Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

It was in May, 1955, that Mrs. Juanda Thomas and Mrs. Wanda Cummings, the former's mother, worked out a Mother's day program for members of the Girl Scout troop of which they were leaders. Each of the girls would gather shells along the local beaches and use them in decorating matchboxes as gifts for their mothers.

While the girls of the Scout troop, including Mrs. Thomas' own ten-year-old daughter, Cheri, scouted the sands and shallows off Corona del Mar, the two women scoured the hobby shelves and "do-it-yourself" sections of the local libraries for information on making shell jewelry and similar novelties.

A number of large boxes of wooden matches of the type specifically designed for lighting fireplaces were purchased and these were painted by the girls with a flat, black water-base paint. Over the tops were cemented various local shells which were arranged in intricate patterns. Round corks of the type used by fishermen as floats were obtained from a sporting goods house and the tops of these were cut off, offering a flat surface. These pieces were then cemented to the bottoms of the matchboxes at the four corners, giving the creations legs. This innovation also carried out the seaside motif of the individual projects.

When the gifts were given to their mothers on the appointed day, the members of the Girl Scout troop reported such a reception—and even some of the mothers concerned called Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings to offer thanks for their work in the project—that the two women sat down to do some serious thinking.

"If things like this go over so big, why shouldn't other people be interested?" mother asked daughter.

Mrs. Cummings was instantly designated as the creative brain for the as yet unnamed organization, while Mrs. Thomas and daughter, Cheri, became official shell collectors. Each day they began to scour the beaches along the Corona del Mar shore line, bringing in delicate, beautifully marked shells by the bucketful.

IN THE beginning, it was decided to concentrate on shell jewelry and the dining room of the Thomas home became the workshop.

"I've always been interested in trying to make things out of items that have curves," explains Mrs. Cummings. "Years ago, when I lived on a sheep ranch near the Oregon coast, I made a hobby of collecting bits of driftwood, scraping and polishing them and turning them into hat racks, lamp brackets and similar household fixtures. It was a case then, as with the shells now, of being able to see beauty in lines and curves."

The two women did more research at local libraries to learn something about the lives of shellfish found in the waters in their area. When would be the most likely time to find certain types of shells along the beaches? What were the breeding seasons? How plentiful would some types of shells be?

These were some of the questions that had to be answered. There were others, too, of a more technical nature. For example: What type of glue or adhesive would best make shell adhere to shell? What type should be used in sticking artificial pearls to shell? How would you dye a shell a different color? What should be done to retain the natural color of a shell?

Some of these answers came from books, some resulted from experimentation and the questions concerning adhesives were largely answered by the Berger Specialty Company of Los Angeles, a firm specializing in adhesive preparations for jewelers and hobbyists.

Of particular value, they found, were several of the publications printed and sold at low cost by the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25, DC., which advise the amateur on making shell jewelry. Information concerning these pamphlets can be obtained at many libraries or by writing to the printing office proper.

Other publications which the two women believe might help the beginner in shellcraft are "The Art of Shellcraft," authored and published by Egbert T. Smith of Fort Myers, Florida; "Shellcraft Jewelry Instruction for the Beginner," by Nathaniel Tooker, which is published by Shellcraft Publications of Bay Pines, Florida, and "The Shellcraft Instructor," written and published by Lester M. Powell of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Before the mother-daughter team really came to know the importance of the various types of glue and adhesive agents, one major mistake was made. An entire batch of shell jewelry was turned out with small simulated pearls ornamenting small abalone shells. These were placed with a local novelty shop. No sooner had the cement completely dried and hardened than the pearls promptly popped off. "And that was when we began doing a little serious experimentation and sought the expert advice of the specialty company in Los Angeles," Mrs. Thomas recalls. "As a result, we've had no complaints since and don't expect any."

THE TWO women completed their first batch of jewelry, carrying out their oceanic motif all the way. The shells were arranged in size groups for necklaces and cemented to lengths of dyed fishing line which were used in tying the individual creations about the throat.

Ear clips were purchased from a jewelers' supply house and were cemented to the backs of colorful local shells, each pair carefully matched for color, size and shape. A number of the pairs of earrings consist of two shells, the smaller fitting the ear with a larger matched shell attached to a metal jump ring or a piece of twisted silver wire to serve as a drop. At first, the two women had the holes drilled in the shells by a local jeweler, but soon found that it was cheaper to purchase a small electric drill and fashion their own holes. This must be done with patience and care, however, to keep from breaking the shell. The reason for cementing the cord to the shells for the necklaces rather than drilling holes and stringing them on the fishing line is strictly in the interest of beauty and originality, the two women say.

