Off And Running

Today is the little craft show. We have to leave at 6:15 a.m. so we can be setting up at 7:00. The doors open at 9:00. I really don't know what to expect. This is the type of event where people stroll over to the "market" in the gym after church. Not sure how many will stroll over...it's suppose to be 70 again today. That isn't usually a good thing for craft shows, but we will see.

My 10 by 10 space will have two provided tables and then I am bringing my book shelf, a clothes rack and a coat rack. I am bringing a bunch of stuff from MyOtherShop like small cake stands, all of my coasters, light switch covers, pin cushions, ornaments, aprons, tote bags, my brooches and my new wine bags. Something for everyone and hopefully there will be lots of everyones!! :)

I will post tonight when we get home if I can and let you know how it went. Enjoy your Sunday and I will chat with you soon.

Monday, Monday...So Good To Me.....

Happy Monday! Thanks to Christopher Columbus...I am off today! Bless his little exploring heart!

Sunday turned out to be a pretty good day. We went grocery shopping and on the way I got a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks and then stopped and picked up a Pumpkin Bagel from Einsteins. Mmmmmmm....good!!

After not shopping last weekend because of the craft show, I really expected to fork out about $230 at the checkout, especially since our cart was overflowing....but we got off easy at $176!! I never thought I would say $176 was good, but we didn't shop last week so that is really good!

We had to listen to a young female...I won't even call her a woman...because it would be insulting to the word...it's hard enough to call her a female....yell and scream across the store from our checkout to her husband or boyfriend that he got the wrong macaroni and that she told him to send back $2.00 with one of the little kids and not $1.00...when everyone in the friggin' store heard her yell $1.00.

She snapped at the kids for nothing. She was the rudest most obnoxious young "thing" I think I have ever seen, and the fact that she had three darling little kids made me physically ill.

I get very uncomfortable when people are rude to other people and degrade them, and she did one heck of a job. I came so close to telling her to zip it up. I wanted to ask the guy if he was married to her and if he said yes, I was going to tell him how sorry I was. It took me a while on the ride home to get the whole scene out of my head....but I finally did.

The rest of my day was awesome. I took another 180 photos of things for MyOtherShop. This time it was aprons and tote bags. What a job it is when you are so behind....

The pins and the coasters in the photos are already listed, the aprons and totes will get listed today....I hope! I will be SO happy when I am caught up!

Did I tell you Irv wants another dog? We'll talk about that another day......

Craft Show 101

I had Matt on my mind yesterday, but I did have a few things to tell you about the craft show this weekend.

My location was pretty good. It will be a while before I earn my way into the prime rows, but we were in the middle on an aisle and it worked out well, except for an hour or so each afternoon when the sun blasted in the skylights right on my check out table! We joked around about it just being my "heavenly glow", but it was seriously blinding at times.

Instead of the "teaser table" I had out front at the other show, Irv added awesome shelves to one side of the front of the booth and they worked beautifully. I had a couple of cake stands, some coasters and some light switch covers on them and people would stop, look at those things and come in. It was great!

I did learn a couple more very important things. One is that signs are a must. I kept thinking they would look like clutter, but when I was busy talking to someone and another person looked interested in something....even though I couldn't talk to the second person right then....a cute sign with the right words....spelled correctly would have worked. So, Saturday night I made some cute signs and put them around the booth with little bits of info about my totes, the aprons and the coasters. People actually read them! I did them on the computer on card stock and accented with scrapbook paper. Easy, inexpensive and useful!

The other BIG thing I learned is that even though I am not a seasonal decorating or dressing type person...hundreds of people are. I saw so many people walking around with Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff. It's not my thing, but that doesn't really matter. I must learn to please the masses. So, on that note, I will be making some holiday themed coasters and aprons for my shop and for the little tiny show we are doing at the church/school where Irv works. We'll see how it goes.

Here is a funny for you....this was my fourth show. At shows one through three, my cakestands were by far my best seller. I had decided that I probably wouldn't make any more light switch covers or coasters because they just don't sell. HAHA! Guess what sold the most at this show? Of course, coasters and light switch covers. So, what do I know?

Craft shows are a whole lot more than I ever thought they were. They are like a little business venture of their own. I am having fun, I'm learning, I'm meeting so many wonderful people...customers and other vendors and I can see where with time, this could become a nice way to supplement our income.

