Roberta Roberts is not, at the moment, designing handbags for the major department stores. Rather, her pieces are "on display" at places like the Washington Design Center and the National Symphony Orchestra Decorators' Show House. Supermodel Maggie Rizer posed with Little Birdy Bags at a National Multiple Sclerosis Society benefit last spring. The bags also are sold in limited editions at a select number of high-end boutiques in the area. And for now, anyways, that's fine with Roberta.
    Each one of Roberta's handbags is special, each is named and signed, and each is totally unique. "I don't want to mass-produce these bags like cookie cutters, " says the exuberant Great Falls resident, "because...my customers don't want to carry a handbag that someone else has." With only four-soon to be five-boutiques carrying her designs, Roberta Roberts handbags, a.k.a. "Little Birdy Bags," are popping up at restaurants, theaters, back-tie events and social occasions nationwide. A one-of-a-kind handbag called "Capital Pride," designed for First Lady Laura Bush, now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
      Married and the mother of two, Roberta worked for a while as a commercial lender, but she had always been creative, making handbags for family and friends for years. SHe has just resigned her full-time job to spend more time with her family when a friend and entrepreneur asked her to custom design a bandbag for an upcoming party. That day was a turning point as Roberta remembers her friend saying, "You're too talented to do this just for fun.... Have you ever considered doing it as a business?" And up until that time, she says, the thought had never occurred to her-she new banking numbers-not retail. But something told her she would figure it out. Article Page 1-2-3