Sales booty

Lena and I finally got to go to the sales together today and we even had a driver! Her sweet hubby drove and held things for us and took stuff to the car. Too bad we only went to one sale. There just wasn't much going on worth the gas. Actually, we went to one estate sale and one garage sale. The garage sale was all newer, Home Goods type stuff, neither of us bought anything. Nice, just not what we sell. The estate sale was OK. Just OK, though. Nothing terribly exciting, but I'm trying to get back in the groove of blogging, so took pictures of the finds.

An art deco picture frame, a pudding mold, Scotty dog book end, saucers for candles, an old, "Seasons" print (sitting at a bad angle here), a McCoy El Rancho bowl and a bride and groom cake topper. I just grabbed the bride and groom. It didn't occur to me until I got home that they're not very old. 1980s, maybe.

Broken, iron bracket.

Pile of reindeer, a sled with a broken runner and a one armed Santa. I'll keep him. I don't have one with his face and I have lots of compassion for the maimed.

Box of trim, lace and rick rack, cute, long, coat and tie change purse, marble base, sorta fancy side, vanity mirror.

Voile apron with black flocking and a vintage, Vera dish towel.

Did you notice the gorgeous wall behind? Well, we think it's gorgeous. I've finally started putting things in that room. Worked this afternoon until I hurt from the waist down more than I cared to. I'd really like to work all day tomorrow, but will go to Erin's to her neighborhood yard sale and the big festival thing that's going on in the area. Maybe there'll be an estate sale somewhere nearby. I-hope-I-hope-I-hope.

The tags

Two posts in two days! Now if I can just take the time to visit everyone's blogs....

I thought y'all might like to see the price tags I'm making.

This summer turned up lots of vintage fabric scraps. Many were apron ties to-be. Perfect. I use a rotary zig zag cutter, stamp on the store name and web site address, then use eyelets for the button area. This tag was one of the first made where I was still struggling to thread heavy string through a large needle then sew a button on. Now, I'm using ribbon - much easier to thread - and threading the button with the ribbon through the eyelet. I don't suppose I have to use eyelets, but that's what I'm doing at the moment. I do have to glue the button to the fabric to keep it from flopping around. This is fun and relaxing to do while watching TV. Oh, the price is then written on a printer label and stuck to the back. So, if you come in and buy something, you'll have a bookmark to keep! Slick, huh? I'll include one with each web site purchase, too.

(The web site isn't quite ready yet. You can look and could buy, but there's not much there and the design isn't finished. It's like the shop, needs a whole lot of tweaking.)

I have gazillions of buttons. This one tub is over 10 lbs. I bought two of these dog food tubs full of old buttons a few years ago. Sold one on eBay for $78!, but just couldn't part with both, being a button collector and all. Now I'm really glad I at least kept this one. It was full to the brim when I started making tags. Wish I had them both,now.

Just an update

Man! Will life EVER settle down to "normal"? Ricky was on vacation all last week, Erin spent a couple of days with us and we all worked at the shop. It seems like it's never ending just to get the place presentable. Well, we'd have been just about ready to open if we hadn't decided to use that last room. I'm glad we did, though. It promises to be the favorite room.

It was a glorious day today. I love our house this time of year. Which is precisely why I don't want a shop that's open every day - or even almost every day. I like being at home. Our house has tons of natural light coming in and I can sit in the den with the windows open, warm - or cool - air wafting in, sometimes with the smell of honeysuckle or roses, the morning sunlight filling the room and wonder how beautiful Heaven will be if it's better than this. I hated to leave, but I had to. Went to the shop and scraped up peel-and-stick tiles. Some were completely loose, others needed a little muscle with a scraper, and way too many had to be chiseled with a hammer hitting the scraper. Ugh. But all that's done now. In a day or two we'll rent a floor cleaner and I'll be on my way to finishing. The end is in sight!! Still lots and lots of work to be done, but it's getting there.

I've started pricing things when there was nothing else I could do. Pricing may prove to be the hardest thing of all. What price is too expensive or too cheap? I've always used eBay as my guide when I had booths, but now..... I'm not so sure I want to do that. Or even can do that. So many of the things in the shop don't have a comparable item on eBay. Then there are things like a nice, floral, crackle glaze creamer. On eBay it might get $5.00 if it sells at all. If I put $5.00 on it for the shop, would people think it was junk? Even though it has decorative value? What if I put $20.00 on it? Would they then look at it and think I was nuts for putting such a high price on something in that condition? I could also look at it like $5 on eBay would have almost $5 shipping on it bringing me to pricing it at $10 which could still seem cheap. Or not?

