Sep 27, 2009

Shop owner gives proceeds to needyBy Mark HareDemocratandChronicle.com

Peg Rubley started crafting 15 years ago. She has a fondness for seashells and many of the items she makes by hand are decorated with them.

This month she’s opening a small gift shop, Shell We Dance, at 720 South Ave. in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood. “Everything I sell, I’ve either made myself or embellished,” Rubley says.

The inventory includes hand-painted wine, martini and water glasses, serving bowls, wreathes of all sizes and shapes and materials, picture frames, small plates and journals — each one with a unique cover design. In time, she’ll add shell jewelry and her own line of greeting cards.

She gets many of the materials she uses at antique stores and secondhand shops, looking to minimize her costs so she can sell very affordable gifts.

The shop would not be possible, Rubley says, except for the generosity of her two friends Gina and Jennifer Belardino, the mom-and-daughter owners of the South Wedge Barber Shop, who offered her rent-free space in the shop.

Rubley’s is not a traditional business. She’s not selling her wares to make a profit, but to cover the expenses she incurs making gifts to give away.

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