Taking crafts beyond a cottage industry
Entrepreneur went from making crafts to running area’s biggest craft shows
By GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Anita Means is getting the grandstand at Monmouth Park ready for the Heart to Hearth Craft Celebration this weekend.

Anita Means didn’t build her home-based business on venture capital or a strategy centered on a successful initial public offering. The local crafter-turned-entrepreneur built it on something far more substantial than that. She built it on gingerbread — and the ability to reinvent her business when opportunities for change arose.

Cottage Crafts LLC, her craft show management business, has its roots in Means’ hobby of crafting gingerbread houses while raising her young family.

Beginning with Means’ love of crafting, Cottage Crafts has evolved from a home-party format into a company that produces the area’s premiere crafts events, showcasing the work of folk artists and preserving the American tradition of crafting.

This weekend, Means expects some 8,000 people will attend the Heart to Hearth Craft Celebration in the Grandstand Building at Monmouth Park in Oceanport. The fifth annual holiday show will feature traditional American crafts by 120 local and national artisans who work in glass, wood, textiles, jewelry, florals and other media.

In addition to the holiday event, Cottage Crafts produces a spring crafts show at the racetrack and the Colts Neck Crafts Fair in October which draws 10,000 fans of finely crafted Americana.

Means turned her hobby into a business when her husband opted for a major career change in 1982. To help out during the transition, she began hosting home parties at which she sold her gingerbread houses and the handiwork of other crafters. At holiday time, she held an open house in a small cottage on her Wayside property – hence the name Cottage Crafts.

After a few years, she was ready for another leap.

"I already had a customer base, and I made the decision to form a craft cooperative," said the Little Silver native. "I knew there were other crafters in my network who wanted to do something retail with their crafts, but none of us wanted to make a full-time commitment to a retail store." Means found a location for the cooperative in a vintage hardware store on Monmouth Road in the Oakhurst section of Ocean Township dubbed The Barn.

One of only two crafts co-ops in New Jersey at the time, Cottage Crafts Cooperative included about 20 artisan women members. Means took on the role of director and handled the paperwork for the group.

The co-op concept worked well for the women, most of whom, like Means, had young children, and was profitable from the start.

"I’d read about co-ops, and I adapted the idea to what I saw would work here. I had to do lot of research to come up with the right agreements; how we would share in the work," she explained. "A group evolved through the process of meeting, discussing. Everything was shared. The co-op worked very well. We each made a profit the first year."

Means did all the administrative work and in the process, her focus changed.

"I jumped over from being a craft person to being an administrator of a crafters’ co-op," she said. "While I liked both ends, it’s hard to do both."

While the co-op thrived, its location wasn’t ideal and she began searching for a new spot. When she couldn’t find a permanent home, Means looked for a temporary locale for a seasonal craft event. "I thought of the Monmouth County Historical Society because the idea of crafts and honoring our heritage, I felt, went together. It is a historical connection," she explained.

Historical society officials suggested the Allen House at Shrewsbury’s historic Four Corners and Means adapted the co-op format into a craft boutique featuring the work of 75 crafters, including members of the cooperative. Cottage Crafts ran for six-weeks prior to Christmas and in the spring of 1987-88.

The change to a boutique format meant members no longer had to participate, and crafters from out of the area could be included.

"In the boutique format, crafters send their merchandise or drop it off. They pay a fee to be there and a commission on top, but they don’t have to be there," Means explained.

The success of the boutiques created a problem – the parking lot at the Allen House was too small to handle the crowds that came, and Means began to think about another move. At the same time, she was forced to take a hiatus when she sustained serious injuries in a car accident in November 1988 and was bedridden for several months.

"I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do," she recounted. Means realized that her two previous ventures had been short-circuited because she had not owned the properties where they were located, and she became convinced that she needed to own a building. In 1989, Means’ husband, a realty executive, announced he’d found an ideal spot for Cottage Crafts. That spot was the former Dutch Reformed Church on Main Street in Holmdel, a historic landmark and already privately owned.

"I thought it was wonderful," she recalled. "Again, it was a historical property. It had stained glass windows, lofty ceilings,wood paneling and wainscoting on the walls. "As soon as I walked in, I knew it was the right place for me. I could envision it with all the beautiful crafts. I had been asked many times, ‘Where can I go for lessons?’ so that was what would be new.

"It was a big decision, but I was at a point in my life where I felt I could do it," she added. "Crafts are my passion."

Again, Means adapted her concept to fit the new venue – Cottage Crafts became a six-day, retail operation that also offered lessons in arts and crafts.

"I adapted the boutique concept into a one shot, consignment fee format that also included a monthly fee to help with administrative costs," explained Means, who teaches a "crafts as a business" course at Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown.

"Sales were very good," she continued. "Even in 1989-90 when we had bad economic times, sales grew by 10 percent." While crafts classes helped the retail side of Means’ venture, the success of both eventually forced a choice. "It got to the point that I had to make a choice of where to focus my energy," she said. "It was a matter of choosing what to devote my time to." She decided it would be retail and discontinued the classes.

Change was in the wind again in 1995 when Means was asked to produce a craft tent for the annual Colts Neck Fair. She decided the fairgrounds at Bucks Mill would make a great setting and got the township’s approval for a weekend-long crafts event that fall.

The success of the venue encouraged Means, who was beginning to tire of the retail operation, to develop a craft show concept. At the same time, a tenant in her Holmdel location was seeking to expand and offered to take over the Cottage Crafts space. She decided to close the crafts shop in 1997 and devote herself to producing craft shows.

Attendance at her venues has grown steadily, as has her reputation among crafters for producing high-quality, heavily attended shows at which sales are good.

Attendance at Monmouth Park for the spring show was close to 6,000 and the Colts Neck Crafts Fair, now in its seventh year, features 180 crafters and draws 10,000 – the largest attendance of the events she produces.

As show producer, Means is involved in all aspects of the crafts show from finding crafters, drafting comprehensive contracts, setting up an application system and jurying process, to setting up the actual physical layout.

She adheres to the same high standards she began with and that have made crafters eager to gain acceptance to one of her events. Means gets a high return rate – 85 percent – among crafters.

"While I had to work very, very hard in the beginning to establish my vision of what this could become," she said, "now there’s a lot of word of mouth. I’m told my show is very highly regarded by crafters from all over the country."

"My focus is to present hand-crafted merchandise of superb craftsmanship," she said, adding that she also strives for a balance in the types of traditional American crafts displayed, so shows run the folk-art gamut.

For Means, business success is measured not only in preserving traditional crafts and nurturing the creativity of artisans but in providing a profitable venue for their art.

"We all win. I’ve structured my business in such away that all the fees that crafters give me go solely into promoting the show," she explained. "When the show opens at 10 a.m., we’re all on the same footing. As soon as the first person walks through the gate, we all start to make money."