You see, my biggest problem is that, as a shopper, I look for the bargain. Always looking to resell. I don't know how to see things through the eyes of people who shop the shops instead of the sales. I don't know what "they" think is too expensive or too cheap. When I shop in a shop, I think everything is too expensive and wonder if they ever sell things or if the items sit there forever. Sigh. What a quandry. (That's not spelled right.)

And what about the name of my blog? Does that mean I should be less expensive on everything? I'm not really wanting to change the name. Fun. That's what I want the shop to be. A fun experience. The blog name fits that. I think my stuff is fun, but is it cool enough to demand a higher price than I'm inclined to put on it - which is what I think I'd be willing to pay? I have no idea! I'm so corn-fused!

So, in a week or so I'll have the gang over to take a look and let me know if I'm too cheap. I'll have to feed them well, because I want them to look at everything. Think to themselves what price they'd expect to see then judge how far off I am. I might be too high on some things, too. This is so not like retail where you just double your price. That doesn't work in this business.

Background music was purchased tonight. Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Ella Fitzgerald, a compilation of "The Great Crooners" and...... Bob Dylan. Had to get a little of me in there! If it was all me, there might be Led Zeppelin or Korn or Pink Floyd or Nine Inch Nails. Or any number of contemporary Christian artists or some bluegrass. I went for sexy music. I think. Isn't it? Sex sells, don't-cha know? LOL

So that's where things are at the moment. Catch-ya later.

I'm still here

Did you think I'd fallen off the face of the earth? There were times I wished I would, but I didn't and now I can take a break to blog a bit.

First, we worked at the store, naturally. Work, work, work. When will it all be finished enough to walk through? I've told y'all how the things Ricky thinks are important aren't the same things I think are. I want to get the areas people will see ready THEN work on the back part, which will be storage/work area. HE wants to get everything organized in the back then work on the other part. Since he's doing the hard stuff, I bow to him. There was one area that I eventually wanted to open, but figured it could wait. It was an area he wanted to go ahead and paint, but the walls needed scraping and just look at what we found under that ugly, flat, white paint. (The picture doesn't do it justice.)

OK. This area will be open QUICK! It will be the garden area. Lots of natural light. This has put us back a good bit. There's more wall to scrape and we'll have to petition off the areas people shouldn't see.

Philip, our son, came up for a few days and, God love him, he helped scrape. Erin also spent time scraping. That's love.

I don't remember what all else has gone on since March 20. I do remember a couple of weeks filled with appointments and stuff, but this last week was awful. I got the dreaded mammogram call back. For you British girls, I've read we have at least twice as many call backs as you do.

Now, I was expecting this one. I haven't had one in eight years. Had a call back then, just a few months after my mother had been diagnosed with a rare cancer and was told she only had a few months left to live. That experience was so awful - both my mother's sickness and the call back, but I'm talking about the call back here - I couldn't bring myself to have another mammogram until now. Of course, that first one was clear. Just a cyst. I couldn't find a gyn I was happy with and just went along merrily, but finally figured I'd better find one and get a check up.

I knew I'd get a call back on the mammo. KNEW it. EXPECTED it. I'd had a breast infection a few years ago and figured there'd be some changes from that. So they call me on the phone. Uh, just how urgent is that? Do they do that now? I chuckled and said I was expecting the call back and had even joked when I had the screening if I should go ahead and schedule the follow-up. Then I told her I figured it was because of the infection I'd had some time back. She paused. Yes, paused!! I said, "Aw come on! Let me have that!" Then she said yes, it could be that. Not very encouraging. But here's the kicker. The lady put a name to it. Architectural something-or-other. Something I could Google. I had too much information and went into panic mode. It actually fit what I was expecting, but you Google that and see if it wouldn't scare the mess outta you!

I'm absolutely not a worrier. Hardly ever worry about anything, but when I do get something on my mind, it just won't go away. I couldn't eat for two days. ME! That's unheard of. Nothing takes away my appetite, but that sure did.

So today was THE DAY. I was still sure everything was fine, but was still a bundle of nerves. They did the spot compression - ouch! That hurts! Then did the ultrasound. Yes, I'm fine. It was nothing. Praise God! But......oh, I won't say what I want to say about the misery they put me through for a week. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't any longer than that. If the lady I talked to on the phone hadn't put a name to it, I don't think I'd have been so concerned.

Now you know what a big baby I am when it comes to my health. Or even my loved ones' health which includes friends. Or my cat's health - who is a loved one, too.

I'm back on schedule now, making tags, pricing things at the shop, still trying to move stuff around and waiting on Ricky to finish his part.

Til next time,

Wanda