Consignment shop features Alaska-made art, products

HOUSTON — For years, Joyce Main has made part of her living selling her handicrafts as a vendor at the Alaska State Fair and other venues.

She says her booth in the Meadow Wood Mall for Saturday’s artist meet and greet event will be her last. These days, setting up and taking down the booth is just too much for her and her husband, Joe, 81.

“But I don’t have to do it anymore,” Main said.

Now she comes to Homesteaders Country Store once a month to pick up her check from co-owners Peggy Bjornton and Christi Caldwell.

“They are an answer to prayer,” Main said. “I asked Jehovah about it and here it is. Not only that, but they’ve turned out to be really good friends.”

Main is one of 81 Alaska vendors whose handmade items are featured in the consignment shop in the Meadow Wood Mall at the corner of Big Lake Road and the Parks Highway. The shop is open six days a week, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

It’s a storefront for the Mat-Su Valley’s plethora of home-based businesses, Caldwell said. “It fills a real need.”

The two women were friends for nearly two decades before going into business together, Bjornton said. She said they started talking about the idea of starting the business about 10 years ago.

“We just didn’t know what a good idea it was,” said Bjornton, who celebrates 31 years as an Alaskan this year. “We’re bringing back the old-fashioned country store.”

Their neighbors in the mall include Spenard Builder’s Supply, The Lumberyard Deli, ADK Plans, Computer help, Big Lake Family Hair Salon, Rainbow Medical Clinic, Homesteaders Country Store, Xiangfan Art Works, Flowering Fist Tachi and QiGong and Curves.

Since the store opened Memorial Day weekend, Bjornton and Caldwell say the only advertising they’ve done for vendors has been word-of-mouth.

“Word spread like wildfire,” Bjornton said.

Shoppers may be surprised by the store’s reasonable prices and its diverse inventory, which includes stained glass, photography, clothes, jewelry, honey, jam, pickles, bath soap, Yukon Farm Superior Potting Soil, peanut butter, two kinds of locally bottled water, metal artwork, leather work, coffee, watches with custom stone bands, kids’ scarves, hats and gloves, earrings made with real Alaska gold, chive and raspberry vinaigrette, fresh eggs, kids’ aprons, garden aprons, bibs that look like tuxedos, and Christmas and Hanukah countdown calendars with a dog bone a day for the family dog.

“They’re all local people,” she said. “The talent here is just amazing. If you can make it we can sell it.”

Shop vendors sign 90-day contracts with the store. And at the end of that time, if their wares don’t sell, Bjornton said they have to change their prices or take their merchandise home.

Vendors pay a 20 percent commission on sales less than $100 and 30 percent on sales more than $100, she said.

Bjornton is one of the store’s owners and one of its vendors. She charges $5 a dozen for the eggs her chickens lay and sells jars of sauerkraut. She said her last batch of sauerkraut sold out in three weeks.

“I’m the one who raises them, so I can sell them,” Bjornton said of her farm-fresh eggs. “We brought the farmer’s market indoors.”

She said she and Caldwell envision summer months where local farmers set up tents in the parking lot to sell their fresh Alaska Grown foods.

The also have plans to add Delta Junction grains and meats, heirloom seeds and herbal teas to the wares they offer.

“We need to start depending on ourselves,” Bjornton said. “What happens if our supply line gets cut off?”

Beginning in January 2011, the store will also host beginning classes in crocheting, knitting and quilting.

“These are things our grandmothers taught us,” Bjornton said. “Now we’re the grandmothers.”

In addition to finely crafted artwork made by Alaskans, the store also stocks bulk organic foods such as flour, oats and peanut butter. Customers can purchase 1 pound or 50 pounds, Bjornton said. It also sells gluten-free items.

Caldwell and Bjornton say they aim to build a sustainable earth-friendly business. Toward that end, they use recycled grocery sacks from other businesses instead of ordering plastic bags with their name on them. They also charge a 65-cent refundable deposit on pint canning jars and an 85-cent deposit on quart jars.

“Jars get expensive,” Bjornton said. “If you don’t want them, bring them back.”

Saturday was the fourth of seven artist meet-and-greet events scheduled though Dec. 18 at Homesteaders. Vendors are not charged to set up their tables in the mall’s hall and pay the shop no commission for their sales during the events, Bjornton said.

“There are stories that go with everything in here,” she said. “You get a little piece of everyone’s life with every purchase.”

For more information, contact 892-4727, or send e-mail to hscs@mtaonline.net.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.