"We tried stringing the shells on cord at first, but this seemed to mar the beauty of the finished product," Mrs. Thomas explains, "so we resorted to the glue process instead, allowing the shell to reflect its full natural lustre and color."

Several dozen of the sets were placed with a local novelty shop in Corona del Mar and were snapped up almost overnight by beachgoers and visitors to the popular vacation spot. The shop owner quickly reordered more sets of the shell jewelry and has been a steady customer ever since.

To quote Mrs. Cummings, "My daughter's residence suddenly took on some of the aspects, of an old-fashioned sweatshop," as the two of them worked day after day and often far into the night to keep up with just the local demand for their product.

The women found that they couldn't possibly do all of the work of gathering, sorting and sizing shells and carry on the creative and sales chores as well. With this realization, they again approached the local Girl Scout troops and enlisted the aid of their members and leaders. They lectured to the girls on the varieties of shells they needed in their work, then made offers of cash for those shells which might be utilized. Rates paid the Girl Scouts for spare time shell collecting currently run from one to seven cents per shell, depending upon need and availability.

Meantime, a Los Angeles sales representative, Miss "Dee Dee" Johnson, a former model who had started her own selling organization, saw some of the pieces and contacted Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings, then visited their living room shop.

"I think she was a bit confused to find a production line in a parlor," Mrs. Thomas comments now with a wide grin, "but she was most impressed with what she found. She put in an order for her place in Los Angeles and also asked for samples that could be passed on to her representatives across the nation."

WITH MISS Johnson suddenly heading their sales cause, the two women found they could no longer meet the volume demand in the cramped home quarters where a living room table served as a workbench. Looking around Corona del Mar, they soon found a deserted plumbing shop which seemed to fit their needs. They rented it and "proceeded to go first cabin," the two now recall. They had stationery printed as well as a number of seals and cards. Each carried the name of "Wanda's," with the letter "W" shaped in the form of a crown. This comes from the Spanish name for the town of Corona del Mar, which literally translated means: "Crown of the Sea."

Small cards to be mailed with each gift were worked out to read:

TO THE DISCRIMINATING
Made especially for you in California.
Featuring hand-selected sea shells
from the shores of the world.
"Each an Original...
Each a Conversational Piece."
Wanda's of Corona del Mar

This additional touch was worked out by Mrs. Thomas' husband, Burke, a veteran salesman and promotion manager, who also set up their bookkeeping system and method for estimating costs and margins of profit on each item developed.

Beyond this initial bit of professional business aid, however, the mother and daughter combination has been strictly on its own.

With Miss Johnson's sales representation in the Los Angeles area, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings soon had five other sales representatives handling their products across the nation. Although they had not actually started production until June, 1955, they received a large order from the B. Altman Company, one of New York city's highest quality and best known department stores, before Christmas. Strangely enough, one man covers nothing but the state of Florida. Although they now use, more than 300 varieties of shells from throughout the world, Wanda's makes a specific point of marketing nothing in the Southern vacation state that is not fashioned strictly from California shells.

"For some strange reason, the people in Florida seem to find California shell jewelry particularly fascinating, although there are several similar manufacturing organizations right there in the state," Mrs. Thomas confides. "So, as long as they seem to want West Coast shells, that's exactly what we'll continue to give them."

Although the majority of the shells used are of the California varieties easily found along the beaches, Mrs. Thomas makes an occasional trip to Mexico to obtain small abalone shells which are unavailable except in large sizes in California. The imported shells are obtained through three sources, all of them in Los Angeles.

MISS JOHNSON and some of the other sales representatives have been instrumental in Wanda's expansion and the addition of other lines. At present, the small Corona del Mar establishment turns out not only its original lines of shell jewelry, but is manufacturing—or rather decorating—several types of beach hats, beach bags, purses, cigarette cases, individually designed matchboxes in several sizes and even personal telephone directories. All, of course, have a sea-life motif and utilize shells, bits of kelp and simulated pearls.

Inasmuch as a great share of these items are strictly of an accessory nature, it is often necessary for the mother and daughter to keep a constant eye on fashion trends and to match their efforts to these. To date, although neither admits to being any kind of a fashion expert, they have batted nearly a thousand per cent.

