Bumpy April No Match For Local Crafter, Gardener

In the spring, Chicago set a record for the least amount of sunshine in the month of April; however, it’s one of that month’s gusty winds that Huntley resident Vicki McKee will always remember.

“I was standing in my kitchen, looking outside, and all of a sudden I saw my greenhouse (tent) go up in the air and then lay over, and all of my stuff was just all over the garden,” she said. 

In “stuff” McKee is referring to the 70 different varieties of flowers, herbs and vegetable seeds that are the core of Vicki’s Vines, Olive Oils, Soaps, Gardens and Crafts, which, McKee admits, is as much of a hobby as it is a home-based business.

Since last year, McKee has been participating in the , where she sells a variety of handmade soaps — including lavender, clove, green tea tree, beer nut, coffee, and a bay rum soap that McKee calls Jamaica Bay. McKee said all of her soaps are olive oil-based, with many of the accompanying botanicals grown in her garden. On such soap, a tea tree oil soap, helped clear up her son’s back acne.

“I cannot really make medical claims, but I can tell (customers) my experience,” said McKee, who tries to use natural remedies as much as possible.

“My relatives all know that I have a natural remedy at hand for any given ailment that they might have,” she said.

In addition to the soap, McKee also sells plants and flowers, although for that to happen this year it took some quick reactions after the greenhouse blew over.

“I salvaged what I could,” said McKee of the seeds and seedlings. “A lot of the plants, I didn’t know what they were because all of my identification (markers) were gone. Then I started to recognize some of them, and as I did I would put them in a little planter and mark them.”

McKee says she also planted some of the seeds and seedlings in her backyard.

“I kept every single green thing,” she said. “There were even tiny chutes, germinated chutes, that I was just planting into stuff. And I wasn’t sure what some of it was, so all summer long, things that I’d thought I’d lost completely, I’ve been discovering (as they come up). I did end up cultivating a few weeds, thinking they were plants.”

Started making soap in 2001

The lost-then-recovered flowers and plants are somewhat symbolic of McKee’s soap business, which began in 2001. McKee says she was inspired to become a soap maker after visiting a craft fair, and later learning that an ingredient frequently used in commercial soaps was contributing to her hypothyroidism.

But McKee’s enthusiasm really lathered up when she realized soap making satisfied her fascination with chemistry, an interest that dates back to when she was a young girl and a friend had a chemistry set.

“I really enjoyed putting the chemicals together and seeing the sulfur mountains and the smoke,” McKee said. “I asked (my parents) for a chemistry set, yearly, until I was in my teens. From the time I was 9 until I was 13, I never got one. And I never really thought about it until recently when I realized, ‘You know, (chemistry) is what I’m really doing.’ ”

McKee, who has a degree in business and works in information technology at True Value Retail Systems, says she stopped selling soap at craft shows and markets in 2005 after the business wasn’t as profitable as she had hoped and the responsibilities of being a single mom increased.

Only last year did McKee return to the soap business, urged on and assisted by her boyfriend, a jewelry maker who also sometimes sells his own wares at the , and, as a stage-four cancer survivor, was just returning to the craft business himself.

“We’ve sort of been each other’s catalyst in doing what are our life’s dreams,” McKee said.

McKee also said the itself has played an instrumental role in her return.

“First of all, it was close by,” she said. “And economically, it was the best investment. I priced different markets, then I just purchased (vendor space) for the whole season, knowing that I was going to have something every week. Actually it forced me to make a commitment to do this.”

With just a handful of dates remaining for this year’s farmers market, McKee already is looking forward to 2012, when she also hopes to volunteer her time and resources and work with local groups in establishing a community garden that benefits Illinois food pantries. McKee says she tried the implement this idea this year, but contacted local scout troops too late.

Should McKee partner with scouts next year, she can certainly teach them a thing or two about Mother Nature’s Band-Aids, especially now that an unexpected plantain weed has bloomed.

“Another thing that I found in my yard that I didn’t have before, and I don’t know where it came from, is stinging nettle,” McKee said. “It’s something that you can buy and people process it because it has medicinal qualities.”