WINDFALLS

A Burl of Great Price



Burl, the scar tissue in a tree’s root structure, is not particularly good for a tree, but it’s a real find if you appreciate unusual grain patterns in wood, as does David Borek. He looks for maple burl all over the country and fashions it into unique wooden boxes, all made by hand. After cutting out his designs. Borek hand sands each box, then dips it in Danish oil six times, hand rubbing the wood each time to get a smooth finish. Borek creates his own designs, but will also do custom work. Shown here, cloud box. $110; butterfly. $140; moon. $I20; heart. $98. These and many other designs are sold through the Craft Farm Studio. 4502 McKinney. Open Monday-Thursday from 2 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 to 5.

Come to the Cabernet

If you’d like to know more about wines or just want to find a way to pay less for them the Mehren Wine Club may interest you. It operates like a book-of-the-month club – no membership fee. no obligation to buy any selection, your money back if you don’t like what you order. Owner Ingeborg Mehren. who lives in San Antonio, visits vineyards all over the world to choose wines that represent different wine regions. Selections come from Fiance, Italy. Spain. Germany. Greece. Austria, California and recently even Australia. Each selection you accept is delivered to your door – unless you live in a dry area, in which case it will go to a convenient pick-up point. By eliminating some of the middlemen and buying only by the case, you get a price break of 30 to 40 percent. Each case costs $34.65 and is accompanied by information on the wine and the region where it’s made. For more details, call Jim Funsch. Dallas representative, at 750-5916.

Relics for Rookies



This year, the dealers at the Third Annual Tri Delta Charity Antique Show promise to be extraordinarily patient with beginning collectors who don’t know the difference between a chif-forobe and a chiffonier, or who don’t have $20.(XX) in mad money to plunk down on a piece of Chinese Export Porcelain. Each of the 50 dealers coming to the show will be bringing something interesting for the novice collector’s booth, a special assortment of unusual affordables. Not only that, but each day except Sunday the dealers will conduct educational guided tours through the booths where thousands of items will be on display. The tour begins an hour before the show opens and costs $1. The Tri Delts have also lined up Wendell Gar-rett. editor and publisher of Antiques magazine, to speak at 11 a.m. on opening day. Tickets are $3. His topic: “Collecting American Antiques. 1750-1850.” Call 369-2814 for tickets to either of these events. The show. March 9-12 at the Dallas Convention Center, is open Thursday-Saturday from 11 to 9. Sunday from 12 to 6. Admission is $3.50. A must for anyone interested in antiques.

Biblio Takes



The 21st Annual Book Fair in Fort Worth is a good way to buy books inexpensively and avoid a habit that every bibliophile abhors: borrowing. The fair is March 11-19. Thousands of new and used books will be on sale – prices start at a nickel – and collectors will have an op-portunity to bid on rare volumes. There’s still time to donate books to the sale; call (817) 292-0373 to have them picked up. The dona-tion is tax deductible since proceeds from the fair are used for community projects in the area. This year’s fair, sponsored by the local section of the National Council of Jewish Women, is at the Lena Pope Home on the corner of Hulen and the West Freeway (1-20). Hours are March 11. 7-10 p.m.: March 12. 1-5 p.m.; March 13-16, 10-9 p.m.; March 17. 10-6 p.m.; March 18. 7-10 p.m.; and March 19, 1-6 p.m.