With the expansion of the business, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings have had to take on several wives of Marines who are stationed at the nearby El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The items used in some of their products are purchased through Los Angeles wholesale firms. These include wicker purses, woven hemp beach bags, matchboxes and similar items. These are farmed out to some of the Marine wives on a piecework basis. The women copy Mrs. Cummings' original designs, take shells and other materials from the shop and complete the various items in their own homes.

In order to carry out many of the color schemes fitting new styles, Mrs. Thomas and her mother have developed real ingenuity in the matter of dyeing their materials. For example, they utilize lengths of ordinary kelp, a dried seaweed growth, using ordinary household dyes to produce shades of orange, red, black, blue and others. Dried starfish also are dyed in a similar manner. For the most brilliant shades of red, however, they have found that a bath in ordinary medicinal Mercurochrome produces the best results. On one occasion, they found a need for some grey pearls and could purchase none for their use. The white synthetic pearls were rubbed with black shoe polish, then given a heavy coating of plastic spray to keep it from rubbing off.

As is the case with such businesses, the two women have found that it is sometimes difficult to get the kind of shells they need. For example, the only small abalone shells—a creation of nature with a delicate rainbow variety of colors—available are those that could be picked up along the beaches. The California Fish and Game laws prohibit catching of abalone below a certain size. There were certainly not sufficient shells of this type to be found along the beaches in one and two-inch diameters to meet the demand. They soon found, however, that the small sizes could be purchased in Mexico and imported.

The larger abalone shells are, of course, readily available from commercial abalone divers who are interested only in the meat, which is a favorite coast delicacy as well as being popular in other sections of the country. Many of these are decorated with smaller shells of various kinds as well as bits of coral and artificial pearls. Cork legs are cemented to the bottoms and most beautiful as well as serviceable ash trays are the result.

IN RECENT weeks, Mrs. Cummings has been called upon to go into a specialized, custom-built type of shell work. A well-known southern California social family had heard of the work being done by Wanda's and asked if a giant "man-eating" clam of the type found only in the South Pacific might be fashioned into a huge punch bowl. By scouting dealers in Los Angeles, Mrs. Thomas finally found several such shells, the largest measuring nearly two feet in diameter. These shells, incidentally, are sold by the diametric inch, bringing as much as $1 per inch. The shell was bleached with a standard household bleach, the bottom ground flat with an emery wheel to give it stability and then the lips of the beauty were decorated with a variety of shells, coral and pearls. In its first appearance, this novel bowl proved such a social hit that several more have been ordered by movie actors and other Los Angeles notables. For a shell measuring approximately twenty inches in diameter, it is figured that some $30 in materials is involved. The completed item sells on order or wholesale for approximately $60. They have found one means of shaving their costs on this particular item, however. Originally the giant shells were ordered from Los Angeles. Eventually, they discovered that the shells were being imported by a firm less than a ten-minute drive from their own shop and sold, in turn, to the firm in Los Angeles from which Wanda's had been acquiring them. Needless to say, they are now purchased direct.

The giant man-eating clam shells are found mostly in the South Pacific near Pago Pago and have long been the dread of native pearl divers.

The beautiful but deadly shells lie open on the ocean floor and snap shut on whatever food they may be able to entice within them. In the early days, many a pearl diver died when he ventured too close to one of these deadly shells and it snapped shut on an arm or an ankle and he was unable to extricate himself before he drowned.

Nowadays, except to satisfy a few personal friends who drop in to make purchases, Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings have abandoned almost completely their connection with retail sales of their merchandise. It is all they can do—even with the Marine wives who help out in their spare moments—to turn out sufficient quantities to meet the orders being turned in by their sales representatives across the nation. They figure conservatively that by the time their shop has been in business for a year, they will have turned out at least 30,000 individual items. In keeping with their motto, of course. "Each an original . . . Each a conversation piece."

Shell jewelry, of course, is nothing new; in fact, it could well be the oldest type of personal ornamentation known to man, since examples of such art have been found in fossil form and in ancient ruins throughout the world.

Such popularity did not vanish with the Stone Age, either, for shell jewelry has been periodically used down through the centuries. In recent years, it has found renewed interest, of course, and the Corona del Mar pair admit that they certainly are not the creators of a new fad. "If anything," they say, "we're copiers, but we have attempted not only to follow the rules and thoughts developed by others and put into books, but to be a trifle creative on our own, Originality of design is our stock in trade."

With the success of Wanda's, other individuals in the area also have started to work with shells, but none has as yet been able to keep up with Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Cummings when it comes to originality of design. Meantime, they feel that competition is a healthy thing.