‘Original Rednek Wine Glass’ is a thrifter’s brainchild
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Okie Morris is as spunky and offbeat as her latest creation – the Original Rednek Wine Glass.
Packing boxes of glasses for delivery to local retail customers, she laughs about the thousands of glasses selling nationwide and the newspaper, online and TV stories documenting her sudden success.
“My purpose is to repurpose,” says Okie, 43.
“It all started with my business Rewined Designs in 2009.”
Although the Newport News, Va., resident routinely remakes thrift store-find items like a chandelier into a hanging bird feeder and a wall-hung mail racks into a small tool holder, the quirky wine glasses launched her into the national spotlight.
A recent story by CNN.com calls her glass design – a Ball Mason jar glued on top of a Libbey candlestsick holder – part of “American’s love affair with the irreverent, tacky and politically incorrect.”
“You’ve got to have fun in life, and I love having fun,” she says.
Last year, Carson Home Accents in Freeport, Pa., started manufacturing and selling the wine glasses after a salesman saw the item on a shelf in a Hallmark store. Soon, the company signed a licensing deal with Morris. Within a couple of months, the company had orders for almost 100,000 and had to staff special shifts just to get them out the door.
During holiday shopping, the wine glasses were No. 1 on the bestsellers list for glassware and drinking items on Amazon, according to stories about her success.
News reports also say the glasses have garnered $5 million in sales, but Morris disputes that claim and says she’s not anywhere close to being the millionaire that people may expect.
“Those sales numbers are greatly exaggerated,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Working out of a 10-by-10-foot studio located at the back of a restaurant parking lot in Yorktown, Va., Morris gets repurposed products ready for a Sustainable Living Fair Feb.18-19 at the Webb Center at Old Dominion University. She loves birds and has her building surrounded with small bird feeders made from terra cotta cups. For the fair, she’s making small bird baths out of old vases and pottery saucers.
A small log she found in the woods is drilled with holes and given a wire hanger so it can serve as a suet or peanut butter feeder for woodpeckers.
“I’m a bird fanatic and anything to do with birds excites me,” she says.
In reality, anything creative excites Morris. Her small workshop is nothing but paint, glitter, old vases, pottery pieces and glass marbles.
Rednek Wine Charms fashioned from bottle caps painted neon green, pink and black are her next creation. And, she’s got big, big tubes of beer-flavored Rednek Lip Balm in the works.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” she says, pulling a big tube of lip balm from her purse.
“I create best when I need something and those small tubes of lip balm aren’t enough for me, so I came up with the idea for oversized tubes.”
She’s also very much into body art and face painting through her business OkieDokie Face and Body Art. She does fun and funky tattoos for children’s birthday parties, and plans an adult line of girlie tattoos women may enjoy at special events such as bachelorette parties.
Because Morris also works as a sales rep for Taylored Printing in York County, she doesn’t get to spend as much time as she would like at her studio but she’s there when she can be.
“When it’s something you absolutely love, you make time for it,” she says.
Contact Okie at info@okiedokiefaba.com or 757-0876-5522.
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