Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

The scene was the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in Baltimore, Maryland, and the fairylike creatures were the fascinating and quaint dolls on display there, each a masterpiece of the skilled hands of kindly, middle-aged Mrs. A.L. Reinhard of that city.

While vacationing in Florida in 1947, Mrs. Reinhard came upon some small dolls made of sea shells in a curio shop she chanced to visit. The little figures delighted her, but the big figures—of price placed upon the dolls—did not. Still, she thought, a few such dolls would add a bright and homey touch to the Baltimore apartment home she shares with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. "I'll make my own," she vowed.

She did, and began the profitable hobby of which she now says: "Sometimes I'm afraid the pastime gets away from me and becomes an all-day job. If I've started on a doll that is particularly intricate, I'll work on it from breakfast to midnight." And the product is sold to discerning buyers and collectors, some from as far away as Central America.

THE FIRST steps were difficult. Mrs. Reinhard had no idea how to begin to make a doll. All she knew was that the sea shells did turn prettily into decorative, exquisite dolls in miniature. She could find no literature on the subject, but she did find that the sea shells could be purchased. She got a supply and experimented with shells and toothpicks and glue, but in vain. Shells on toothpicks did not take any recognizable form. Not one to give up, the enterprising hobbyist sent to Florida for one of the commercial variety which had started her on her hobby-quest.

The Florida doll seemed to be fashioned upon something akin to a pipe cleaner. Mrs. Reinhard bought some pipe cleaners and continued her experiments, this time with some success. With a steady hand and a sense of dexterity, she developed a knack so that, in two years, she has perfected her hobby to the artistic pinnacle as shown in the Pratt Library display. And a profitable one, too, as her intricate and fascinating models have gained in popularity and the commercial demand has increased.

THE TOOLS of Mrs. Reinhard's hobby today are scissors, tweezers, pipe cleaners, paint, pen and ink, and odd bits of cloth. Plus, of course, that boxful of assorted sea shells which to most people would be a reminder of a summer at the shore, but to her is the base of a colony of fashionably dressed dolls.

The Baltimore grandmother keeps her "boxful" of shells separated in jars by size and variety. Limpets, cerethyums, little file, coquinas, all types of shells are on hand. Despite the nomenclature, the shape of all shells is similar, and because of such similarity all of her finished dolls suggest ladies of the Victorian era. But pantalettes, flounces, and differences in costume make difference enough so that, in addition to the average full-skirted, bonneted ladies, she makes Spanish dancers, Mother Goose characters, gypsies, and bridal parties without the groom and best man. For this world of dolls, which range in height from about one and one-fourth to three inches, is a woman's world.

Mrs. Reinhard tried to fashion a bridegroom for one of the wedding parties she created but he proved artistically unsatisfactory and has remained the only male doll she has tried to make from shells. The difficulty in creating male figures lies in the fact that no sea shell has yet been found which will give the effect of trousers. For her trial figure the hobbyist used a piece of coral and then applied paint. "It had the general effect of a black beetle," she recalls. "Making dolls is an art," she explains, "that you cannot learn all at once. Each doll is an individual problem. You have to start from the ground up, building the skirt, then the body, the arms, the head, and finally the accessories and the feet."

LIKE MOST of the breed of hobbyists, Mrs. Reinhard works quite informally. Her workbench is a card table in the family apartment. Here she turns out her dolls which, she says, "are made in attractive pastel shades, colored with pure pearl essence, each one having four coats to produce lasting colors."

An average creation begins with the selection of enough limpet shells for the particular figure. These are threaded on a pipe cleaner and glued into place. This makes the tiered type of skirt which most of her shell figures wear, and each tiny limpet is selected for texture as well as for size so that those used on any particular doll will have the same general appearance. The shells are then painted with the paint that is a specially prepared essence of pearl, giving the shells a translucent color.

Skirt completed, the next step is to choose just the right shell to use as the individual body. This is glued in place on a pipe cleaner base and painted. Small crossbars of pipe cleaner become the body's arms, bent to shape and glued fast. Then carefully selected, minute shells are appended as hands.

Again a most carefully selected shell, to match in shape and overall proportions the body, is glued in place to form the head of the doll. Next the accessories are added, bonnets, parasols, baskets, whatever they may be, and, finally, pipe cleaner and shell feet, the tiny shells of the feet matching those of the hands.

The whole is then again painted with the essence of pearl liquid. Mrs. Reinhard then inks on the face with a fine pointed pen and follows by painting on the hair. Occasionally, however, as in the case of a doll-bride in a wedding party ensemble, the deft hobbyist glues extremely small shells in place for the hair. The effect is one of sculptured curls.

The tiny completed figures appear very fragile, but Mrs. Reinhard assures you that they are not. Each shell that goes into one of her creations is so carefully chosen and fitted into place with such painstaking care that the dolls are quite durable. She has yet to receive any complaint of breakage from her satisfied doll buyers across the country.

IN GENERAL, the costumes with which Mrs. Reinhard adorns the little figures are of her own design. Small shells form puffed sleeves; tiny limpet shells make paniers, capes or pantalettes. Hats of small shells, occasionally tufted with the tiniest bit of cloth, are fitted to each face as carefully as if they were Lily Dache originals. Working on a hand-size palette, which is in reality a hand-size mirror coated with a thin film of grease to prevent the very small shells from sticking to its surface, Mrs. Reinhard fashions small rosettes and bouquets from shells scarcely larger than pinheads to give an added touch of elegance to the gowns of some of her dolls with an effect of flower trimming.

Sometimes, as with her period Spanish dancers and her group of gypsies, Mrs. Reinhard makes an appropriate check on the authenticity of the costumes. Otherwise, her own imagination serves, and with delight to the beholder of such of her remarkable creations as the lady bearing an infant child in her arms, or that of the woman pushing an infant in a carriage made of shells.

"I had no idea," says Mrs. Reinhard, "when I took up the hobby that it would be a profitable one. And I didn't realize I was creating something that would prove of so wide appeal to others. My first attempt was only to make some decorative bric-a-brac, I guess you'd say, for my own home, less expensive than what I'd seen in Florida. But I like to work with my hands, and the hobby became fascinating and delightful.

"I had to begin to market my creations when friends began to beg me for them, and strangers, seeing some of my figures, would order them. After all, I buy my shells from a commercial house which specializes in sea shells and the like."

MRS. REINHARD receives $2.00 each for her charming little figures, or she will sell three to a customer for $5.00. She doesn't know exactly how many she has sold in the two years she has maintained the hobby, for "I have not kept complete records," she admits, "but the total is several hundred dolls.

"It seems," she continues, as though not quite believing that the product of her hobby could be responsible, "that every time someone sees one of my dolls somewhere, she wants one, too. I've filled orders from people in almost every state in the Union, and from Mexico and Central America. My biggest time was Christmas of 1948, when I was swamped with requests for dolls."

Prior to the exhibition of her dolls, held in the Enoch Pratt Library last year, Mrs. Reinhard sold most of her fanciful figures to friends and friends of friends who had seen, admired, and desired. The exhibition, viewed by hundreds, brought a flood of orders, by mail and by direct calls at her home, so many that Mrs. Reinhard had to hire a young woman to check the orders, package the dolls, and make deliveries.

The dolls advertised themselves, as more and more people saw them, and more and more people desired them. The hobbyist was soon surprised to find her mail filled with orders from as far south as Atlanta, north to Boston, and west to Cleveland, from people who had seen her adorable creatures in homes of friends, or in the display windows of some of Baltimore's more exclusive gift shops. For she had requests from several such shops to be allowed to display and sell the figurines, and she complied.