While some cultures give thanks to animals before eating them, Wendy Roberts gives vinyl albums one last listen before cutting them into dozens of pieces to create her popular wares.
Audiophiles may cringe to see Roberts cut up a vinyl copies of the Rolling Stones' classic 1971 album "Sticky Fingers."
Yet Roberts, proprietor of RecycledLps.com, is prepared to tell music fanatics she's doing the environment a big favor.
"It's always the men" who take issue with it, she said. "But I have to try to convince them I'm saving the landfills. I'm recycling.
"A lot of people are throwing (LPs) away," Roberts added.
Her passion for all things "green" stems from her birth: Roberts was born on April 22, a date now considered Earth Day.
It helps that Roberts admittedly isn't a rabid music fan — most of her records are bought at thrift stores and garage sales or are donated — as she cuts up the albums, piece by piece, to create purses, notebook covers, bookmarks, coasters and clocks, among a growing list of offerings.
She also makes use of album covers to make buttons.
Her husband, a music fan, often shops with his wife to purchase old records and brings her up to speed on music history.
Through the process, she was introduced to the classic rock act Santana, and is now a die-hard fan.
"I'm getting there. I have learned a tremendous amount," Roberts said.
"It's wonderful," she continued.
Some might argue Roberts, in her own way, is keeping vinyl records — a nearly extinct product in the age of digital music — alive out of her Green Oak Township basement workshop.
Her work is keeping images of music legends like Elton John, Rod Stewart, Queen, the Doors, Pink Floyd and Billy Joel in the mainstream as popular music continues format changes.
Still, her work is taking those changes in different directions.
Unlike a vintage record store, Roberts' records don't even have to be in playable condition.
"It doesn't matter if it's scratched. It doesn't matter if it's broken on one side," she explained.
Roberts, a lifelong crafter, started the business in 2007 as a way to raise money for her and her daughter to go her daughter's planned class trip to France. She first began sewing purses, then affixing halves of vinyl records to either side of the purse.
She first sold them on eBay, then a site where crafters sell their wares.
"They started selling immediately," she recalled.
Her daughter later took a health-occupations course that used up her elective options, making her unable to take French that year. With the change, the France trip was out.
Yet the ends justified the means: Her daughter is studying nursing at Michigan State University, and Roberts got a booming niche business off the ground from her home shop.
Demand for Roberts' products has only continued to grow, including a corporate contract deal she would not disclose and orders across the country.
After starting the company just four years ago, Roberts soon felt confident leaving a comfortable job as a master gardener and nursery consultant at the Brighton Home Depot.
Plus, she's perfectly happy in her dark basement, where she can watch television and listen to music through the workday.
"There was no way I could do both. This is all I do now," she said.
"I want to stay home. I don't want to have a retail store," Roberts added.
She's been running her home business full time since August, and worked upward of 14 hours per day filling orders last month during the Christmas season. She plans to introduce a line of cell phone protectors and ornaments next holiday season.
Learn more about the business at www.recycledlps.com.
Contact Daily Press & Argus reporter Christopher Behnan at (517) 548-7108 or at cbehnan@gannett.com.
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