Denise Langendorf loves to create.
“The process is like an addiction,” she said. “Once I get started I can’t stop.”
Langendorf is known for taking old, primitive or vintage items and repurposing them.
She said part of the fun is looking at an item and trying to figure out what she can use it to create.
She buys supplies and items she likes often without having a set plan.
“I just start putting them together,” she said. “Sometimes I get an idea and sketch it out, but mostly I wing it.”
Winging it has led to some of her most unique pieces and creating multiples of something with a plan bores her.
“I have wholesaled my handmaids to shops all over the USA in the past,” she said. “Making multiples is boring and you lose the creative process.”
Langendorf said she loves to go junking, finding tossed out, worn out and almost destroyed pieces and giving them a new life.
“I get a little thrill when customers rave on something I made,” she said. “That is important to me—that something I made is in someone’s home and maybe cherished for years.”
Langendorf has sold her one of a kind items in her store named after her four-year-old Vizsla, Ginger, has been a downtown St. Joseph mainstay for three years.
As of this weekend, it will be no more.
Langendorf made the decision to close her store, which focused on handmade and repurposed primitive and vintage goods not only made by her but by other vendors because of life changes.
Langendorf’s day job as a registered nurse at OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center is requiring her to go full time for benefits. Langendorf said the decision was difficult because she feels so strongly about what Ginger’s stood for—being different.
“I don’t follow the in thing because that’s what everyone does,” she said. “Success is standing out from the rest.”
It was a difficult decision to close the store she loves but as any store owner can attest there are hours and hours of work behind the scenes beyond the hours the shop is open, especially when the items are all handmade.
“Gingers was unique in that we didn’t buy from a wholesaler and most things were made by hand or recreated,” she said. “It’s hours and hours of creating, not pulling out of a box and adding a price tag.”
Her favorite part of owning Ginger’s, beyond creating items for it, was meeting interesting people.
“I gained new friends with my customers and vendors,” she said. “It warmed my heart when regulars came in week after week to see what was new.”
Some people came in just to see Ginger, who took third place at the 2016 AKC Rally Nationals, with her owner’s help. Others thought Langendorf was Ginger. Yet others walked in and were astounded by the amount of handmade unique items.
“They would walk in and say, ‘Wow, I love this store. It’s so different,’” Langendorf said.
She also built relationships with the other people who sold handmade items in the store, including her shop partner, Diane Lahne of the Potting Shed in Allerton, which also sells handmade items.
Langendorf said she and Lahne had similar ideas on what a shop should be and both had a creative passion.
“With her guidance I was able to take Gingers to a new level and we went from being open once a month to every week,” Langendorf said.
Langendorf said she was thankful that so many people had supported her business and her dream.
When she posted the news on social media of the store closing followers lamented what a great addition the store was to downtown and how much they loved the store. Langendorf urged those people not to be too sad yet. She has a new path she is going to follow and hopes her customers and friends will follow her.
In January, she will open two more booths at Mercantile Antiques located on Northgate Drive in Saint Joseph.
“Its a fabulous antique shop,” Langendorf said.
The booths will feature Langendorf’s handmade and repurposed items and some of her vendors will also be opening booths there, too.
Langendorf said she will miss the interaction with her customers and helping new vendors get their business going while sharing her knowledge of junking and repurposing, but she is looking to the future.
“The door on Lincoln may be closing but Ginger’s will continue to grow—just down a different path,” she said. “Never give up on your dreams in three short years we evolved from a studio to a monthly market to a real shop. That was beyond my wildest dreams.”
