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Sometimes you just get stuck for ideas. Your mind is a blank. It makes it even harder to come up with the goods if your present or future business rests on your ideas. A little help and inspiration for a new article, a new product, or a completely new business wouldn’t go amiss in these circumstances.
The purpose of the ideas in this article is to get your brain thinking. The ideas may seem a bit crazy and unrealistic – almost too simple. But…. the intention is for these ideas to act as a trigger, making you say something like: “That idea’s ridiculous, but if I change it around a bit I could…” So, use one or more of these ideas as your starting point and brainstorm your way to a new opportunity.
1. Produce Christmas cards which are printed on the front with, for example, “Happy Christmas from the Smith Family”. Or, instead of the name “Smith”, pick one of the dozens of other popular surnames. Sell packs of these cards by direct mail to people listed in telephone directories.
2. Make money from renting out expensive children’s toys. The toys you rent out will include remote control models and computerised games. Use a little van to deliver the toys to customers. The van should have a toy town colour scheme, sirens and flashing lights. Call the van a toy-mobile.
3. Introduce to your region a service which mounts maps for businesses. Keep a stock of local, national and international maps. Mount these maps in a professional manner to suit the wall space available at offices. Send out leaflets about your service to office managers.
4. Bring out a regular publication for ambitious, amateur musicians. This publication might include ads from: i) employers seeking musicians; ii) retailers selling equipment, accessories and supplies; (iii) people selling used equipment. Also print interesting editorial.
5. Design and manufacture kits for making models with cocktail sticks. For example, model churches, castles, windmills, houses, etc. Buy the cocktail sticks in unpacked form in bulk from a manufacturer. Sell your kits by mail order from ads in craft magazines or distribute to model shops.
6. Produce a directory of products no longer made. This directory might include sections on toys, novelties and household goods. Design the directory for business people and inventors who want to know both what has been made before and what ideas might be revived or modified.
7. Make cotton gloves specially designed for coin collectors. The gloves prevent the acidic grease and moisture on fingers from getting on to coins. Package the gloves and sell from ads in coin collecting magazines or distribute to shops which sell collectible coins.
8. Bring out a correspondence course about how to write cookery books. The course might include information about: how to devise recipes; how to present them in written form and what makes a successful cookery book. Produce a prospectus and advertise in women’s magazine.
9. Begin a business which rents out large and expensive astronomical telescopes to householders who want to develop their interest in astronomy. Publicise your service at the local astronomy society and use local advertising to attract clients. Link up with a telescope supplier and get a 10% finder’s fee for those people who go on to buy their own telescope.
10. Set up a company which produces a compendium of strip games, for example: strip poker, strip snakes and ladders, strip lotto, strip snap and strip ludo. Sell the compendiums of games by mail order from ads in x-rated magazines.
11. Paint attractive art on rocks to make souvenir paperweights and doorstops. The art might take the form of abstract patterns, traditional pictures or tourist scenery. Call your rocks ‘designer rocks’. Add a rubber base to paperweights and a rubber edge to doorstops.
12. Create a mail order business which specialises in selling products which help people sleep. The products you sell might include: sleep inducing cassettes, special bedtime clothing, herbal pillows and how to sleep well booklets. Company names might be something like ‘Sleepwell’, ‘Sleeptight’ etc.
13. Paint on wood, stylish house numbers and names. These painted numbers and names will be an attractive alternative to the traditional names burned into sliced logs. Get your work stocked at shops which sell garden products or household goods.
14. Start a venture which promotes the art and hobby of window painting. On coloured acetate paper have outlines printed for painting pictures by numbers. These acetate sheets are stuck to one side of a window and anyone can paint a picture on the other side of the window.
15. Select one seashell which would be suitable for use as an ashtray, another for a pip tray and a third for a paper clip tray. Put these shells into a single packet and sell as a set of useful household seashell trays. Find shops to stock your packets of seashell trays.
16. Devise and produce a board game which simulates the experience of starting a mail order business. The usual problem of bringing out a board game is the difficulty of getting it stocked at shops. However, a game about mail order can be sold by mail order to business opportunity seekers.
17. Make an income from selling lucky charms door-to-door. Sell, for example: rabbits’ feet, horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. Start this enterprise by tracking down trade sources of these lucky charms.
