DOWAGIAC — Dowagiac’s Bobbie Jo Hartline is well-known throughout the Grand Old City for her work with the city of Dowagiac, the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival and a variety of other volunteer efforts ranging from the Candlelight Christmas Parade to various chamber of commerce festivals.

Many outside Dowagiac know Hartline more for her craft business, Straight from the Hart Designs, which started as what one might consider a happy accident.

“It really started when I was making a Christmas ornament for my mom,” Hartline recalled. “After a long time of being by herself, she had married, and I was making a special ornament for them. It was done, and it was beautiful, and I went to set it on the rack to dry, and it broke.”

Hartline said it was heartbreaking to see the ornament she was so proud of break, but she noticed that the ornament did not shatter. Instead, a perfect circle popped out of it.

“I thought about that old Christmas movie with the Island of Misfit Toys. They all thought they were broken, but yet they found another life somewhere, and someone loved them,” Hartline said. “I thought, if a bird came along and put a nest in it, it would fit perfect in Misfit Island.”

Hartline stuffed the broken ornament with a bird’s nest.

“My mom just loved it,” she said. “It was always in front of the Christmas tree in a place of honor.”

Hartline’s mother showed the ornament off to a friend, who asked if Hartline could create a similar ornament for her the following Christmas.

“So I guess you can say it’s all my mom’s fault,” Hartline said with a chuckle.

The bird ornament that started it all is still one of Hartline’s most popular. The ornaments are broken, then lined with what appears to be snow and stuffed with nest-like materials and artificial birds.

“I usually start those in June, because those take several days for the different layers to cure,” Hartline said. “I probably make 300 to 500 birds a year.”

In addition to the bird ornaments, Hartline spends her fall making wreaths.

“Most of my wreaths are memorial wreaths that will go out to the cemetery,” she said. “That’s something that’s really important to my client. I want it to be perfect and say ‘I love you’ to the person they’re giving it to.”

Hartline also makes custom hand-painted ornaments. Ornaments on her Facebook page include a set made for the Chieftain marching band, Berrien Springs Shamrocks ornaments, bulbs with dogwood branches painted on, and ornaments with funny sayings.

As her business name, Straight from the Hart, implies, each piece she creates is made with love, and her business has been a way to bond with her family — her late sister, Jenny, often helped her at craft shows — but also to help others bond.

“I’ve been flattered that people have liked my work, and I’ve kind of become a part of different families’ Christmas traditions,” Hartline said, explaining how some customers will buy their grandchildren an ornament every year highlighting whatever accomplishment or hobby was important to them then. For example, she might make a football ornament one year, a marching band ornament the following year and an ornament with the child’s college choice their senior year.

“By the time their grandchildren are out on their own, they have a complete set of ornaments that’s just about them,” she said. “I have no part in that story except that I help those two people connect through a simple glass ball.”

Hartline said she has clients who have hosted exchange students, who continue to send ornaments to them years after their time in Dowagiac.

“If a little glass ball that I made had a hand in putting a smile on someone’s face, that’s meaningful,” Hartline said. “It’s the little things that make a difference.”