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Her home is overrun with ladybugs, but Sheri Gartner of Lakewood is celebrating instead of trying to get rid of them.Gartner's collection of ladybug items—2,050 of them—recently broke the Guinness World Record. Actually, she smashed it.
The previous record, held by a German citizen, was 916 items, according to a Guinness spokesman.
At first Gartner wasn't sure how many she had. But her children, who enjoy checking out wacky entries, were convinced she had the record and encouraged her to tally her collection.
Gartner agreed, but she also had another motive. After touring the new Turning Point shelter in McHenry County for victims of domestic violence, she said she realized she didn't want to set the record just for herself.
So she collected $2,000 in pledges from volunteers who helped her count, catalog and document her collection, which was submitted in November to the Guinness Book of World Records.
"It's ladies helping ladies," Gartner said Friday, surrounded by her wall-to-wall collection of ladybug items in the family's guest room. "My goal is to reach $2,300, which is what it costs to run the shelter for two days."
Counting and verifying the collection was a daunting task completed by 30 volunteers who worked in two-hour shifts for two weeks, Gartner said.
Her collection was amassed from 30 countries and includes ladybug buttons, stuffed animals, magnets, ornaments, earrings and banks.
Some of the more unusual items include a tiny black-and-white Swarovski crystal ladybug, ladybug "Boo Boo" strips, a ladybug "Barbie," a bike helmet and a carved gourd from Peru.
The collection began with a ceramic tea set she received as a child in 1967. On Friday, she pulled out one of her favorites, a ladybug coin purse she used as a child for her church offering.
Gartner said her friends still are on the lookout for items to beef up the collection, but for now, she's done. Her husband, she said, offered a few new rules.
"Anything I buy now has to be functional," she said.