18. Begin a business which buys and sells oil paintings. Buy new paintings from artists and old paintings from collectors and householders. Sell the paintings from: home, a roadside site, a stall at craft fairs, or hire halls for exhibiting all the paintings you have for sale.
19. Start a manufacturing business which is devoted to making doorstops. The doorstops you make might range from humble wooden wedges to the exotic and unusual. Package the doorstops in polythene bags, staple on a printed card and get them stocked at hardware or gift shops.
20. Decorate everyday objects with pressed flowers. Add an inlaid design of pressed flowers to trays, coasters, jewellery boxes, paperweights, picture frames, wall hangings, desk sets and table tops.
21. Set up a home improvement business which modifies the exterior of houses to give them a Tudor appearance. Your service will include: fitting ornamental oak beams, giving exterior walls a white covering and adding a metal grid to windows.
22. Make wooden ’strip noughts and crosses’ games (an item of clothing is taken off by the loser of a game). Drill 9 holes into a small square block and paint on a grid. Next, make 10 pegs and paint on each peg an ‘0′ or ‘X’. Put the grid and pegs into a clear bag and staple on a product name card. Sell to sex shops and mail order.
23. Bring together a range of brass ware ornaments so you can have a stall at craft fairs, antique markets and Sunday markets.
24. Publish a newsletter which has a title like ‘Ambitious Person’s Way to Wealth’ or ‘Clever People Don’t Work Hard’. The contents of your newsletter might be in a vein similar to Joe Karbo’s ‘The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches’.
25. Set up and run a school of window dressing. Organise one-day or two-day courses or seminars for established shopkeepers who want to learn more about this aspect of their business. Also provide courses for those who would like to take up a career as a window dresser. (Tip: You can run a profitable seminar on anything without knowing the first thing about the subject yourself. You merely pay a percentage of the seminar fee, say 15%, to an expert speaker.)
26. Write and publish a manual about how to make money from property. In the manual include chapters on: buying and selling land; buying properties for conversion and renovation; investing in property, etc. Use direct mail and mail order to sell copies of this manual to opportunity seekers.
27. Found and run a school of investment. Give tuition to solo students and groups about different types of investments such as shares, gilt-edged securities, unit trusts, USM, antiques, stamps, art, etc. For each area of investment prepare lesson plans and follow these closely.
28. Make a selection of children’s prayer plaques: wooden wall plaques which feature popular prayers. The prayers might be painted on, or burned into, the wood.
29. Start a craft business which uses interesting foreign coins to make jewellery. Incorporate coins into pendants, bracelets, brooches, necklaces and earrings. Alternatively, make jewellery which features reproduction coins from the ancient world.
30. Use small seashells strung together to make necklaces. Find a trade source of small seashells and either set up your own production line, or employ home workers. Sell the finished necklaces from a market stall or get them stocked at suitable retail outlets. Nick Summers runs <a href="http://www.morethanarticles.com” rel=”nofollow”>More Than Articles Article Directory, a directory dedicated to offering the best of the web’s articles formatted the way you want them. Visit www.morethanarticles.com today for all your content requirements.WP Autoblogging Plugin

My interest in crystal was initiated by two powerhouses – two mothers-in-law. It all started when I went to England to marry my first wife. How fortunate I was to gain a wonderful and caring mother-in-law in the process. Peggy was a wonderful, gracious woman from England’s upper social level. She spoke the Queen’s English and insisted when you do certain things it must be done “properly”. That was her go-to phrase.
Peggy lived in a very old windmill that she had converted. The interior walls of the first level were lined with teak board paneling. The upper two levels were finished in plaster. The windmill was beautifully decorated with two hundred-plus year old antique furniture from France and England. Cabinets and shelves were filled with crystal, china, silver tableware and numerous small collectibles. She was an avid collector of antique furniture, plates, crystal glassware and crystal figurines.
In a kind, motherly way, she explained the importance of bringing beautiful things of value into the home and that it could be done inexpensively once you knew the true value of something. In ten days, Peggy instructed me in the ins and outs of collecting and bargain hunting with the emphasis on quality and workmanship.
