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Long a handicraft hobbyist, Mrs. Willis, now of Los Angeles, had been sending out her hand made Christmas cards for several seasons, with no other thought than to give Christmas cheer her own original touch. One particular Christmas, when she was living in New Haven, Connecticut, a Newton, Connecticut, gift shop owner saw and appreciated the uniqueness and charm of the cards, and asked Mrs. Willis to make up some others for the shop.

Once the opportunity of selling the cards presented itself, Mrs. Willis lost no time. She made up 100 different cards; the gift shop proprietor selected some to keep in stock, and Mrs. Willis was on her way.

She made up a catalog of her cards, and took them to an exclusive fifth Avenue specialty shop in New York City. "The cards sold themselves," she says. She received an order for 300 cards. At Christmas, 1951, 1,250 were sold in one FIfth Avenue department store, 900 in another. Among her customers she lists B. Altman, Bonnier's and Lord and Taylor.

The cards are sold under the trade name, "Riona" and she now also makes birthday, birth announcements, Easter cards, Valentines, cocktail invitations, etc.

THE CARDS feature decoupage designs and unusual materials. Thus, one card is covered with pink and silver theatrical tarlatan, upon which is pasted a pink foil sea horse. Another is covered with pink or blue large meshed silk net, with three silver foil fish pasted over it, each fish touched with flitter. A perennial favorite is her birth announcement card depicting a winged cherub, in either pink or blue, with either "a daughter" or "a son" written in gold underneath.

Mrs. Willis' designs include clowns, butterflies, doves, angels, children, and bunnies, all individualized by touches of whimsy. Materials used are flocked paper, gauze, tarlatan, ribbon, silk, meshes, laces, paper doilies, foils, tinsel, flitter, and almost anything that can be cut and pasted. The neatest pasting material, she has found, is rubber cement. Her paper, she says, she obtains almost everywhere. Canny shopping for odd lots and remnants of good stiff paper, in odd and appealing shades, has helped her keep her prices of materials down. The cards are cut to her specifications at the mill.

Since prices must be kept down to obtain a wider market, Mrs. Willis keeps her designs relatively simple, depending upon uniqueness of design and materials, and fine workmanship to give her cards sales appeal.

Thus, a cocktail invitation may be a piece of black, stiff gauze, cut to fit the front of the white folded card. A white rooster is pasted to the gauze, and over it a scarlet rooster, somewhat smaller, so that the white outlines are visible all around. The front fold of the card is then wrapped in cellophane, fastened inside the front fold with cellulose tape. Mrs. Willis wraps the front, only, of all her cards in cellophane, so that they may be examined and handled without becoming frayed or soiled.

A seahorse card is simplicity itself, involving merely the cutting of the pink and silver theatrical tarlatan to fit the front fold of the card, fastening it to the card with rubber cement, cutting out and pasting the pink foil horse, and covering the card with cellophane.

For a birth announcement card, Mrs. Willis uses three cardboard patterns, an oval for the face, cut from peach colored dull paper, wings, one pattern of which is reversed to get the right and left wings, cut from gold foil paper, and a plaid nightshirt, which is cut from pink or blue checked grosgrain ribbon. The patterns are traced on the reverse side of the paper, placed so as to minimize waste. She doesn't cut the ribbon unless she can paste it on immediately, as ribbon has a tendency to fray. After all the parts are pasted on, she paints on the features with a fine brush and India ink, and the gold halo and "a daughter" or "a son" are painted in gold scrip.

For mass production, Mrs. Willis uses cardboard patterns to trace the pieces, and for a card that requires detailed painting, she sometimes cuts a stencil. However, each little paper applique must be cut and pasted separately. Thus, each letter of the word "Happy" on a clown card must be cut and pasted individually. The round foil circles that make up his buttons, however, are bought already cut.

Sometimes a short message is lettered inside the card, or it may be left blank for the sender to fill in. Cards may be ordered personalized with names at no extra cost. Among Mrs. Willis' customers have been the orchestra leader Kay Kayser, the dress designer, Omar Kiam, and jewelry designer Olga Tritt.

MRS. WILLIS acknowledges that her cards are designed for a specialized market; to reach that market she sells only to exclusive gift shops. If the merchandise they display is high-priced and puts a premium on quality, she can generally place her cards there. Very often the owner or buyers for the gift shop whom she approaches will tell her that her material is not in their bracket, and recommend a gift shop in their town that does cater to the clientele she seeks. Advertisements sometimes provide a clue as to the type of merchandise which is sold, and stores featuring custom made and original merchandise are of the sort that buy her cards. Mrs. Willis has placed her cards by simply driving from town to town and stopping at a gift shop in each town, as the gift shops are generally on the main street. For the big stores, it is generally advisable to find out on what day the buyers look at merchandise, or to write ahead of time for an appointment. As buyers are always on the lookout for unusual merchandise, they are not difficult to see or hard to sell, if your stuff is good.

An even more profitable market, which Mrs. Willis has hardly tapped, is making cards for individuals. While in selling to retail stores she gets only half the retail price, in selling directly to individuals, she retains the whole thing, except a quantity discount of 10 percent. In order to get this kind of business, it is necessary to make a study of society, to discover the individuals who might be interested. Mrs. Willis compiled a list of women who she believed would like her cards, and wrote to them enclosing samples of her work. She acquired two or three of them as permanent customers.

The Junior League shops and women's exchanges are sometimes likely markets for hand made cards.

When Mrs. Willis first started three years ago, she was charging 50 and 75 cents per card. However, she found this price severely limited her market, and now she has simplified her cards and her processes so that she can produce them to retail at from 15 to 50 cents, with the greatest number selling at a quarter.

Although she originally sold on consignment, she found this was not wise, since cards were not always returned in good repair. Cards for Christmas are shown in March and April, and ordered in May by the big stores.

At present her business keeps Mrs. Willis busy most of the time. She plans to employ an agent to show her designs for her, and to train a helper to do the preliminary work on her cards, while keeping the finishing touches in her own hands.

Mrs. Willis feels that a business like hers is better run on a small scale. Mass production is difficult for a product which requires the personal touch. However, she feels that in this business she is able to make a modest profit at work which she enjoys doing and which she can do at home on her own time.