Dough nuts Bring Profits

 Dough nuts Bring Profits 

    UPON leaving his job in the circulation department of a Chicago newspaper, S. D. Lavely retired to Watervliet, Michigan. Idleness soon palled on him, and he decided to start a small business of his own. He rented a store and invested $250 in equipment for making greaseless doughnuts. The first batch of doughnuts baked was given away as samples to people passing the store. That first day Lavely sold seventy dozen doughnuts at twenty-five cents a dozen. The second day went even better as a majority of those who bought the first day repeated, and brought others with them. Before the first week passed, Lavely had reached an average daily sale of over 150 dozen—all he could bake. He expanded his business and added more equipment. As Watervliet is but a short drive from Paw Paw Lake, Lavely figured he could do a brisk business with the summer resorts around Paw Paw. So he hired a woman to help his wife bake doughnuts while he packed sixty dozen in his car and drove down to the lake. Within two hours he sold the entire lot to vacationists in cottages. After that he drove down to the lake at least once every day. Later, he established a regular route to the near-by towns of Marcellus, Lawrence, and Hartford, where he sold the doughnuts at wholesale for fifteen cents a dozen to most of the restaurants, retail stores, tea rooms, soda fountains and lunchrooms. The cost of baking greaseless doughnuts averages under six cents a dozen with the equipment Lavely used. His small machine bakes eight dozen in an hour, or eighty dozen in a ten-hour day. Lavely started with two of these machines, giving him a daily output of 160 dozen doughnuts. During the first week, his sales totaled 900 dozen at twenty-five cents a dozen. When he had deducted all his expenses he found that he had made quite a nice little profit —about $161. Greaseless doughnuts are baked in electrically operated bakers. They are not fried like ordinary doughnuts. The doughnut batter used is exactly the same as is used when baking the “greasy” doughnut. When packed in waxed paper containers, greaseless doughnuts remain fresh for six to eight days. This type of doughnut is quite easily digested and may be eaten without harm even by chronic stomach sufferers. Equipment for baking greaseless doughnuts may be set up in your own kitchen and operated from a light socket. Demand for this product is always good, and stores, lunchrooms, and restaurants are excellent outlets. You may retail some to your friends and neighbors, as Lavely did, and before you know it you will have a thriving business of your own. It has the great advantage of being a business where satisfied customers draw others. The average American takes to doughnuts like a duck takes to the water, and it does not take the people in town long to make a beaten path to the door of the man who can make better doughnuts. 

Motor-Driven Chairs for Invalids 

   LUZERN CUSTER , of Dayton, Ohio, makes motor-driven chairs for people who are incapacitated—invalids or cripples. His plant, in Dayton, turns out about three chairs a week, at an average price of $200 a chair. Until recently, all the chairs were driven by electric batteries. Now, however, some of them have gasoline motors and will run along at 15 miles an hour. Some of these chairs have built-in showcases to enable their users to sell candy or notions. One Southerner had a chair built to carry himself and his Negro attendant. Many of the cripples for whom he makes chairs like gay colors, so he paints their chairs fire-engine red and equips them with powerful headlights and loud horns. Twenty years ago Mr. Custer started to make chairs for board walks. Putting motors in them revolutionized the business for him and he made good money for several years. Then he saw a market for motor-driven chairs for invalids and the incapacitated. It wasn’t long before most of his business was catering to this market. 100 Other Things Easy to Make W OOD— Start with the simpler things such as book ends, a bookstand, bird houses, garden trellises, picture frames, racks for garden tools, window boxes, footstools, flower stands. When you have developed some skill and ease in handling tools, try folding screens, end tables, cupboards, hanging bookshelves, coffee tables, toys, etc. The modern style of furniture is simple and easy to make. Keep clear of elaborate ornamentation which does not add to the design of the product. There is also a good demand for the rustic type of lawn and garden furniture. This furniture is made of small logs and branches upon which the bark is left. The construction is simple in the extreme. Blueprints can be had from such magazines as Popular Science Monthly, Popular Mechanics, and the government. ceMent—It requires much less skill to make things of cement than of wood. Forms of wood or metal may be bought or you can make them yourself. There are government bulletins explaining how to mix and use the cement; the cement companies will also send you instructions. Get a catalog from some company making this type of product and see just what items are in demand. Bird baths, sun dials, aquariums, benches, urns or large jardinieres, and other garden and lawn equipment are popular. When you have acquired some skill, you can also make clever little figures and ornaments such as frogs and mermaids for the lily pond; rabbits and squirrels for the lawn; fauns, birds, etc. p aper—So many things can be made with paper it is almost impossible to enumerate them. With pastepot and shears, or shears alone, clever hands can fashion an endless number of things that can be sold in the gift shops, in your own shop, from door to door, or at fairs and exhibits. One of the most interesting things to do with paper is to make silhouettes. There are books on silhouette making and many magazine articles have covered this art. With practice and a certain dexterity, you can make a good living with this work. The usual practice is to set up your worktable in a gift shop, a department store, a greeting card shop, a county fair, a street fair, or any place where many people congregate. The silhouettes are sold at from 50 cents to $1.00 each. Double your paper and cut two of them at once. Then offer them to the customer at two for 75 cents or two for $1.25, depending upon your price per silhouette. A little “showmanship” will add to your sales. With wall paper you can create some beautiful folding screens—look over those on display in your local department store. You can also make closet accessories from boxes and wall paper— hat boxes, blanket boxes, shoe boxes, etc. These should be matched, or ensembled. With wall paper you can also make scrapbook covers, cover waste-paper baskets, tin cooky boxes, cigarette boxes, etc. These should be shellacked when finished to protect the paper. Many decorators have had unusual success with cutting designs from wall paper and making an applique border for bathroom, kitchen or bedroom walls. These borders can also be used to decorate kitchen cabinets, bread boxes and other containers, valances for windows, etc. Colored cut-outs of animals, fairy tale characters, fruit, flowers, etc., can be made for children’s rooms, as wall or furniture decorations. Make these in sets, put them in glassine envelopes and sell them for 50 cents and up a set. With crepe paper you can make fascinating favors and decorations for parties. The Dennison Company’s party books will give you directions for making favors, party decorations, and paper costumes. o Ilcloth—Oilcloth may be used in much the same way as wall paper. It is excellent to cover folding screens (especially for kitchen or nursery use), to cover boxes, to cover scrapbooks and schoolbooks, as cut-outs for wall and cupboard decorations, for valances, etc. In addition, oilcloth makes attractive breakfast and luncheon sets for the summer cottage, table mats for children’s use, porch cushions, kitchen aprons, beach bags, table runners for the porch, babies’ bibs, laundry bags, as coverings for kitchen articles (the scouring powder can, match box, etc.), racks for pot holders, waste basket, etc. W ool, yarn—The craze for knitted things of all kinds presents an opportunity to sell knitted garments for babies and adults. Knitted suits and dresses sold through the department stores start at around $50. The vogue for colonial furniture in the last few years has brought a demand for hooked rugs which are in keeping with colonial interiors. These rugs are also suitable for summer cottages. One young woman who made several rugs for herself, not only achieved considerable skill in making the rugs, but speed as well, and could make the small type of bedroom rug in her spare time in a few days. Through her friends, the local gift shop, and an advertisement in the neighborhood paper, she secured orders which netted her enough profit to pay half her household expenses. Her rugs sold because they were well made and were of unusual designs. Modern designs can be hooked as well as the colonial type. Knitted garments for babies, needle-point chair seats or footstool covers, all suggest ways of making money. 

