Enterprising girls turn on the charms

Emma Goos and Hannah Olson seem to have avoided the pitfalls of starting a business with a friend. They share all duties equally and cheerfully. Both are adept on the creative end and hard workers in sales. They even look at each other for accord when answering questions.

And it probably doesn't hurt that they're 12 years old.

Close friends since kindergarten, the budding entrepreneurs and erstwhile lemonade-stand mavens have built a booming business selling charms made from bottle caps.

"Even the eighth-graders really like them," said sixth-grader Emma, her braces flashing across a boundless smile.

The girls came up with the idea last summer, and their parents provided some start-up funds. Since then they have sold enough charms for Hannah to buy a bike -- "Emma kind of piddles her money away," said mom Jennifer Goos -- and for both to beef up their savings accounts.

The girls round up bottle caps -- some from a friend with a pop machine in her garage -- then clean them. They find non-copyrighted images online or on paper, glue them onto the inside of the caps and sometimes add some rhinestone-like appliqués ("We call those the 'mom ones,'" Hannah said).

The images can be seasonal, for holidays or hockey season, or art that works year-round, such as owls or the Eiffel Tower. Peace signs are popular with the girls, and single-letter charms are a hit with boys whose name starts with that letter, Emma and Hannah said.

The charms are a near-ubiquitous sight at Dakota Hills Middle School in Eagan, "on purses, backpacks, clarinet cases and any kind of lunchbox," Emma said.

Among the most popular are necklaces. The girls sell dog-tag chains, leather necklaces and others for $2.50 apiece, same as the charms. Their male customers tend to favor longer necklaces and key chains and eschew the shiny charms. "No bling on the boys," Jennifer Goos said.

Their operation, which has a nascent website (www.charmedcompany.com), is not purely for-profit. At their Valentine's sale, 20 percent of the proceeds went to Haiti via the American Red Cross, and before that they donated $1 for each pink-ribbon charm sold to Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer fund.

Emma and Hannah will sell their wares at the Rosemount Community Center on March 20, and they're thinking about having a stand next summer at the Eagan Market Fest.

But for now, in advance of a local play and movie based on "Alice in Wonderland," the girls have been scouring the Web looking for images and words that won't run afoul of Disney's aggressive copyright monitors. Shortened phrases -- "I'm late, I'm late" and "Zip" -- appear to be in the offing.

"We think of what would be good for events coming up," Emma said. Added Hannah: "Or we ask around at school."

Bill Ward • 612-673-7643