Our venture into the plastic giftware business was one of the happiest times for me in my first marriage. I really enjoyed working with my husband, though I don't think he was as enchanted with it. Not necessarily a problem for him, some men just don't seem to have the same needs nor recognize fulfillment of them. I felt productive for the first time in my life, I think--for long periods, anyway. We made plastic bowls and trays with leaves and butterflies imbedded in them. It was a very unique process at the time. They sold in department stores and gifts shops all over the country, and were fairly well received. My mother's cousin had started it years before, and there was quite a following.
We had our coaster set in the Gumps Christmas catalog the last year we did it, in the early ‘70’s. They used to order 300 coasters at a time. It was quite a production, getting them out. Keith's dad had just retired from Ford and did a time-motion study on our operation to help us become more profitable, and we discovered that we actually lost money on those coasters which were so popular. They were too cheap for the amount of labor that went into them. He also found that true for the 22" bowls and trays. The fanciest thing we did was a round divided hors d’ oeuvre tray with separate dip bowl in the center.
We had 4 main patterns--gold maple leaf (Japanese maple), gold bamboo with butterflies, green maple leaf (instead of imbedding like the gold, large maple leaves were dyed green and baked onto the bottom of the pieces, then the leaves were scrubbed out leaving the green impressions; really pretty), and natural grasses with butterflies. My mother pressed and dried a lot of the leaves for us, though there were some bales of pressed leaves from years back when we took it over.
We later developed a line of framed art that wasn't quite as toxic to make, if you don’t count the spray glue--cloth background with dried plants, like a nature scene. It sold well but the glass almost always broke in shipping. They have better packing materials now.
The giftware was a very hand-made thing, despite its material. It was made of plastic granules normally used for injection molding. Like rock salt, we first sprinkled a single layer into pans to bake into thin sheets the sizes and shapes we needed, melted just enough to fuse together so you could pick it up. Then we laid out the design on one and put another blank one over it. That then baked, still in the original pan, until the grains all fused together. Part of the look was the small bubbles that got trapped between the grains.
We had big pizza ovens. Sometimes the plant material we were embedding would expel air that would make a big bubble and ruin the surface. Sometimes a butterfly wing would slip –these were imported from Taiwan in packs of 100. Sometimes a speck of glitter from some other order would get into the piece and we'd have to trash it. There was a lot of static electricity in the plastic that attracted dust and debris.
After the flat pieces were done, they'd get reheated on molds to form bowls or pressed into trays. Then the edges would be trimmed off and the back surfaces that were against the pans would be brushed with solvent to shine them up. Wrap, pack and ship! Up to 2 weeks from order to shipping. We did whole batches each week based on what we had to ship on Friday, all the while trying to stock up on “blanks” and paint leaves and go to trade shows. We had 2 sales reps, East and West coasts. Fortunately, most of that was in place when we started.
We had our coaster set in the Gumps Christmas catalog the last year we did it, in the early ‘70’s. They used to order 300 coasters at a time. It was quite a production, getting them out. Keith's dad had just retired from Ford and did a time-motion study on our operation to help us become more profitable, and we discovered that we actually lost money on those coasters which were so popular. They were too cheap for the amount of labor that went into them. He also found that true for the 22" bowls and trays. The fanciest thing we did was a round divided hors d’ oeuvre tray with separate dip bowl in the center.
We had 4 main patterns--gold maple leaf (Japanese maple), gold bamboo with butterflies, green maple leaf (instead of imbedding like the gold, large maple leaves were dyed green and baked onto the bottom of the pieces, then the leaves were scrubbed out leaving the green impressions; really pretty), and natural grasses with butterflies. My mother pressed and dried a lot of the leaves for us, though there were some bales of pressed leaves from years back when we took it over.
We later developed a line of framed art that wasn't quite as toxic to make, if you don’t count the spray glue--cloth background with dried plants, like a nature scene. It sold well but the glass almost always broke in shipping. They have better packing materials now.
The giftware was a very hand-made thing, despite its material. It was made of plastic granules normally used for injection molding. Like rock salt, we first sprinkled a single layer into pans to bake into thin sheets the sizes and shapes we needed, melted just enough to fuse together so you could pick it up. Then we laid out the design on one and put another blank one over it. That then baked, still in the original pan, until the grains all fused together. Part of the look was the small bubbles that got trapped between the grains.
We had big pizza ovens. Sometimes the plant material we were embedding would expel air that would make a big bubble and ruin the surface. Sometimes a butterfly wing would slip –these were imported from Taiwan in packs of 100. Sometimes a speck of glitter from some other order would get into the piece and we'd have to trash it. There was a lot of static electricity in the plastic that attracted dust and debris.
After the flat pieces were done, they'd get reheated on molds to form bowls or pressed into trays. Then the edges would be trimmed off and the back surfaces that were against the pans would be brushed with solvent to shine them up. Wrap, pack and ship! Up to 2 weeks from order to shipping. We did whole batches each week based on what we had to ship on Friday, all the while trying to stock up on “blanks” and paint leaves and go to trade shows. We had 2 sales reps, East and West coasts. Fortunately, most of that was in place when we started.
posted by Mary Smith at 10:03 AM
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