Budding Edisons Rosella, Debbie Miller Mother/Daughter Team In Coeur D’Alene Hang In There With Unique Twist And Show For Tree Ornaments

Rosella and Debbie Miller had grown tired of looking at Dumbo’s rear end.

Every year, the Coeur d’Alene mother and daughter would hang Dumbo, a three-dimensional Disney ornament, on their Christmas tree only to have it spin around and expose its back side.

They tried contorting metal hangers, even reshaping paper clips, to make the ornament hang correctly, but nothing seemed to work.

So Rosella, 65, and Debbie, 37, began researching ways to secure three-dimensional ornaments so that they hang the right way.

Three years and $10,000 later, they’ve patented their invention - “Twist and Show.” The tiny green ornament hanger blends into tree boughs, can be used with ornaments of any weight, and is fully adjustable.

The hangers can be purchased in packets of 10, for $2.99.

“We are now mainly on the Internet selling it. We’ve sold them to friends and neighbors,” said Rosella Miller. “We use it for Hallmark keepsake ornaments.”

They hope others will want to give their invention a try.

Although 5,000 of the devices are ready, they can’t seem to escape from the box in the Miller’s basement. Their website has generated a few orders and recently they received a call from a year-round Christmas store in Illinois.

“We’ve got our fingers crossed for that one,” Debbie said.

The Millers say they just haven’t come up with the marketing gimmick that will flood them with orders, but they know it’ll happen soon.

“It’s just finding that one little key that will send it over,” Rosella said.

“The problem will be keeping up with the demand,” Debbie added.

They are determined because they’ve put too much time and money into the process to give up.

After Rosella came up with the idea, she created a prototype by twisting a piece of wire and wrapping a strip of paper around it. The wire hooked at the top and the bottom. The idea was to have a piece that connected to both hooks, that would be adjustable.

As soon as they had developed the idea, they talked to Jim Price, a patent agent at Wells, St. John, Roberts, Gregory and Matkin, which does most of the patent work in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene market.

Then the Millers started a patent search to see if anyone else had come up with their idea. They had been stung before, when they found that another of Rosella’s ideas, a stand for fake fingernails, already had been invented.

Researching the ornament hanger, they spent eight hours at the University of Idaho library, scouring patent desciptions, looking for anything that would challenge their concept. The UI library is one of 81 nationwide that has patent information.

An inheritance from Rosella’s father, who had been supportive of their efforts, helped ease the expenses.

“Shortly before he died, he told me to go for it!” Rosella said. “I thought, ‘That’d be a good investment.”’ Finding no similar patents, they paid Wells, St. John about $2,000 to apply for a patent and another $7,100 to have a mold of their product made.

When they received their first batch of ornament hangers, they searched for ways to market it. An ad in The Spokesman-Review netted only two responses. They also called several year-round Christmas stores, but to no avail.

Now their product can be viewed twisting in mid-air with an ornament hanging from it on the Internet, at http://www.dmi.net/ ventures/. It’s been on the Internet for less than a year and has brought in a few responses.

Despite the slow start, they’re still confident sales will pick up when people see how the product is used.

Though Twist and Show is Debbie and Rosella’s first invention, they have other ideas in mind. One is a new method of making pie crusts; the other, a way to remove cakes from pans.

They won’t elaborate because, like most inventors, they worry about other people stealing their ideas. Price, the patent agent, warned them not to share their patentable ideas with others.

Each page of the notebook containing sketches of “Twist and Show” includes a witness signature, to help protect the idea.

Rosella said she didn’t consider herself an inventor until she received the patent with its official seal from the U.S. government. “It’s so nice,” she said, admiring the document.

Though they would like to earn back their initial investment, neither Debbie nor Rosella expects to make millions.

“You’ll never make a fortune with an ornament hanger,” Rosella said. “We’d just like it to be out on the market and have people enjoy it.

“It’s just the satisfaction of having an idea and being able to create it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo