Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

One of her patterns—and perhaps the most popular—is the "Stairway to the Stars" shelf. This moon shaped whatnot, made from a commercial craft pattern by A. Neely Hall, has found its way into many homes to be displayed attractively on the walls. It sells for $3.

Miss Luczak used to make each moon separately as the orders came in, but since they have become such fast moving items, she cuts out parts for several sets at a time and assembles them later. Some evenings she cuts parts for perhaps a dozen moons. Then the next evening she assembles shelves, stairways and other pieces. The third evening is spent in finishing. That is her usual procedure although it varies from time to time.

The moon is twenty-two inches high and measuring circle-wise, is forty-eight, inches from tip to tip.

TO MAKE the complete whatnot Miss Luczak follows these steps: First, she takes the commercial pattern and by means of carbon paper, transfers it to a piece of lightweight cardboard. She then cuts it out, thus obtaining a silhouette form of the moon, star, shelves and other parts.

Now she lays the cardboard pattern of the parts on one-fourth-inch plywood and, holding it steady, she traces around it with a pencil. The design is now drawn on the board, preparatory to cutting. A flip of the switch and she guides the jig saw over the penciled lines. She cuts all the separate parts needed and lays them on her worktable.

Now for assembling. She takes the cut out stairway, which was made from pine, and attaches the top and bottom shelves to each end with sturdy finishing nails. Next she adds a drop of glue to the top shelf, then fastens it to the moon with nails driven from the back side. The process is repeated on the lower shelf.

A post is now nailed to the top shelf with a railing of white cord extending down to the post on the lower landing. A brace is also nailed to the lower shelf for additional support. Two little screw eyes are added for hanging—one at the top of the moon and the other inside the moon circle. A small nail driven through the star holds it to the wall so it will hang in the well-known moon and star pattern.

Since a sander is still one of her hopes for the future, Helen takes sandpaper and smoothes every inch of the front surface. When it assumes the smoothness of glass, she applies a coat of white shellac. After it is absorbed and dry, she brushes on clear varnish.

HELEN USED to make the moons an oak color and it was quite by accident that she started making them blond. It all happened when she received an order for a shelf, but it must match the blond furniture in the home of the woman who ordered it.

For a while this order stumped Helen, as she did not know how to produce this finish. Paint hardly seemed the answer and besides she did not know what color would bring out the proper light tone. "What can I put on it," she asked, "to make it the color you want?" The customer replied that the moon was already the color she wanted and all she need do was add a lustre of some kind.

So back home went the shelf. Looking over her finishing supplies, Miss Luczak spied a bottle of white shellac and applied a coat in generous proportions. When it was dry, she brushed on some clear varnish. The result was very striking and now that she had made it this way, she liked it better than the darker finish. She now makes most of the moon shelves blond since her customers seem to prefer them that way.

Another popular whatnot which she makes is shaped like a maple leaf, available in several sizes. She traces the pattern in the same way as for the moon shelf, thus obtaining a cardboard outline to draw on her plywood. She cuts it out, adds a shelf properly braced, and a screw eye for hanging on the wall. She gives it a dark finish to produce a leafy maple effect.

Wooden yard ornaments also seem to have great appeal. Helen's own yard is a good advertisement for her wares. Summertime finds it a mass of blooming flowers and her cavorting animals of wood look very realistic in their rustic setting.

The fishpond is an attractive spot with the flashes of goldfish twinkling among the lily pads. A snow white duck real as life floats woodenly on the surface and the ducklings about her create a scene typical of one found in a picture book.

MISS LUCZAK does not set a high price on her wood products because she wants to keep her creations on a hobby basis. Since she only runs the jig saw in her spare time, she fills local orders exclusively and has not entered the mail order field.

Most of her orders are obtained through friends and acquaintances. Neighbors see her yard and take a fancy to some particular creature of wood. "And would you sell me that little squirrel?" one may ask her. She smilingly tells them that it isn't for sale, but she will gladly make them one like it for $3. So an order is obtained. But rarely is it a single order. Usually the customer has a relative or a friend who might want one. Or perhaps someone is having a birthday and the little ornament is just the thing to give. So the chain of orders grows—one order leading to another new contact and sometimes to several more.

