A day at the market :)

So much has been going on lately!  I’m way behind on updating on fun stuff – but I’m going to have to let some of the fun treasuries and such go. *sigh*  I do have to mention that I got to snag my first buy and replace treasury and managed to get some sales for friends!

Today was a pretty good day in Roslyn at the market.  I did pretty good – not as good as last time – but pretty good.  I had a really fun moment when a gal came in wearing some earrings that she had purchased from me!  I had to smile from ear to ear at that one!  AND she bought more jewelry.

I also had to laugh pretty hard when, while weaving, I first stabbed my finger, and then my knee!  Now, granted, most people stab themselves from time to time when using needles.  Many projects involve blood, sweat, and tears!  However – most people don’t manage to stab their KNEE while working on projects!  I’m not sure how I did it, I just know it involved stretching with the needle in my hands…

Came home to find another sale!  I’ve been on a roll this last week   I’m hoping that this trend will continue!  It’s been really exciting!

I’m starting a three week class in the morning so I’ll be pretty crazy busy over the next few weeks because it’s an all day thing!  I’ll have fun anyway.

Tired and Happy

I did my second farmers market today – and it was a raging success!  I’m really tired…but not as sore and tired as I was after the last one!  Last time we nearly got blown away.  It was really exhausting!  This time we were in a better location in the market AND it wasn’t anywhere near as windy.  Great combination!  I’m still sore from tear down and set up and everything – but I’m counting that as the good muscle building sore.  I hope…

I’m out of school now so I’m scrambling to do all those business related projects that I just didn’t have time for around homework and all that.  Yesterday I took a whole TON of photos so that my entire inventory had at least ONE photo per item.  I’m sore from that too because my photo set up is on the floor…need to get it up on a table >_>  I’m planning on working on a new inventory system that will be easier when I do fairs and markets and I’ll label the photos to go with that.  *whew*

PLUS – the Ellensburg First Annual Etsy Fair is this Saturday!  I have a ton to do to get readdy for that too.  I think I’m going to be going non-stop business wise all week Should be fun   I’ll relax a little more after the show is over.

One awesome challange for preparing for the show next week is that I sold a lot in today’s market!  I trippled my sales from what I did in my first market!  I think having professionally designed earring cards and necklace strips really helped to attract attention.  The new display’s my friends Dad made me helped a TON too.

The beautiful thing about making so many sales is that I can afford to buy several things for the shop that I’ve been wanting to get.  The overwhelming thing is that I have to make a whole much more for Saturday than I had originally invisioned!  I’ve already started in on that making earrings and such.

Have a great week you all!

Blown Away

As I said in my last post, I got to do my first farmers market on Sunday!  The above picture is the booth that I shared with Jeanna of Gecko Jewelry.  As you can see it wasn’t anything super fancy, but it was ours!  And we did really well   Jeanna made a lot more than I did, but I made $47 which I think was pretty good considering I didn’t really have a very good display set up.  That’s what you get for doing things at the last minute.    This was my table:

I was supposed to have more upright displays that I borrowed from Jeanna, but we quickly realized that it was WAY TOO windy to have them up.  I’m pretty amazed that the one on the left (earrings in a cross-stitch hoop) stayed up, it was my only up right that lasted the day.  My pretty purple frame died a horrible death after being dashed to the floor to many times, but at least I only payed a $1 for it   I love the dollar tree…

We knew it was windy, and had to make a lot of adjustments to our original set up plans as we set up for the morning, but we had no idea how bad it was going to get.  One of the nice things about sharing a booth is that Jeanna and I could spell each other.  Have one person man the station and the other go wander and look at other people’s work or use the potty.  Well, when Jeanna took off for the first time we had our first really major gust that caught the whole market by surprise.

We were located on the end, so that didn’t help any, and we were only tied to one other tent.  The wind was so bad that it took both of our tents and moved them by several feet!  I had to sprint to catch Jeanna’s display (pictured below) as it was literally trying to blow away as well!  Fortunately one of the other vendors and a random passerby helped by holding the tent while I held the display.  It took a long time to get everything put back together after that!

We spent most of the rest of the day manning our battle stations as it were.  Things kept blowing around, and we each had to take a post and hold on when the big gusts hit.  Since it was next to my table I held Jeanna’s big display frame.  My shoulders are so sore from that and fixing the tent (which kept trying to fall apart on us in the wind).  Jeanna stood at her table, with the cash bag, and held down that corner of the tent because it had the disconcerting habit of trying to lift up and away.

We were both exhausted by the end of the day, but we had made some money, and we had discovered that we love partnering up to do stuff like this!  I’m really excited about continuing to work with her for markets and other craft ventures over my next two years studying here at CWU.  She’s a wonderful gal and it’s great to have someone local to exchange ideas, advice, and encouragement with.  I have a very dear friend back home that I talk jewelry stuff with all the time (she’s sharing a booth with me for the craft fair in August!) but she doesn’t know any of the local stuff, and she’s not selling on-line at the moment so we can’t commiserate and share discoveries that way yet.  Yet.  I might get her hooked, we’ll see

Next time we go out to Roslyn we’re hoping to have a booth that’s at least one or two spaces in so we don’t get the brunt of the wind.  But hey, we survived the experience, and we didn’t lose our tent!  The flower vendor that was also on the end and two booths over actually had their tent end up in the middle of the street when the first big gust hit and they had to simply fold up and put it away!

Crazy, fun, money making, friendship creating, exhausting, joy-filled day.  Oh yeah