Oh, I have to say hi to my sister Karen in Tennessee who informed me yesterday that she reads my blog every day. I never knew that. So, hi Karen! Love you!

Now I need to go make some Christmas coasters! Chat with you soon!

It's here! Chee Hoo!

Well today is Friday. Irv and I are both working a 1/2 day so we can set up our booth for the craft show this afternoon rather than on Saturday morning. I know this was a wise move for us. Michael was so sweet and took a 1/2 day off to come and help us set up, and then Bernadette is working the booth with us on Saturday and Tresa on Sunday. It's so nice to have the support of your family. :)

The truck will be piled high with the walls for the booth, all of the shelves and Irv's tools.

My little Prius will be jam packed with the little check out "table", three bins of cake stands, three huge bags of pillows, aprons, tote bags, coasters, light switch covers, bags, credit card payment stuff, my signs, my props, ruffles, skirting and me!!

We plan to arrive there around 3:30 this afternoon. If we aren't there all night setting things up, I will check in when we get home and let you know how it went and post a picture of my booth with all of my stuff in it. If you don't hear from me tonight, then you can assume set up didn't go according to plan.

Have an awesome day today and if I don't chat with you again tonight, I will pop in when we get home Saturday if I'm not too tired!

The Vision Takes Shape!

It's not quite done, but I just couldn't wait to show you. I'll show you again when I have the skirting for the lower shelves and the ruffles for the upper shelves done. This is just the most awesome craft show booth ever! I can't believe that Irv was able to take MY vision and MY sketches and create from scratch EXACTLY what I wanted!!

I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing because it is still taking up our entire one car garage. We will be taking it apart and setting it up in the driveway next weekend for a trial run, and I'll get some other pictures then. So, for now, you get it in sections.

The three big shelves on the right are for my pillows. I plan to skirt the bottom shelf for some color and so we can shove some of our bins under it. The four corner shelves are for cake stands. I am thinking I might make little ruffles for the fronts of all of the shelves. There is enough room between the pillows and cake stands for cute little hooks of some kind to hang part of my totes on.

The empty section on the back wall will be where the aprons will be hanging on these funky wood heads/bodies that we are going to make, but haven't made yet. Then we have four more corner shelves for more cake stands.

The big shelf on the left side will be for the coasters and I will skirt that one too, and then it's a little hard to see them, but there are three skinny shelves above the big shelf and that is where all of my light switch covers will go. I am really excited that they will be standing upright facing people rather than laying on a table. It also has two little front sections where I will be able to "showcase" an apron and a couple of tote bags so people can see them as they stroll by.

Remember that cute little sewing machine cabinet I "removed" from our neighbors garbage? That will be my check out table....there isn't much room for anything else. This show only gives you an 8 x 10 spot, and that isn't much in the grand scheme of things. The cabinet is being painted white right now. It will be skirted on three sides and I'll keep my bags and things under it.

So I am sending out a gigantic CHEE HOO to my wonderful husband Irv for all of his hard work on this project....and even if I don't sell one thing...I will have the best looking booth at the show...but that better not happen or I will be in BIG trouble!!

Oh, and just so you don't think that Irv is some kind of God or something...I was teasing him yesterday and he told me that if I kept it up, he wouldn't finish the booth and he would just hand me the keys to the truck on the day of the show and I would have to figure out how to set it up myself! The nerve of the guy!

Crossroads....continued

Thank you so much everyone for the great comments and suggestions yesterday. I really appreciate it. Just to clarify something though....I am very happy with where FourDogDay and MyOtherShop are as far as sales go, and my two shows have both made a small profit. My concern isn't about lack of sales...of course I would love more, but that isn't my issue. It takes a long time to grow a successful business and that will come eventually. Right now I am still finding my way, and THAT is my issue. I'm not sure which way "my way" is.

I don't intend to rip my shops apart. I love my shops. What I need to do is decide on a "theme" for each shop...then make things I enjoy making that people want to buy....and all will be well in the world.

Yesterday I took my daughter's marketing tip and I repriced every item in both of my shops. It was quite a task. She suggested I get away from the $5, $10, $15 prices and even the $6, $12, and $16 etc. She said to stay under that number that takes you into the next price "bracket" whenever possible. I will be interested to see if it makes any difference.

