into them while they were attempting to sell their lines, I have all the orders in season that I need, sometimes more. One of the jobbers is a woman who works out of Tucson, Arizona, and covers much of the west. You will find that many jobbers carry several lines and are often on the lookout for something to add, especially if it is unusual. Since the jobbers must sell the stores at $10.20 the dozen, I must sell the jobbers at around $7.20 the dozen. But even at that price I can make enough money to pay me several dollars an hour.

BY NOW you must be wondering how to make the earrings, so here goes: First, how about the bamboo? In Miami, fishpoles from Japan are sold in lots of 100 by wholesale hardware dealers at a price of as little as $10.50 for 100 twelve-foot poles. I should interpolate that when I first started I bought bamboo from a rattan furniture dealer for ten cents a foot. Later I bought fishpoles from sport shops for 75 cents for a sixteen-foot pole. Now, as I said, I pay a little more than 10 cents a pole. In making these earrings, it is not possible, of course, to use all of the pole but the two thick and too thin portions can be used in a variety of ways to make other saleable articles.

To make the Guatemalan doll bamboo earrings shown in the pictures I make a slanting cut across a ½ to ⁵/8-inch thick section of bamboo that is fairly free from defect. The angle must be quite steep as you will see from the illustrations. When you cut straight across bamboo you naturally get a circle. This may do to make bracelets or belts but won't do for the doll-frames. Cutting at a slight angle gives you a fat oval. Also no good. Cut at an extreme angle and you can use a smaller diameter bamboo and get sufficient length and a very pleasing contour as well for a handsome dangle earring. A little practice will prove this to you.

Do not be discouraged at the appearance of the first cuts. Bear in mind that the thickness must not be over ¹/8 inch. Sawing must be carefully done so as not to "feather" the edges too much. Bamboo, as you will find out, has a "skin." This skin has a tendency to come off. It is best, before cutting into a section, to give it a light sanding with fine sandpaper. This gives the skin a "tooth" which helps it to take lacquer and also prevents, some of the tendency to "feather." But don't make the mistake of skinning the shell off entirely. They do this in furniture factories, and, in fact, furniture men told me to skin the bamboo, but this would be fatal to making a nice earring.

IN THE beginning I had no tools to speak of and all my work was done with a homemade mitre board and hack saw. Because the cutting angle was so steep I had to get a saw blade at least twelve inches long, so that it would go through the mitre box. Later I was able to buy a long hack saw frame into which I was able to fit a fourteen-inch "butchers" blade. Still later I tried cutting the bamboo with a jig saw but I gave it up. Finally I bought a secondhand band saw and by using blades with fine teeth, with the aid of a homemade jig I was able to cut much faster and with less "feathering."

There is no use trying to get all of the cuts you make of absolutely uniform size unless you are a better mechanic than I am. So always keep your pairs together, the one you have just cut and the next one to it, because bamboo varies in diameter and shape from one end of a joint to another. Now you can sand the little ovals on the cut surfaces but lightly with fine sandpaper, preferably on a disk sander. I started sanding by hand but this became too slow so I bought a secondhand ¼-inch electric drill on a stand with a rubber sanding disk attachment.

If you are careful you can now sand off the cut edges very lightly, on the drill sander. I said edges. Best do it by hand at first with a file. And even the inside of the oval, that is the hole, must be sanded, as bamboo has a very thin skin inside which must come off before lacquering. For this I made little tools out of small diameter dowels, less than ¼ inch, covering them with fine sandpaper glued on. This works fine and is easy. Keeping the best looking end for the bottom of the dangle, you must now drill a small hole in the top end of the oval for the ring that is to be later attached to the earring screw-back. I first drilled these with a small diameter drill held in a pin-vise, but later for speed, used a small electric drill. You have to be careful not to get too near the top edge and not to force the drill or you will have the hole breaking out at the end.

YOU ARE now ready for lacquering. Use clear dipping lacquer if the earring is to be left natural. Use a glossy or quick-drying black lacquer if they are to be black. Be sure that your lacquer is not too thick or too thin. A few trials will inform you which dilution to use. In order to keep from marring the sections while wet, run a short piece of wire through the drill hole to hold the oval by. Let the lacquer drip until it stops and be sure to take off the "bead" of lacquer at the bottom end with a piece of paper toweling, then hang the earring on pieces of wire projecting horizontally from a homemade frame. Hang them upside down, that is with the drill-hole at the bottom so that any bead of lacquer won't mar the earring. They dry quickly.

By now you have a pretty nice looking dangle. Next, you have to apply the ear-screws and the only kind I found it feasible to use are the ones with the engraved reverse cup and drop-ring. These may be had in nickel-silver and should be obtainable at as little as $2.50 the gross unless the prices advance again. You can pay a lot more if you buy them at the wrong places. Some shell-houses in Florida charge a great deal more. Also buy No. 3 or No. 4 nickel-silver split rings, which cost about 25 cents an ounce and some No. 1 nickel-silver split rings, preferably but not necessarily oval. The No. 1's are sprung on to the "drop-ring" of the screw-backs and the split-ring is gently pinched shut with a small-nosed pair of pliers. You will find it convenient to have two pairs of small-nose pliers on your workbench.