I was a willing student. I must admit I was stunned by the artistic style and craftsmanship of her collector plates and crystal. I could see how all these beautiful items she loved made her feel. Her collectibles were a treasure to her because she enjoyed them so much.
She was fond of saying that “Something isn’t valuable unless it has value for you.” That was her buying philosophy and one of many that she instilled in me.
Her collection and tutelage is what sparked my interest in crystal and china. Peggy would come to America every couple of years and we all went shopping in the second-hand stores picking up odd pieces here and there. She could really find the bargains.
On one visit, she joined in the bedtime story routine with my daughter. She noticed the figurine my daughter held depicting an animal in the story. Gran was curious so I explained that the story was more enjoyable for her granddaughter when she held the figurine. My daughter had a great deal of fun putting the figurine through actions of the characters in the story or fairy tale. I told her I couldn’t find any other figurines for other stories and fairy tales I wanted to read. She said she would get them for me in England. I’d send her the name of a story or fairy tale and Gran would send a figurine
After a couple of years of enjoyable bedtime stories, my daughter had an interesting collection of figurines and my interest in crystal was expanding from glassware to figurines of all types, especially crystal animals
Peggy was a grand lady. But what she taught me has stayed with me these past forty years. After passing on, her windmill home was declared a historical treasure by England’s Historical Society and open to the public for short periods of time. I will always remember her impressive collections and the instructions she kindly gave to me.
I was a bachelor for a quite a few years and highly focused on my career working in corporate America and traveling extensively as a Management and Business Training Consultant.. Unfortunately, I got away from collecting for awhile because I was so busy.
Somewhere in all that malaise I met a wonderful woman who captured my heart. I was hired to write a book and spent six weeks in Yugoslavia doing research. Being away from her made me realize that this lovely lady was to be my life’s partner. We married and in the deal I had another charming and endearing mother-in-law. How lucky can a guy get?
My new mother-in-law, Marge, took us under her guidance and patiently encouraged us to add crystal into our home décor. We took many shopping trips together to outlet malls and craft shows picking up crystal vases, serving plates and other crystal items that would be functional and beautiful additions to our home
Like Peggy, Marge stressed the importance of quality and the confidence in buying brand names like Waterford, Lenox, Makasa and Swarovski. I know what I like, but as a man I’m not up to speed on all those home décor touches a home needs. I was totally reliant on my wife’s and mother’s-in-law feminine prowess to choose the appropriate items.
They chose well and I have always been pleased with their purchases. Marge was a great guide along the way.
My wife and I now have a nice collection of china porcelain, crystal stemware and glassware and crystal figurines. Of all our collectibles the ones that bring me the greatest pleasure are the crystal animals and crystal figurines. Perhaps it is because of those fond memories of my daughter playing with those figurines as I read the bedtime fairy tales to her.
Along the forty year path of collecting, I have managed to acquire a few crystal figurines that are quite old and no longer made. I don’t care about their resale value. I care about the artistic and craftsmanship of the pieces. Gran would be proud and Marge is pleased. Lowry Mell is a retired Merchandiser and former Marketing and Business Consultant. His articles focus on new and creative ways to use and display crystal and crystal figurines. For more information, visit: http://www.CrystalSplendor.comWP Autoblog Plugin

This was me, sailing my boat and singing: Come on, Bill, let’s take them for an old country rock. / Let’s go back down on the Rappahannock, down Tappahannock way. / Whip it, Bill, while everybody rocks. The song is Bill Moore’s early blues composition “Old Country Rock,” but my rendition of it could not, alas, have been counted in any way a success, since I am incapable of carrying a tune. However, I thought maybe Moore’s ghost would be okay with it because (a) I was sailing alone and therefore not subject to mutiny, and (b) I was in fact sailing up the Rappahannock on my way to visit Tappahannock, Va.  