Christmas season brings orders for Santa Claus in his sleigh, drawn by three wooden brown reindeer. Another popular item for this holiday is Santa with his pack, measuring two feet high. In 1953, the owner of a local coffee shop purchased a large Santa to stand at the door of his establishment.

MANY OF Miss Luczak's name plates have proved popular as gifts for newlyweds who love to see the "Mr. and Mrs." in their front yard. Helen has made as many as eighteen of her name ornaments in three weeks' time. These sell for $3 each.

One captivating design is the twin doggy set. These are made in the form of duplicate dogs holding a name between them. To make this set, Helen first traces the pattern on cardboard as usual and then pencils it on the plywood. She marks the inner lines with a sharp pencil so they will show even after paint has been applied. After flipping the electric switch, she cuts the outline on her jig saw.

For the name plate, she cuts a wooden rectangle two inches in width and as long as the name requires. She inserts a screw eye in the paw of each dog and a hook on both ends of the rectangle so the name plate is held between the two dogs. Next she covers the dogs with white enamel on all sides, using a good grade single coat. She uses black as the base for the name plate. When it is thoroughly dry, she paints on the blue denim overalls, the brown loppy ears, the mischievous eyes and the other deeply penciled lines and creases. She also letters in the name on the rectangle at this time, using white paint and letter outlines. Now they are hung up or set aside to dry.

At the bottom of each dog, Miss Luczak drives two spike nails far enough to be firm but not to split the wood. These are punched into the soft lawn to hold the dogs and name plate erect.

IT IS not unusual for a strange car to pull into the Luczak driveway and the occupants ask if they can look over the novelties and flowers. Then when they have obtained permission, they inquire where they too might purchase some of the mischievous looking yard creatures. Helen is quick to tell them that she makes the ornaments herself. "What!" they are likely to exclaim in astonishment. A girl make all these things? Impossible! That is something only a man can do."

Then she explains to them that she does make them in spite of the fact that she is very feminine indeed. She is quite willing to show them her jig saw in the basement where she works out her patterns. Needless to say, often the strangers leave with purchases of several sets of the wooden creations for themselves or as gifts for friends.

HELEN'S HOBBY has proved so interesting to her that she often talks enthusiastically about it to people she meets. They ask to see her products, first from curiosity, and later are amazed to find them tiptop in quality. This is another way she makes new contacts and gets a market for her products.

Since she lives a few miles from town, she drives in every day to her place of employment, a local department store where she is a window dresser and clerk. When she reaches home in the evenings, there is not much time left to devote to her hobby. However, she does fill many orders in between her work and her social activities.

These orders average from ten to fifteen pieces a week, but during the rush of a holiday season she makes as many as twenty-five. Everyone seems to be particularly intrigued with the personalized lawn ornaments and she has sold as high as fifty or sixty of them in a single summer. The yard decorations are seasonal sales, of course, and warm weather finds her turning out many rabbits, ducks, squirrels and other creatures on her jig saw.

HELEN'S HOBBY started a few years ago when she was a senior in the high school. At that time she saw a quilt pattern of a panda bear and wondered how it would look as a doorstop or possibly a lawn ornament of wood. She traced the pattern and took it home to try.

It looked like quite an undertaking since the only wood she had was an orange crate and her tool, a hand saw. Laboriously she pushed it back and forth and the old saw chewed reluctantly into the wood. Somehow it did not negotiate the curves very well and when she was through, it looked quite crude. However, an application of black and white enamel helped it immensely and she promptly displayed it on her lawn.

A neighbor saw the panda and asked if Helen would make her a wooden duck. Helen told her that she had no pattern, but the woman was not to be dissuaded and said she would find one for her. Helen could see no polite way of refusing the order, although she now admits that she wanted to very much.

In a few days the woman appeared with a duck pattern and again Helen had a session with the coarse wood of the crate and the stubborn old hand saw.

After much effort the duck took on a realistic shape. Everything went well until she reached the head and suddenly it snapped off right across the grain of the wood. It was discouraging to say the least and Helen sadly gazed at the decapitated duck. "I'll just tell her I can't make it," she decided.