The No. 3 or 4 rings are spread slightly open and run through the hole in the end of the dangle. Leave the ring open after running it through the drill-hole and slip the small oval ring which you previously attached to the screw-back over it and pinch it shut. Now you have a usable earring. I started out selling these just as they are at this point at $1 the pair and some of my customers still demand them. But they did not sell well and are not sufficiently glamorous. Then when I decided to use the peasant dolls I bought the dolls, imported from Guatemala, by the gross, for about $7.50 the gross. You have to buy a gross of men dolls and a gross of women dolls separately and then match them yourself according to the color of the costumes. I saw them advertised in sets of twelve in a magazine at $1.20 a dozen. Such a price is prohibitive and they are available at the wholesale price if you buy them in quantities.

If you have never seen these dolls I might say they are a little over an inch in length and come in a variety of costumes. You fit a man doll in one of a pair of earrings and a matching woman doll in the other. By matching is meant that some one color in one doll should preferably appear also in the other doll.

YOUR OVALS, if properly made, should not exceed much more than 1½ inches over-all (that is, the bamboo portion). But you can make them longer if you wish by increasing the cutting angle or using larger diameter bamboo. But with the oval at 1½ inches the opening will be about an inch long if the walls of the bamboo are not too thick. The men dolls have a pack on their back simulating fagots or bales. The women dolls carry a bundle on their heads. Both are extremely attractive and colorful. I find that often the projecting ends of the covered wire that simulates hands and feet are a little too long and must be snipped off.

The dolls are easily attached to the ovals by putting a small bead of transparent cement on the backs of the dolls and at all points where they contact the bamboo. The bundles on the heads of the women come close to the tops of the ovals near the drill hole. It is important to cement this spot well. The packs on the backs of the men dolls fit into the hole in the bamboo and are usually visible only from the back of the earring. You can easily bend the dolls to form various attitudes of seeming activity such as walking, running, stepping out of the oval, etc. And here is where your own ingenuity can best be demonstrated. No two pairs of earrings will ever be exactly alike.

You can experiment with colors. Lacquer some black and try other colors if you wish. When you use black, put in dolls that will stand out against that color. Or try baby sea-horses. These can be bought from the various shell, houses in Florida at a price of about $5 to $6 per hundred. You must specify small baby sea-horses and insist that they not exceed ¾ inch in length. You can buy dried sea-horses, you know, as long as four inches but not for earrings. If you place sea-horses in natural bamboo ovals, dip them first in thinned-down black lacquer, as their natural color is an unpleasing gray. If you use them in black lacquered ovals, dip them in aluminum paint of the kind you buy in the dime-store and you get a fine silver effect. No need to add that, of course, they must be dry before being put in the ovals and cement carefully applied to the edges where they contact the inside or the oval.

WHAT TO do with the remainder of the fish-pole? Naturally there are not many sections in a pole of a diameter suitable for this type of earring so you can use the still thinner sections to make trellises for planters. The planters, that is the part that holds the plant, must be close to two or three inches diameter inside. If you have access to natural Florida bamboo you can find plenty of sufficient diameter along the canals west of Fort Lauderdale or in the Everglades. It's best to use deadwood. Or you can buy pieces of waste from a furniture factory. But, if this is not available use a tin can about three inches high and lacquer the outside. You can further embellish it with a nice "decal." It's a good idea to make them of a diameter so that they will take a standard clay flower-pot. The ridge or flange of the pot may project over the edge of the can.

If big bamboo is available, cut it into lengths of three or four inches. At a joint there will already be a base. Using pieces between joints you have to nail a bottom of round thin wood. Use both nails and glue. Two eighteen-inch lengths of small diameter bamboo are fastened vertically to the backs of these shells. Drill holes in these pieces and nail them to the shells at the bottom and near the top. Spread them apart at the top to get the effect you want. Now wet some lengths of raffia and bind it tightly around the base. A raffia binding should also be placed around the bamboo planter a short distance from the top. Tie it to the upright pieces as you cross them. Now put on your crosspieces over the uprights as shown in the illustration, binding them securely to the uprights where they meet. Two horizontal pieces should be enough and the raffia binding gives a nice effect. Now you can dip the whole thing into thinned-down shellac or brush shellac over it. Be sure to apply shellac especially at the joints where the raffia holds the parts together.

If you use a tin-can instead of a bamboo shell, you can still nail the uprights to the can, using small nails through drill-holes in both bamboo and can and turning the ends of the nails inside the can. But you can use small clay flower pots instead of either but you will have difficulty unless you first wrap the entire pot with raffia from top to bottom, glued on. And even then, fastening the uprights is a problem if the glue does not hold.

There is not a doubt about it. Bamboo is versatile! Once you have worked with it you will be glad to experiment with the-small pieces you have left over and so make other useful articles. In China and Japan bamboo furnishes the framework of the native's house, supplies paper for his windows, material for awnings and blinds. His bed, tables, seats and cupboards are made of bamboo. He makes carpenters rules, water-wheels, irrigating pipes, bird-cages and fish-net floats out of it. Even rafts, ropes and sails as well as ribs for his boat are of bamboo. Fans, spears, quivers, arrows, blow-pipes, pens, brushes, flutes and many other musical instruments show the versatility of this tree-like grass called bamboo.