Moore, who had been a barber in Tappahannock, was also a leading bluesman of the East Coast or Piedmont variety. He recorded this song and five others of his own making for Paramount Records in Chicago in the winter of 1928. It’s a recording that is now treasured by early blues collectors. In 2005, 54 years after he died, Moore got a historical marker of his own, placed along U.S. Route 17, near where his barbershop once stood. Bill Moore is just one of a fistful of intriguing things about this small town with the quadrisyllabic name on the banks of the quadrisyllabic river.  So, as I said, I was singing to myself and sailing along, holding a generally northwest course in a generally southwest breeze. I had plenty of time to sing, since Tappahannock is about 35 miles upriver from Stingray Point at the mouth of the Rappahannock. Tappahannock has been around for a longish time, not counting its many, many centuries as a Native American settlement. English-settler-wise, though, it is nearly as old as you can get. Captain John Smith slept here—at least he tried to, but was immediately given the bum’s rush by the area’s highly annoyed occupants. A few decades later, the colonists returned the favor in spades, pushing out the Indians, and the area became English, first under the appellation Hobbs His Hole, named for trader Jacob Hobbs and his anchorage. (That “His” in the middle of Hobbs His Hole is just the old-school way of making a possessive, by the way, like “the dog his dinner.”) Then the name was changed to New Plymouth and,finally, in 1705, back to the name Smith had written on his map—Tappahannock, or “town on the rise and fall of water.” Rappahannock meaning apparently “rise and fall of water.” Tapp instead of Rapp, I mused dreamily in the warm sun. Rapp, Tapp . . . hmmm.Here I am sailing and singing: When ev’ry stock you take is making money / When ev’ry heart you break / Is such a cinch, it’s funny / Careful, Sonny / Rap-tap, rap-tap . . . on wood. No, a historical marker to Cole Porter is not another interesting thing about Tappahannock. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have hurt Tappahannock to do some rapping, tapping on wood. Like dozens of other strategically placed settlements on the Chesapeake and its tributaries, Tappahannock by the mid-18th century was a bustling center for trade, with ships stopping on their way up and down the river. But like many of the other early centers for trade, business dropped off as natural resources dwindled and overland routes developed. Pretty soon, the passage of time, like commerce, slowed to a trickle; and Tappahannock, like Rip van Winkle, pretty much dozed through the next couple of hundred years.It’s a long way to Tappahannock / It’s a long way to go . . . As the sun grew warmer and I got sleepier, it seemed to me that dozing for a few years was not altogether a bad idea. I was making some progress, though. I had passed the Corrottoman River, then the town of Urbanna, Va., then Belle Isle State Park. As I sailed on, the dozens of boats that had flocked near the mouth of the Rappahannock dropped behind me, until by the time I reached Farnham Creek I was all alone. Not much of anybody makes the trek up to Tappahannock by sail these days—not only is the distance substantial, but the channel gets narrow for tacking and the current is often stronger than the wind.Finally, the tiny inlet of Muddy Gut slipped by to port, and then Totutskey Creek to starboard. I stopped singing and sat up straight in my seat because right about Lowery Point the water on either side of me had gotten thinner than a Bryant Park model during Fashion Week. I started the engine and gave up my career as the Rappahannock’s first lady of song. I was nearly there. The U.S. Route 360 bridge, which connects the Northern Neck with the Middle Peninsula, was only about three miles ahead. Now I also began keeping a close lookout for the vestigial remnants of another of Tappahannock’s intriguing points of interest. And I found it, just outside the channel, about a mile past flashing green “29″. For 25 years, from 1924 to 1949, the most striking thing about Tappahannock was that it had a 273-foot wooden ship grounded just offshore. The ship, the Caponka, had been built in Portland, Ore., in 1918 in a world-record 49 days to help in America’s supply effort during World War I. Unfortunately for her, however, the war ended a mere seven months later. In 1920, after only 52 days of active service, she was mothballed with 500 other members of the wooden fleet on the James River. But unlike most of her sisters, who were eventually taken up the Potomac and scuttled in Mallows Bay, the Caponka was purchased and taken to Reedville, Va., where her engines were removed for use in the menhaden fleet. Then she was purchased again and taken to her new owner’s home of Tappahannock—where she ran aground about halfway between Jones Point and Hoskins Creek. It was here that she spent the rest of her inglorious career as a blot on the local landscape. But she was an interesting blot, and something of a local attraction. In fact, many residents felt that having a 273-foot wooden boat of uncertain derivation sitting offshore set their town apart from