Videos Now Centerpiece for Simi Flower Arranger

Business ideas don’t grow on trees. On occasion, however, they do grow on stems.

Such are the roots of the venture of Simi Valley’s Kim Alexander, owner of F.A.M.E. Videos. Next week, Alexander will mark the first anniversary of the release of the inaugural video in her “Flower Arrangements Made Easy” instructional series.

In the year since she began her F.A.M.E Videos operation, Alexander and her husband, Sid Alexander, have produced three videos, each about 30 minutes long, covering the topics “Table Centerpieces,” “Holiday Centerpieces” and “Silk Arrangements.” A fourth video, “Stylized Arrangements,” is in the editing stage, and three other videos are planned for the near future.

Alexander has been involved with flower arranging since she was a child, tinkering with her mother’s home-grown roses. But her interest in the video business is relatively new.

“Over the years I’ve seen an increasing demand from customers wanting to learn flower arranging at home,” said Alexander, a florist for 13 years in Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley. “People have taken on an added interest in arranging fresh flowers lately, especially with the big sunflowers that were so popular last year. And silk flower arrangement is more popular than ever because silk flowers have become so realistic looking.”

Although flower buyers have become more interested in learning how to arrange flowers, Alexander said, they often have difficulty finding time to learn the techniques.

“Many people can’t go to classes to learn,” she said. “This way, they can just pop a video in the VCR, have the flowers in front of them and work at their own leisure. My goal is to have a complete library that will show everybody everything there is to know about flower arranging.”

The F.A.M.E. videos, filmed and edited by Pro West video and audio studios in Woodland Hills, are, for now, predominantly available directly from Alexander.

But by early August they are scheduled to be sold, additionally, through a mail-order catalog published by Video Direct Corp. of New Jersey. The Special Interest Video Collection catalog has a circulation of about 1 million throughout the United States.

As a result of print advertisements in craft publications, distribution of fliers and other promotional efforts, Alexander said, some of her videos are available at Postal Pack Plus in Simi Valley, Armstrong’s Garden Centers in Long Beach, a Ben Franklin craft store in Bullhead City, Ariz., and at the C.C.D. Services craft store in the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean.

Alexander said she is working with Tapeworm Video Distributors of Valencia to get her F.A.M.E. series in major video outlets such as Blockbuster Video. The videos retail for about $14.95 each.

Although F.A.M.E. Videos began as a way to make a little extra money, Alexander said she would like the business to take off. She and her husband are putting in the time and effort to bring results.

“Trying to get a new product out there is not as easy as I thought it would be. It’s work, I’ll tell you,” Alexander said.

“When we started, I immediately went out and got a business license, a resale number, a fictitious name. We built a little office in the house with a computer, a fax and a business phone. It’s been a year and I think we’ve come far,” she said. “So far everything is going according to my business plan.”