Market Yesterday!

Yesterday I was back at the Battle Ground Saturday Market. It was good to be back! I missed the last day that I was supposed to work because of migraines, which is the same reason I've been missing so much on-line. Good news is that we're starting a new therapy for the migraines so hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon! I'll post about it on my other blog and leave you guys the link :)

Anyway, it was a slow day yesterday. We've been having terrible weather around here and it was the first sunny day in awhile! Lisa (another vendor) and I are guessing that people were too excited to finally be able to work outside to want to go shopping. It's also the weekend of the Rose Festival down in Portland, so we probably lost a lot of customers to the parade and the festivities down there.

Having said that, it was still a decent enough day. I was definitely hoping to do better, but I did good enough that I'm not going to complain. The thing that saved me was that I had a commission that I got paid for! It was a lot of fun to work on and I'll be posting about it in the next day or two.

This was the first time the hubby has ever spent the day at the market with me. He ended up pretty bored, but he handled it a lot better than I thought he would! (go baby!) and he even came up with several ideas to help me improve my display which was great :)

Market Day and Renewed Focus

Yesterday was market day again - and I had a lot of fun! Normally I'm going to be doing the Markets every other week, but for the opening of the market I did two weeks in a row.

I made some small changes to my booth this week. The first is that I found the tray that you see above at Ross. I love it! The wood is perfect for displaying hemp and it looks better than when I had the bracelets just loosely displayed. I'm going to be moving the hemp necklaces at some point .... but I'm not sure how it'll work out just yet so I'll tell you about it somewhere down the road.

My hubby found this on top of the fridge when spring cleaning the other day and I realized it was perfect for displaying my charms! I used to have enough counter space that I could display my coffee mugs on the counter. I haven't been able to do that in a long time so I kinda forgot I had it. I may eventually get another one when I have more inventory :)

This is the featured booth of the week! It's one of my nearest neighbors. Doesn't he do beautiful work? He has a gorgeous accent too ( I need to ask him where he's from). And don't worry, it's not like I have a crush or anything, he's an older guy :P I just love voices!

Do you SEE the temptation I'm faced with every week? And to make it worse ... their fudge is delicious! So far I've been a good girl and only had one sample a week. I'll probably buy my hubby some if I have a really good week. Bringing home sweets is a great way to keep the hubby happy :P

I did pretty decent this week. I didn't make my sales goal, but I made enough to make me happy and consider it a pretty decent today. I also met a lady that I might start teaching to bead weave! I really hope it happens because I've been thinking for awhile that it would be great to teach, and this would give me a great chance to get some experience.

I'm feeling really psyched about business stuff right now. I mean, I enjoy doing my jewelry no matter what, but having the regular venue is really renewing and channeling my focus again. I have a lot of ideas, but I'll talk about those in a different post.

Cook Book's Lie and Preparation for Saturday

Cook books lie. Don't believe them. Seriously! Ok, well I do like experimenting, and sometimes my experiments turn out great. Other times my experiments turn out ... scary. And of course there's the in between.

The chicken cordon bleu I made tonight did NOT look like the picture. That picture looks much yummier for one thing :P Mine actually didn't taste too bad, but it used Panko bread crumbs for the coating, and it just didn't work for me on chicken. I like it on fried fish, but it just didn't fit here.

Oh yes, crafty stuff, I suppose you want to hear about that now right? Well, in my defense, cooking is an art! Not necessarily the way I do it, but does that really matter?

Actually, cooking is the biggest crafty stuff I did today. The rest of what I did was...preparing to be crafty? I guess that's the best way to put it. Or at least, that's what my exhausted brain is pulling out!

I ran a bunch of errands today, including crafty errands. I have a custom order that I've been working on and I needed to get some findings that I don't usually carry on hand. While I was out I ran across a going out of business sale and got some cardboard displays that I'm really excited about! It changes my display plans - but for the better! I might get you a picture before the Market on Saturday, and if I don't, you'll see it when you see my photos from this weekend!

Bizarre Reflections about the Bazaar

I had a lot of fun this weekend at the bazaar! Sorry I didn't get this posted up sooner. I had a million things I was trying to do yesterday, and just as I was starting to feel on top of things and ready to get this post put together and put up...I sprained my ankle! Yah. I'm talented. I know. The good news is that up until I sprained my ankle I was still going strong after the bazaar, which makes me really happy :)

I'm also really excited about getting to actually meet two of my team mates in person this weekend! On the left is the fabulous Char of Char Spirit Creations. In the middle is Dori of Sassy Clay Creations. And I'm on the right! Yup...proof that I was there :P

I did some new things that I really liked with this bazaar. The first is that I made a second level for displaying my fancy necklaces! It was really simple. All I did was drape a piece of cloth over one of my storage boxes that I had brought my jewelry in :P

The second thing I did was I added a bracelet display! Made things a lot less cluttered. And made things look a little more professional. And I STILL had things lying on the table :P Next bazaar I think I'm going to put my strand and wire wrapped bracelets on the bottom level of the display and put my memory wire bracelets loose on the table. They didn't get as much attention as they usually do and I think it's because it wasn't as obvious as it normally is what they are.

There's one more big thing I want to change. I like my earring display - it's cute and I get compliments on it - but it's awkward to carry and I can't fit all my earrings on it! I'm thinking eventually (like for the spring bazaars) I might upgrade to rotating earring displays...but I haven't decided yet. The other solution is to upgrade to a bigger table and use my second display as well, which would allow me enough room for all my earrings and then some. I'm thinking I may need to upgrade tables by spring/summer anyway if things continue to go well, so the question will then be is a table upgrade all that's needed or do I need a table upgrade AND a display upgrade...

I had a lot of fun this last weekend and I'm really looking forward to the two that I have lined up between now and Christmas! I'm also talking with a close friend of mine about teaming up in the new year to do bazaars. Doing 10x10 booths and splitting the fees with me paying 2/3's and him paying 1/3...I'll set up two tables and he'll set up 1. He does a variety of fantasy and other interesting art along with his wife, and part of the reason for teaming up would be that he has a vehicle capable of transporting a tent! Something I don't have which currently limits me and prevents me from doing outdoor markets. Not to mention its always more fun to work with a buddy :)

I did get some more pictures at the bazaar - but I don't want to overwhelm you guys - so if you want to see the rest go check out my flickr page!