New products introduced to home- business sector
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
An assortment of home business displays lined the hallways of the Flinthills Mall on Sunday, giving the public a sampling of the types of businesses that operate successfully without store fronts.
Vendor stalls stocked traditional home business fare, like Tupperware and Pampered Chef, and newer offerings, like food, real flowers and original, wearable art from recycled materials.
Mall officials limited exhibits to only one of each type of home business. That was a choice that pleased exhibitors, according to Erin Woods, who had a Mary Kay cosmetics booth at the show, next to June Heine, a Tupperware dealer for 22 years.
The limits on competing companies provided a greater variety for the passersby who strolled down the filled hallway throughout the afternoon.
Business owners represented a variety of demographics, including retirees, mothers who want to set their own work hours, students and people with full-time jobs who wanted to supplement their incomes.
Many were looking for others to join the companies they represented.
Starting young
Sunnin Keosybounheuang, formerly a teacher in the Emporia school district, has been selling Premier Design jewelry for about three years.
Now, she has quit teaching to be home with her and her husband’s two young children. She also teaches a class at Emporia State University and is working on her master’s degree there.
Premier Design gives her the flexibility to schedule her own hours and supplement the family income without time conflicts among her family responsibilities, schooling and teaching.
She likes the variety of jewelry styles she is able to offer, from simple and elegant to “really bold pieces.”
Keosybounheuang also does home and catalog parties as part of her sales plan.
Quick and
easy gourmet
Close by, Vanessa Quirarte Apodaco was showing the possibilities for using the Tastefully Simple line of quick-to-make gourmet foods for entertaining and gift-giving or for simply eating at home.
“The food you love, the time you deserve” is the company’s slogan.
“It’s easy cooking, whether you love to cook or hate to cook,” Apodaco said.
She started with the company to keep herself busy, and it’s turned into an almost full-time job. Apodaco likes the way she and her children — even her 4-year-old — can cook together with the children able to take the lead in the process.
“I used the products for about five years,” she said. “That’s why I felt comfortable with it.”
Most of them cost less than $10, and some can be used creatively in different dishes. A soup base, for example, can be transformed into a quiche with little effort.
Party-drink buckets also are part of the product line, she said. Alcohol is added to the original bucket container, then popped into the freezer to produce a slush-type beverage.
Apodaco sells through home parties, catalog sales and from presentations to businesses who may be hosting events and wants hors d’oeuvres without a lot of work or expense.
At-home flower shop
Paula Roper uses her 30 years of experience with flowers to operate an in-home floral shop. She is affiliated with wire-service floral companies and can provide fresh flowers with free delivery.
Roper worked at local floral stores before opening the home business.
“The last nine years, I’ve been working out of my home,” she said.
She has a Web site, accepts credit cards and can handle out-of-town business.
Although the intent of the business was to be part-time, Roper said that she keeps busy with the flowers and being after-school coordinator at Walnut Elementary School. She also is wedding coordinator at Sacred Heart and a Mary Kay cosmetics dealer.
“I love the flexibility it gives me, having a home-based business,” she said.
Modern home decor
Alicia Redeker, representing “uppercase living,” exhibited vinyl lettering and vinyl shapes, with overlays, a newer product available for home decorating.
“You can put it on your walls or glass, tile, wood,” Redeker said. “It just goes on anything.”
The thin letters and shapes can be custom-designed and personalized to the buyers’ preferences. Redeker had decorated a range of different surfaces to show the versatility of the vinyl.
She discovered the product at a craft show and primarily sells through home parties and personal contacts.
“I love decorating, and I just did it,” she said. “You can do country, modern — you can be so creative. There’s like a million possibilities for it. .. You can put it directly on the wall. It looks like it was painted on.”
Stamps and candles
Darby Johnson offers a full line of card stock, ink pads, scrapbook paper and rubber stamps through her Stampin’ Up company.
The stamps can be personalized, like for weddings, or can be made to show favorite designs or traditional names and addresses.
Next to Johnson, Stephanie Morgan showed Gold Canyon Candles.
Morgan has been a dealer for a year and a half.
“I’m a stay-home mom, and I wanted to supplement my income, give myself something fun to do,” she said.
The company also has wickless candles, candleholders, diffusers, scented car fresheners and bookmarks, and cleaning products that are completely plant-based and chemical-free, Morgan said.
Whatta Waist
Kari Bailey-Crump and Michele Boyce exhibited wearable art and other original decorative items at their Whatta Waist booth on Sunday.
“It’s all handmade,” Bailey-Crump said. “We like to do one of a kind. ... We re-use vintage items or ingredients and turn them into something funky.”
They create their inventory on nights and weekends, making jewelry, belt buckles and mosaics and a variety of other arty items.
Bailey-Crump recently completed a large mosaic that is incorporated into the sales counter at the new PunkinDoodles children’s clothing store.
The women do trunk shows, festivals and sell items wholesale to businesses.
Daylily breeder
For Gene and Velma Walker, their Flint Hills Daylily Gardens business was a part-time hobby and business that has rapidly turned full-time, with a Web site that draws customers from other states, such as Massachusetts, Texas, Iowa and North Carollina.
The couple “hybridize” and grow their own varieties of daylilies, which are registered with the American Hemerocallis Society.
“All of these are our own creations,” Gene Walker said.
Walker, formerly an agriculture teacher at Emporia High School, has the education, the interest and the patience to hand-pollinate the pistils of the female plants with the pollen from the males. Timing is crucial.
“I try to get out there before the bees do,” he said, using a daylily bouquet to illustrate the technique. “You actually cover that completely so no other pollen can get on there.”
They choose the plant combinations they want to breed, based on the characteristics they want to see in the resulting hybrid: “Substance, of course the beauty of the flower, the vigor of the plant and height,” Gene Walker said. “There’s a lot of things you look for and you don’t always get it on the first cross.”
The Walkers collect the daylily seeds and plant them inside, under lights, until they are ready to be transplanted in the spring into the half-acre flower bed at their home outside Emporia.
“Then about three years later, they bloom,” he said.
The blooms only last one day, but each stalk may produce 15 to 30 buds, extending the blooming season from June to the fall.
“It’ll be gone at the end of the day and another one will take its place,” Walker said. “... Some re-bloom. You try to select for that reblooming.”
The new lines of flowers all carry “Flint Hills” as their first names and personalized last names, often names of grandchildren, friends and people who have purchased Walker daylilies for their weddings and other events.
Comments
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randeg (anonymous) says...
Such an assortment of businesses will give the people who are interested in launching a business some kind of motivation. Since there are many ideas in this article. they will probably find what area they want to go on, making brainstorming that much easier.
Evelyn Guzman
http://www.homebusinesssteps.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesn’t work, copy and paste it onto your browser.)
August 23, 2009 at 11:46 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Blessed (anonymous) says...
Mary Kay Cosmetics is a product based pyramid scheme. Learn as much as you can about this seductive predator before investing any time, energy, or money in this scam. Multitudes of women (and their families) have been injured financially through their association with the Mary Kay Cosmetics MLM. Do yourself and your family a favor; simply avoid the MK MLM. For more information, see:
http://www.pinktruth.com
August 23, 2009 at 9:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
stevo (anonymous) says...
Looks like some of these "Home Based" are actually Retail..Does the city not have a Zoning about running Retail out of a Home without being Zoned. Huh, maybe this needs to be looked into .. City could be loosing more revenue
If products are sold in the home and sold from their doorstep?
If anybody knows the ruling on this, please apply.
August 24, 2009 at 4:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )