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Discovered! 505
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How to Make
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You Can Own
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The box of beads and sequins that Miss Griffin is using for her crystal ball was given to her by a friend who beaded dresses and blouses. She was moving and didn't want to take the beads with her. Margo was handy and she got all of the beads that were left.

A box of beads isn't the most useful thing to have around unless you are interested in handcrafts. Margo's mother, who was an arts and crafts teacher in the San Diego school system and Girl Scouts, has taught Margo how to do things with her hands. More important she has helped Margo to develop her talents so she is able to design and create almost anything she wants to make.

MARGO'S FIRST attempt at jewelry making was a set of beaded earrings. She took two covered buttons and sewed some of her gift beads and sequins to them In an original design. Then she cemented the covered buttons to a set of earring screwbacks. She had already removed the motifs from an old set of earrings to obtain the screwbacks that she needed to complete her own set of earrings.

Margo was proud of her handiwork and gave the earrings to her mother. The first time she wore them her friends noticed Margo's jewelry. They wanted to know where she had bought them. When Margo's mother told them that her daughter had made them, they started asking Margo to make a set for them. Margo had plenty of beads and sequins left, so she obliged her mother's friends. These friends' friends saw the jewelry and wanted some of the earrings for themselves. The snowball started rolling and before Margo realized it, she was in the costume jewelry business. In self defense, Margo started charging fifty cents a pair for her small earrings and $1 for the larger ones that she had started making. That is when she got a glimpse of a college education fund.

By the time she had made a few of the earrings for her new found customers, Margo ran out of material. She bought a beaded handbag for fifteen cents and unraveled it. The beads from this purse netted her $8 after she sewed them onto covered buttons and made earrings. This bag made earrings for quite a few people in El Cajon, California, where Margo lives with her parents.

The owner of Sunny's Dress Shop, in El Cajon, had seen some of Margo's pieces being worn by her friends, and when contacted, agreed to stock Margo's jewelry in her store. Margo sold her jewelry to Sunny's Dress Shop on a percentage discount basis. Margo's father, who acts as her business agent, had convinced Margo that the only way to do business was to sell her jewelry to the shops on a discount basis. He was, and still is, against any kind of a consignment deal. If one of her creations doesn't sell, Margo just doesn't make that particular piece again.

ONE DAY Margo got a call from Sunny's Dress Shop. The proprietor said:

"Margo, I have a customer who is leaving for Paris and she wants some unique jewelry to match her wardrobe. I've told her about you and she wants you to make some special pieces for her. Will you do it?"

Margo was more than eager to get a job of this size. It turned out that the woman wanted costume jewelry to match most of the dresses and suits that she had bought to take to Paris with her. Margo got busy and made matching necklaces, earrings, and corsages to go with the woman's dresses. When the time came for the traveler to leave for Paris, Margo had completed the order. This was her first big order and the check she picked up swelled her fund for the future. Margo's price list for the pieces she made for that order was $2.50 for a necklace and small matching earrings, $3.50 for a necklace and large matching earrings. She sold her small corsages for $2.50 and the larger ones were $3.50.

This large order whetted Margo's appetite for big business and she contacted several dress shops and specialty stores in San Diego, California. Since then she has obtained outlets in shops in the San Fernando Valley and El Cajon, and while on a vacation last year, she signed up a shop in Spokane, Washington. She always makes a direct contact with the buyer or manager of any of the stores that she would like to sell. While contacting these stores, Margo found that her product would probably sell much better if she had a trade name. She liked her own name well enough that she decided on "Margo." She now mounts all of her pieces on a card with "Margo" printed on it, or she encloses a "Margo" card in each packing box. She has applied for a copyright on the name "Margo."

WHEN MARGO started contacting retail outlets she also found that she needed a larger variety of jewelry if she was really going to make money. Ideas for her new pieces came easily, and as her home has a well stocked arts and crafts library, she can find out how to do many of the new pieces by reading some of the books she has available.

Most of her ideas come from listening. One day her mother was telling her about the neck ribbons that Margo's great grandmother used to wear to hide her wrinkles. That gave Margo the idea for sequin decorated chokers. They sell well as an accessory for women's square dancing costumes. They also go well with women's sport outfits. She gets fifty cents apiece for these decorated chokers.