other, less-interesting towns. And when she burned in 1949—over two spectacular days, residents recall—many were sorry to lose their local landmark. A section of her charred hull still breaks the surface of the water.So much for shipwrecks and whimsy, though, it was now time to come to grips with Tappahannock’s shortcomings as a destination—no entirely satisfactory place to drop the hook. are the area’s greatest charm. You are truly alone with nature. Up the creeks, you are surrounded by reeds, with no sound but the birds, and only the sun shining down you.”The 160 students at St. Margaret’s make good use of the river, too, especially with their new three-season crew program. And each year, during River Days, students spend time at the river’s edge, learning to take water samples, to identify native species of plants and animals, and to enjoy the water resource that flows by their front door.Like many other small towns on the Bay, Tappahannock is finally turning its attention back to the river, as well. I left Hubbard to finish the tour, while I walked over to David Broad’s office on Jeannette Street, backing up to Hoskins Creek (6 minutes). Broad, a twice-transplanted Englishman who grew up in France (where he and Margaret met while she was teaching there), is now very much rooted in Tappahannock’s civic life. He was part of the group that organized the town’s big annual summer shindig: Rivahfest. Now in its sixth year, the event, which will be held June 21 this year, draws thousands of visitors and a lot of boats—largely powerboats, pontoon boats and kayaks. Increasingly, David Broad said, organizers of Rivahfest are trying to incorporate river-based events. This year, plans are in the works for a raft race, a boat show and boat rides. “We’re also looking at putting a water taxi service from the marina to the dock at St. Margaret’s.” Another of David Broad’s projects, the ongoing Main Street Program, is advocating the construction of a city pier. “We want to put Tappahannock back on the water to welcome visitors from the river,” he said. Although it’s a small town, he continued, it has a lot to offer boaters. “The whole population of Essex County is only 8,000, but we are the market place for 60,000 people from eight counties. That’s why we have such a wide variety of businesses.”I walked back to Duke Street (7 minutes) and found my friend Kathy trying to decipher a typically time-damaged headstone in the graveyard next to St. John’s Episcopal Church. “Stop!” I cried. “Enough culture, let’s shop!” And we proceeded to sample every antiques store, gift shop and gallery we could find from A to Z, and including A to Z Antiques, Nadji Nook, Mayhew’s, Queen Street Ltd., Coffman’s and a lot more—Tappahannock is for some reason (don’t know why) a veritable hotbed of antiques shops. We put the finishing touches on the whole shopping shebang at Hoskins Creek Table Co., presided over by John Vaughan, who used to just sell tables, but now makes them as well.As we emerged from that shop with yet more packages, we saw that good fortune had put us only about 60 seconds away from Riverbank Cafe and Seafood. We were so hungry we made it there in under 45. More crabcakes for me, fried clam strips (”better than Howard Johnsons”) for Kathy and a great heap of french fries for mutual plunder. We went from hungry to immobilized in minutes. I was nearly, but not quite, too full to waddle down to T n’ L BBQ (3 minutes) to put in my order with Jimmy and Linda Taylor for tomorrow’s lunch on the rivah (sorry, it’s the law to write it like that down heah). While Kathy returned to Kinsale with all our loot, I secured a heap of barbecued pork ribs to go. Yes, I know, the Coast Guard disapproves of eating ribs while steering a boat, but I figured I’d have plenty of time to wash myself and the cockpit down before I reached the mouth of the Rappahannock.Ribs in hand, I returned to the boat, where I watched the Rappahannock cruise boat Captain Thomas return to its dock on Hoskins Creek and then a tug nudge its barge up to the Perdue granary. Finally, and humming quietly to myself, I watched the sun set over busy U.S. Route 17/360 (not a sight that would have attracted many school committees, perhaps). I dove down into the icebox for a very cold bottle of ale and gloried in my discovery of Tappahannock as a boating destination—even for a sailor. In the immortal words of the Trade Winds’ surf classic: ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh . . . New York’s a lonely town / When you’re the only surfer boy around . . . ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh . . .Tappahannock’s a lovely town / When you’re the only sailor girl around . . . ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh. Fade. By Jody Schroath, Senior Editor for Chesapeake Bay Magazine. For more great articles and photos on boating, sailing, fishing, and cruising, visit http://www.ChesapeakeBoating.netHeavy Metal Music and Bands