TIME TO GET SERIOUS????

We have a show coming up and now it is crunch time....Amanda and I have a tendency to lallygag when we should be working and I think now more than ever because we may just have a touch of spring fever. When we are under pressure is when the two of us really shine...not so much when have all kinds of time.

We were however, discussing our inventory the other day thinking that maybe we are a little hard on ourselves when we are preparing for shows. We have about 75 handbags and a bunch of accessories and for some reason we were thinking that wasn't enough. That is a pretty good amount and we started thinking that maybe we just need to keep making them at a normal pace but no need to push ourselves so hard when we have a very nice stock.

Anyway, wish us luck next weekend as we do a show that is new to us. If you're interested the show is at the Phanzone Sports Center in Hampstead NH. Hope to see you there.

New Craft Show Display!

So we bit the big one and purchased an all new display for our craft shows. We have yet to set it up and think we are just going to do it for the first time at our next craft show in three weeks. Is that crazy?? It will make our space look more like a store and give us our own space so that we don't have to feel like other vendors are invading our space. It will take a little more time to set up than our old display but will be well worth it.

I think the display is key in being successful at a craft show. We started realizing that our old display was a little distracting to people (at least we came to this conclusion ourselves based on reading people in our booth). We had a small rack that held about 25 bags and then the rest were arranged on a table and that was the part that seemed to be very dysfunctional.

Well we'll take pictures of the new display and post them after our craft show.

Tiffany

At what point do you know you have road rage???

So living in New England you would assume someone would have a little more patience on the road, right? Not so much.... When we have a snow storm I don't get stuck behind the little Ford Escorts or Honda Civics, that I can handle. I get stuck behind the Subaru's....Always a Subaru. Ahhhhhhh. They have all-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive so what's the deal. I'm not asking you to drive like a race car driver just the speed limit that's all. It's just snow not ice....DRIVE, please I'm begging you for the love of life DRIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

Is that bad? I probably need help don't I or maybe I'm not the only one maybe there are more like me. What do you think is this road rage or just I want to get to my destination before my next birthday????

Tiffany

Our Display - Tell Us What You Think

As most of you in the craft show world know, creating your display is the most important and sometimes the most difficult thing you have to do. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of creativity to make your booth look as though someone is walking into an actual boutique and while doing so trying to keep costs at a minimum.

With just a few table cloths, curtains and drapes we were able to create a inviting space for customers to shop. This is a picture of our outdoor display, we would love to know what you think.

Amanda and Tiffany

15% OFF

We're having a sale in our shop through Sunday, January 25th. Come check it out.

15% OFF all items!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5302244

Where did our organizational skills go????

It’s the day of our first purse party; we still have to add items to the inventory, tag and price. We also have to pack everything up and pray to god that we have everything we need as the party is an hour and 15 minute drive from where we are. Now we have to make a stop at the accountants which should only take a few minutes. An hour or so later we are finally on the road of course we are reciting with each other what we brought to make sure we have everything. Shouldn’t all of this been done the night before?

We get to our destination and start setting up and of course we didn’t really give ourselves enough time to set up because in the midst of it all guest are starting to arrive, grrrr. Just as we get everything set-up Amanda whispers to me…psssst, we didn’t stop and get change at the bank. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Who forgets money at a purse party? Well, hopefully everyone pays with check or credit card. The party went perfect and we held ourselves together. We had a great turn out and made out well in sales.

Looking back, on this we are realizing that this is not the only time this happens, it happens every time. Every party or show has some sort of (what we think is) a catastrophe. When are we going to get our organizational skills back?

Tell us about your stories, bloopers or even your perfect days…..

Where is Summer??

I know it's only January and I live in New England so I really have no room to complain about winter but come on enough is enough. It seems like everytime we turn around we are getting another 5 to 10 inches of snow here. You can't see around corners when trying to pull out of a street and the roads are narrowed because there is so much snow on the side.

I just can't wait to be able to walk outside and take a deep breath without feeling like my lungs are frozen. To be able to see green grass and water free of ice, to not have my car covered in salt and have it be too cold to wash off because my doors will freeze shut. I can't wait to walk outside without a jacket on and be comfortable. I would ask for Spring but in New England Spring just kind of stops in for a minute and goes, we seem to jump from Winter to Summer here.

I know I can't be alone in this feeling. I know that there are a lot of people who enjoy winter sports like skiing, and snow mobiling, and all that fun stuff but isn't one month of this enough??

Work

Good morning everyone,
Just thought I would talk a little about work today. Tiffany and I both have full time 40 hour a week jobs, and it's amazing how much that gets in the way of our own business, imagine that.

For those of you who have your own business and work full time jobs how do you do it? I find most nights I am so exhausted by the time I get home, squeeze in a workout, cook dinner, clean up and try to find a few spare minutes to spend time with my family that I have absolutely no ambition to go into my studio to work on the one thing I acutally love to work on, bags.

Someday we hope to be able to make our bags full time and open a B&M store and the only people we have to report to are ourselves. This way when we're completely exhausted from work at least it's because we're doing something we love.

Craft Shows...Luck of the Draw

So how many of you have signed up to do a craft fair and had such high hopes for it? Then crushed by the realization that it really wasn't what you thought it would be. Well let me tell you we have certainly had quite a few of these experiences in 2008.

Let me start by talking to you about a large event called Pumpkin Fest. Pumpkin Fest is a large festival done every year in Keene NH. Tiffany and I decided to participate in this in 2007. We had such a good time and such great sales that we decided it was worth doing again in 2008. This festival takes place in October, outside, for several hours. The first year we did this we had fantastic weather, unusually warm. This year not so much. In the beginning the weather was cooperating other than the fact that it was a little chilly. Coming upon 5 pm it began to rain, prior to this it became quite windy. By 9 pm when it was time to pack up and go Tiffany went to get the car while I held down the tent, literally. Needless to say it was a cold, windy, wet night and we could not wait to leave. To top it all off sales were down by half of what they were last year.

After the Pumpkin Fest debacle we had 2 fairs lined up in November. Again, we had high hopes for each of these 2 day events. Other than meeting some very interesting people each event brought in less money than we paid out.

This isn't to say that we have had all bad shows, it just goes to show how doing these things are truly luck of the draw.