As accessories for the increasingly popular squaw dress, Margo has designed a necklace and earring set made from common bottle corks. She splits the corks length-wise and paints an Indian design on the round side of the split cork, and inserts a small screw eye in the top of the cork half. Then she ties cork halves into a length of rawhide thong through the screw eyes to complete the necklace. One more cork is split length-wise and painted, then glued to a pair of earring screw backs to complete her cork jewelry.

The song, "Buttons and Bows" suggested an idea for another piece. Margo had covered buttons made and mounted them on earring screwbacks. Then she made a bow from a piece of the same material she had used for her buttons. Margo added a set of cuff links made with smaller covered buttons and she had a conversational piece, and an interesting set that sells well to business girls to wear with their high collared blouses. This set sells for $1.50.

MARGO MAKES her earrings from buttons, sequins, rickrack, sea shells beads, and mink. Chokers, buttons and bows, corsages and necklaces are additions to her increasing and interesting variety of pieces. These are enough pieces to keep her busy the entire two hours a day that her parents allow her to devote to her hobby. It takes that much time just to keep up with all of her orders.

Margo also puts her jewelry in church bazaars, women's clubs sales and any other organized fund raising campaign that she can contact. She lets these people have her jewelry at a twenty per cent discount from the list price. Usually, it turns out that the "Margo" jewelry is the best selling item in these sales.

Her father takes her earrings down to his office, where the girls there have an earring club. He sells a lot of the earrings for Margo, as they are so different from the usual run of earrings.

MARGO BUYS most of her raw materials from the local jewelry supply stores, but she also buys some of them from nationally advertised suppliers. These larger wholesale houses put out catalogues and Margo is able to get a larger variety of parts for her jewelry from them. Margo watches the cost of her raw materials very closely as she knows that the secret to a profit is keeping the original material cost down as low as possible.

In order to keep her stock alive and moving, Margo stays abreast of the latest fashion news. She has to know what kind of materials are going to be worn and popular each season so she can design her costume jewelry accordingly.

Naturally the busiest times for her are around Christmas and Easter. The costume jewelry sets that she makes are especially welcome Christmas gifts. Her original pieces add a needed touch to Easter outfits and her jewelry is in great demand during these holiday seasons.

One of the most popular pieces during the Easter season is her corsage. She makes these with wire, beads, and glass leaves. She starts with a piece of jeweler's wire about eight to twelve inches long. She doubles the wire and strings five beads down to the end of the loop. Then she twists the wire for a quarter of an inch. This makes a simulated five-petaled flower at the end of the stem. Five more beads are then strung on one of the wires and another quarter of an inch of the wire is twisted, making a five-petal flower on a short branch. Then by alternating the branches and flowers on both sides of the main stem and increasing the length of wire that she twists, Margo completes a fern-like frond. Ten or twelve of the fronds are gathered together and two or three green glass leaves are added and the completed piece is wrapped at the end with green tape, making a frothy, flowery corsage.

MARGO ACTUALLY employs her parents in the course of her business enterprise. Her mother helps her when the orders get too large and her father keeps her books. The books are just as complicated as any other manufacturer's. She is licensed to collect Federal excise tax and sales tax. She has to conduct all of the other business functions that have to be taken care of in the course of running a business.

Margo has never had any trouble getting publicity for her enterprise. She has been featured on the Personality and Local Feature News program on KFMB-TV, a local TV station. She was featured in Convairiety, a magazine published by the company that her father works for in the engineering department. She was written up in the El Cajon Valley News, a local newspaper, and she was featured in the Sunday edition of the San Diego Union's county news section. Her mother worries at times that all of this attention will create a problem child, but so far it hasn't.

Her parents are pleased that Margo is interested in her hobby. Her mother says that it keeps her mind and hands busy and out of most of the mischief that young people manage to get into at one time or another. Her father believes that the business experience is good for her and that it will help her later on, whether she decides to go to college, take a trip around the world, or use the money that she is saving to help her start a business of her own.