And then we rest

Whew. Yesterday, the Bead Whisperer rolled into small town USA for a good old fashioned harvest festival. We weren't even sure we wanted to do this thing. But I sent my check in. The optimist I'm trying to cultivate said, "Go for it Ames, it'll be okay" and sure enough it was. We kicked ASS yesterday. I even sold two things I'd been trying to sell forever. The one set, was made from dalmation jasper. As you'd guess, dalmation jasper is white with black spots (ah!) but it's kind of matte, not really shiny. When first I made it, I added some small matte black beads and some not so sparkly crystals to make a necklace/earring/bracelet combo. Everyone looked at it and said, "Ooh, thats nice" but never bought it. So last week, I purchased some shiny black beads, and some really sparkly black crystals. At five am yesterday, I was on the couch, ripping apart the set and adding the new beads. I dreamed about what it'd look like, and took it from there. Yesterday it sold. To a super nice lady who was THRILLED with it, and was giving it to her sister for a Christmas gift. Not more than an hour later, another lady came back. "Didn't you have a Dalmation Jasper set here?"

D'oh!

"Whoops, sorry, it got sold. BUT I have more at home, and I can make you a set exactly how you'd like one." "really? Oh great!" and she took my card and went away happy.

That was how the whole day went. I LOVE it when shows go like that.

I also sold a purple necklace with silver leaves as dangles. I made it last Spring at that craft show from hell, where we were wedged into a corner. I wore it a couple times, and always got compliments. But put it out to sell, just to see what would happen. The woman who bought it had tried it on earlier in the day, and said she'd be back later. (Which rarely happens) but she was back later. She was all happy, "Oh! Great, it's still here! I kept thinking about it, and I had to come back and see if you still had it here." Hell yeah.

Just because I can't possibly take a compliment, I will say that there were only a couple other jewelry booths at this fair. Both were not particularly nice jewelry stands, one being pre-made expensive fake stones and silver (not handmade, which i have issue with) and the other two were nice ladies who were doing their first or second craft shows. They both came by and looked at all my stuff and my displays, and were obviously taking mental notes, but hey, thats life. The kid bead station was a rolicking success, with Obbie nearly making his quota for the show (Quota: 17 necklaces/ actual was 14) He was pleased.

This might be the last one for the year, unless we get an offer we can't refuse. I cannot stand the indoor craft shows that are asshole to elbow, hot, stinky and loud. Blech. Flashback to last fall when were were crammed into a fire house with 25 other vendors and this nutty woman behind us talked at the top of her lungs all day, and we sold one thing. Or the other show where we were set up down from a lady selling wax dipped teddy bears. Ew. Migraine city. I'd rather do no shows than be subjected to all that again. Theres always the internet. And I do loooove me some custom work.

Have yourselves a great rest of the weekend. I'm catching up on housework today, I think.