I thought about all of this a lot last night and I realized that the answers will all come in their own time if I just stop concerning myself with the past, and I stop questioning the future. I can't do anything about either one of them.

What I plan to do is to keep making aprons, start making totes, reusable lunch and snack bags and then continue to work on the other things I enjoy the most or that attract the most attention. That would be my cake stands, the light switch covers, and I have some ideas for some really cute pillows.

I can only control this very moment in time, so at this very moment, I am going to go finish a really cute apron I started!

Chat with you soon and thanks again...you are all so awesome!

Chee Hoo!

Whoaaaa Baby!

I just walked into the bathroom for about the 20th time today. No I am not sick....the bathroom is right across from my workshop...so I use the sink to rinse out my brushes and to get the glue off my hands while I am working on pieces. Since I have made 4 sets of coasters and 4 light switch covers already today...that's a lot of glue and a lot of rinsing and hand washing.

This time however I happened to glance into the mirror and whoaaaaa baby!!!! What a sight!

I got up at 6:00 this morning so I could get a lot done, and I have. I cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom and got a lot of things made for my etsy shops. The only thing I neglected to do wash wash my face and brush my hair. Nothing liking being obsessed with my "to do" list and forgetting about myself! Thank goodness no one stopped by! The first picture is my kitchen. I went kind of nuts a couple of years ago with mustard and burnt orange walls and red cabinets. I'm already tired of it, but don't tell Irv...he'll kill me! The cabinets were a nightmare to do. This is about as cleared off as my kitchen table ever gets. I think the only time we sit there to eat is at the holidays. Normally, the table is piled high with "stuff".

Sorry for the quality of the photos, but my hands are a bit shaky since it's 1:30 in the afternoon and all I have eaten today is the rest of my dessert from Chilis last night! Healthy I know!

So, I am done with the glue and stuff for today. Here is what I made today. Tomorrow it all gets sealed and then next week listed in MyOtherShop!

Now I am going to start working on the photo album I am sending out to Matt in Telluride. Matt is a teacher and he is going to put the album in the teacher's lounge for me. I'll have it filled with photos of things from FourDogDay and MyOtherShop with a brief description and how they can find other items like those pictured. I'll include some business cards and some coupons for a discount. We'll see how it goes.

Once that is done, then it's budget time. Yes, I am going to sit down and look at our credit cards and figure out which one we are going to tackle first. Then I will try to decide what to sacrifice in order to find the extra money to get it payed off. Should be fun!! I'm kidding of course.

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Ping! Beep!

Normally by this time of the evening I am getting ready to "close up shop". Not tonight though...I just finished listing a couple of my new light switch plates and a really cute wood bunny in MyOtherShop. I really don't like some of the pictures so I will be redoing them, but for now they will have to do. My computer was doing not so nice things tonight so listing took forever.

Well, today was a crazy day. I was at work and the e-mails were flying fast and furious with wedding this and wedding that. It seems that the Conrad and the Allerton are out and we all got rooms at the amazing Drake Hotel for $95 a night. That beats the $195 a night we were paying at the Conrad! That was the first flurry of activity.

Then Matt sent out an e-mail to the five of us to fill us in on what he has been up to.

Now once someone sends a mass e-mail like that, my computer starting going "ping, ping, ping" because everyone that received the e-mail has to respond and of course they "reply all" so we all get their response. Mind you that I am at work when all of this pinging is happening. Add that pinging the work pings and it starts to sound like a little orchestra.

I try not to send too many personal e-mails when I am at work, but with the wedding only a couple of weeks away there seems to be a bit more lately.

Next I sent my sister a text to let her know that we got a great rate at the Drake in case she wanted to change hotels. Now in addition to the pinging computer signaling my incoming e-mails, my phone starts beeping to let me know I have a text, and then another and another as my sister tries to decide if she should change hotels.

Ping, beep, ping, beep....I finally put my phone on "meeting" mode so it would stop pinging, and by the afternoon the e-mails settled down to just an occasional e-mail from the lovely little bride to be. Could I print their vows on some white cardstock, do I still have the address labels in my computer, do I know if my niece's girls are coming to the wedding yet......

I am having so much fun with all of this! Ping! Beep! Talk to you tomorrow!