Skill in this type of work always comes with practice. 

textiles—Aprons and house dresses offer a fertile field for a woman’s clever hands. Many a small business has been built up by someone who started making aprons and selling them to her neighbors. Nelly Donnelly is today one of the most successful makers of women’s dresses and aprons in the United States. She started this business in a little workroom in the attic of her Kansas City home. Most manufacturers thought then that women would not pay more than 69 or 79 cents for wash frocks to wear about the house. Nelly Donnelly knew better and proved it by building a success with $1.00 wash dresses. Many women have found that men like their shirts made to order and will pay a little more for a well-tailored garment. Handmade handkerchiefs for men and women, curtains and draperies, slip-covers for furniture, hand quilted comfortable and “throws,” smocks, shoe and dress bags, infants’ and children’s garments, fancy costumes for parties and school plays, collar and cuff sets, are other suggestions. The secret of success in this field is not to try to compete with cheap merchandise now on the market. People are willing to pay a price for handmade things. Make your dresses, aprons, shirts, and other things of excellent material and good workmanship and put a good price on them. Metal—There is a vogue just now for articles made of tin. Almost any type of tin can be used to make such things as candlesticks, book ends, vases, boxes, sconces, and toys for children. All that is needed in the way of equipment is a work bench, a pair of leather gloves, a pair of heavy shears, a block of wood, a wooden mallet, a pair of dividers, a half round file, a vise, and a soldering outfit. The finished product should be given two coats of paint. In addition to making useful and ornamental objects of this metal one may use other metals such as embossed copper, brass, and pewter. These require a little more skill in handling. Tin may also be embossed. Hand wrought iron equipment for fireplaces, home-markers (swinging sign at the gate), foot-scrapers, lanterns for colonial doorways, and other such items are in demand today, due, no doubt, to the revival of interest in the colonial mode of decoration. Lighting fixtures of wood and copper or wrought iron and wood are simple to make. Not long ago a woman inventor in Chicago grossed $6,000 a month, making hair curlers out of lip stick containers. Sheet metal is another material which can be handled dexterously by the amateur craftsman. This material makes up into good-looking stands, baskets, racks, shelves, fire screens, bird cages, lawn ornaments, stools, tables, lamp bases, book ends, cigarette boxes, ash trays, toys, novelties, and innumerable other things. Until recently, this work meant tedious hours with soldering irons and other hand tools. Now, however, with the new sheet metal working outfit on the market, the home craftsman can use the same methods as the modern factory does. With this equipment, a simple piece like a metal waste basket can be completed in less than half an hour and the total cost, including the paint, is less than twenty cents. The makers of the metal working equipment furnish books of designs and patterns as well as the necessary materials. other MaterIals—Parchment lamp shades (particularly shades for wall lights) are always in good taste. The parchment may be purchased in the stores and many department stores have trained women on their staffs who will help you with designs. Handmade baskets, pottery, beadwork, batik work and handloomed fabrics are not difficult to learn to make and bring good prices. Raffia makes beautiful table mats and coverings for wine bottles. Shells make droll little figures. Sheet celluloid makes costume jewelry, buttons, silhouettes, etc. A scroll or jig saw is necessary for this work. Old inner tubes can be used to make marionettes—the rubber helps to make the dancing figures more realistic. Leather covered boxes, desk pads, letter cases, telephone book covers, book carriers, and many other articles made of leather sell well in the stores today, especially at Christmas. Tooled leather work is not hard to learn —a surprisingly small number of tools are needed to carry on the entire work. Some of the plastics on the market today can be used to make ornamental and useful items that are money makers. Practically all the companies making this material furnish directions for the beginner.