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ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Two moms in south St. Louis County, Mo., have combined folk art and family pride in a small business that creates likenesses of people out of wire and tin.
These stay-at-home moms, Debbie Robertson and Lisa Meyer, with a quartet of children ranging in age from 5-year-old twins to a 17-year-old, started by trying to find a simple way to render each member of their families distinctively as an arts-and-crafts project. It turned out to be a unique way to personalize their homes.
It didn't take them long to figure out that their project might make a fun, home-based business. They take turns crafting the made-to-order wire figures on each other's kitchen table.
The moms say that their children are their best salespeople.
"We both have them (the wire figures) in our homes, and our children like to point out themselves to guests," Meyer said.
Known as Two Wired Women, the duo make figures that typically range in size from 8 inches for children to 12 inches for dads. Teens are 10 inches. Of course, customers can request any size for any figure.
"It took us about six months to figure it all out," Robertson said. They picked the brains of friends in construction and discovered the joys of using power tools.
The figures are fashioned from white coat-hanger-type wire or wire painted to look vintage and lightly rusted. Then they are outfitted with clothes cut from tin. Some figures even get shoes.
After Robertson and Meyer perfected the figures and the perfectly rounded heads, they had to work on the accessory items that really distinguish each character. For example, a little boy may hold a basketball and a mom might hold a cell phone and purse.
Hairstyles include ponytails, spiky cuts and crazy curls. Each figure has a clothing scheme of three colors and can be adorned with an object such as a stethoscope, a golf club, a coffee cup, a fishing pole, a hockey stick, a football, needlepoint, jewelry, a briefcase, a purse, a phone or a pet on a leash.
"That's my son there with a strawberry ice cream cone," Robertson said.
Prices for the items start at $10, including clothing. Then the Two Wired Women charge $2 for each accessory and $5 for each pet. For orders, call Meyer at 314-757-7762 or Robertson at 314-740-5992.
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(c) 2005, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