But this was not her way as she hated to admit that she could not do something. Finally her brother came up with a solution. He presented her with his old coping saw and it went much easier after that. The tiny curves now came out rounded even though it was still slow going.

The neighbor was so pleased that she sent for more patterns and soon Helen was making many different kinds of birds and animals. In her spare moments she made some for her own yard and it became quite the showplace of the neighborhood.

WHEN ORDERS started coming in, Helen found her coping saw much too slow. She had to turn down orders as there were so many and she could not keep up. One of the greatest incentives to a hobbyist is knowing his product is worthy of sale. And then not to be able to fill the orders when she had them . . . but she did not know what she could do about it.

Every evening she would get out the mail order catalogue and the page would automatically turn to the jig saws. The prices ran from $16 to $85. This amount to her was prohibitive at the time since she was not even working except on the farm. So she looked long and wishfully. She decided if she ever could buy one, it would be the best. And the best cost $88! She might as well wish for the moon, she thought.

The solution to her problem came more easily than expected. Her brother-in-law had always been interested in her work and generously offered to loan her the money she needed to purchase the saw. It would take $100 to buy it when freight charges were added. It looked as large as the national debt at the time, but she was grateful for the financial assistance. She promised to pay back the loan from her novelty sales.

At last the power tool arrived and Helen immediately put it to use—experimenting to get the feel of it and then going on with confidence.

Now that she had her saw, she could make a greater variety of designs in much less time. Her swan flower box pattern which she had filed away some time before was at last put to use.

Months before this when she was on a drive, she saw one of these boxes. She stopped and asked the owner if she could trace the outline on waxed paper. The woman was quite willing, but skeptical that it would last until she reached home. As it happened, she did not use the pattern for two years and it was still as plain as ever. Since that time, she has made and sold nearly fifty of these swan boxes to friends and neighbors.

Another pattern was copied on waxed paper the same way. This time it was an intricate corner shelf and she marked it all down for her own use. She found that there were thirty-four inside cuts on the design. This certainly would not be practical to make for sale as it consumed too much time to make. She only made one and it now reposes in a corner of her living room covered with many colorful miniatures and figurines.

The only other pattern she could find for a corner whatnot was one which had two shelves. Since almost everyone seemed to prefer three, she tried her hand at drawing and made a pattern for the third shelf. Now she creates various new items and adds features to patterns which she purchases.

WOMANLIKE, HELEN shopped at all the lumber companies until she found one that gave her the kind of lumber she wanted at a price she could pay and still make a profit. She uses mostly one fourth-inch plywood and white pine for her work.

Most of the time she sends away for patterns. The addresses of many companies which sell them can be found in hobby and craft magazines as their advertisements fill many pages. She orders most of her patterns, usually paying from ten to twenty cents each, from a firm in Massachusetts.

One day Helen was leafing through a magazine when she saw a picture of two comical looking cats. She made a drawing of them and enlarged them to the size she wanted. Now she added a few features of her own. A large moon in the background plus a neat white picket fence made one believe a cat serenade was about to start.

Another time a dairy farmer came over and asked where the "woodworking gal" was. Since he specialized in Holstein cattle, he wondered if she could make a Holstein miniature for his mailbox. She told him she could if he would find a pattern for her. He returned with a picture of a white cow, part of an advertisement in a farm magazine.

Helen traced the design onto cardboard and enlarged it to the size she needed, Then she cut it out of wood and painted it all white. After giving due thought to the matter, she placed the black spots where she thought they should be. They looked surprisingly right and the farmer was quite pleased. An order like this brings her $3.

IT WASN'T long until Helen had made more than enough to cover the original investment and now most of the profit was to be hers. She still shares some of the returns with her sister who sandpapers many wooden pieces for her. Some day, she hopes to gain enough to add a sander and an electric drill to her equipment. Then she will make the sawdust fly.

Helen has her father to thank for the use of his hand tools while her craft was in the embryo stage. She believes her love of working with tools comes from him. She will proudly tell you that forty-six years ago he built their attractive home for his bride and it is still as sturdy as ever.

Helen feels that everyone should have a hobby, either profitable or otherwise. The returns in either case are well worthwhile. Besides her woodwork, she finds time to do oil painting, crocheting and dressing bed dolls in filter-disc gowns.