Okay, I’ll admit it.  Despite my "optimistic–don’t take things personally–it was a learning experience–this is not a confirmation that you have no talent" attitude at the disappointment of Saturday’s event, I’m feeling a little beat up.  Just a little, but that’s just enough to un-motivate me.  So I am forcing myself to get back into the blog of things.

Back Story:
Saturday, June 2, I participated in an event called PAWSAPALOOZA, which was a doggie film festival organized to benefit PAWS/LA.  As part of the festivities, there was going to be what they called a "canine midway" of dog related products and services.  It occurred to me that while this might not be the perfect venue to sell my jewelry, it could be a good opportunity to at least get my feet wet.  I have sold a lot of jewelry since I started my business in 2001, but almost all of it has been through my website.  I’ve never done any type of artist fair or even gone to any stores to try to sell my work, but lately I’ve been thinking it might be time to do that.  I decided I’d go ahead and get a booth.

Since I had almost no inventory when I decided to get the booth, I invited my sister-in-law and a friend to join me.  Both of them gave me a nice selection of jewelry to display with my own and I felt like we had a good mix of pieces.

Prior to the day of the event, I’d spent some time trying to plan how I was going to display all the jewelry.  This turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected!  My original display was very elaborate, and included my wooden buddha to hang necklaces and bracelets on, as well as some vases and a glass shadow box.  It all looked great, but upon trying to find places to put the actual jewelry, I knew some things would have to go.  I ended up buying about 8 yards (way too much) of a black velvet type material and some styrofoam shapes to use as levels under the cloth.  That, along with some displays that Susan and Antoinette had contributed, was all I decided to use.

Upon arriving at the venue, I had about two hours to set up.  It seemed like more than enough time, but I was stressed out all the same.  Mick brought his lap top and planned to use his cell phone as a modem so we could authorize credit card purchases online.  This didn’t work out as well as we thought it would as we kept getting error messages.  Scott from PAWS/LA told us he planned to just gather all the credit card info and then authorize it off site.  While it’s riskier to do it this way, it was really the only practical thing to do.

Even after doing a couple of display run-throughs at home, it was still difficult to display the jewelry to its greatest effect.  I did the best I could and frankly, thought the display looked pretty good.

Above:  Mick West, my trusty assistant

This was more or less the final set up.  I put Antoinette and Susan’s jewelry on either side of mine, which was in the center, then merged some of their pieces with mine where there were similarities.  For example, Susan has some peace-themed jewelry which I placed with my peace-themed jewelry.

 
Above:  Antoinette’s display.

Above:  Holly’s display.

Above:  Susan’s display.

This is me, feigning enthusiasm as it became painfully clear that no one who came to this event was there to buy jewelry.

Above: the event is almost over and look at all the jewelry still on the table.  Can we go home yet?

Tommorow:  Lessons Learned