By Danielle King

Staff Writer

Pool cues, glass beads, and purses -- what do all of these products have in common?

All of them are made locally in Anna, and discovering them was surprisingly easy.

A quick search on craft website Etsy.com can lead to many items, some even from artists who live next door.

Susie Bibb of Anna is one of those local artists. She has a website named endurancedesign.com, advertises her glass beads on Etsy and works out of her garage.

To make the glass beads, first she has to melt the glass using a torch and then twist the glass onto a rod. Bibb says just getting the glass to made a round shape can be difficult and an art of its own. Next the glass is put into a kiln, where it hardens and is slowly cooled down. She said "it can take from five minutes up to an hour to made a single bead."

She started making the beads in October 2010, a year after the death of her sister. Glass beads were originally her sister's passion, but after her death Bibb said she realized "creating things was something we shared." She took lessons in the beginning and then started using the torch and kiln of her sister.

The beads she creates go onto bracelets, necklaces and pendants that range in price from $10 to $50.

On the other side of Anna, Larry Vigus makes pool cues in his garage.

He started playing pool in his teens, and after receiving his first two-piece pool cue, his curiosity was sparked. Two years ago when his construction company's business started to slow, he had some extra time to invest in his childhood dream.

"It takes, on average, six months to make a cue from seasoned wood," he said.

The first step is buying the wood. The main types of wood Vigus uses are ebony, maple, purple heart and exotics. After the wood is bought, it must be seasoned.

Seasoning the wood involves letting all the moisture evaporate out. This is achieved by weighing the wood and then letting it sit. He then weighs the wood again and if the wood weighs less, he knows it has lost moisture.

Once the wood is done seasoning, he begins to turn the wood on his lay. Turning the wood makes it small and allows for the wood to warp. At this point in the process, Vigus says he hopes that by the time the wood has been turned enough on the lay and has reached pool cue size, all the warp is cut off.

Vigus says his niche is in making 60-inch cues.

"The normal size back in the 1950s was 57-inch, and in the 1970s it went to 58-inch, but I make cues longer because I always felt the cues I played with were too short," he said. He said the trend in larger cues is due to people becoming taller in the past few decades.

His cues range in price from $200 to $600. The majority of his cues are custom orders. He says that often he starts a cue for himself and then ends up selling it before it is even finished. To contact Vigus about his pool cues, call 972-529-8087.

Also made in Anna are purses. Purses with Pizzazz is owned by founder Avonne Jacobson, who moved to Anna six years ago.

She said she learned to sew when she was 9 by watching her mother, who was a seamstress.

"I began to sew purses from an ad I saw in Hancock Fabric advertising a free purse class," she says.

It has been eight years since the opening of her small business; today she makes one-of-a-kind handmade handbags.

She uses heavy upholstery fabric with flat bottoms, which makes her purses much more than just fabric turned inside-out. On average she easily can make two purses a week.

Jacobson says she almost failed a sewing class in college.

"I was such a smart aleck, always not wanting to use my thimble," she says. "In my opinion, thimbles are for old people."

The octogerian said she still does not like to use a thimble.

To contact Jacobson, call 214-831-0936.