January 2023

My favorite days of the month are just about here!

First Fridays sales at Good Juju are always such fun.

Laughing with friends, exploring the goodies the other dealers bring in, watching happy shoppers find just the right treasure.

And trying to prevent an avalanche when guests come into my space.  I might go a bit over board on my layers of goods…

When someone asked me recently what I call my style, instead of replying “Romantic Cottage” as  I usually do, I said “Frilly Avalanche”.

There is a lot going on.  (The back is Beth’s and she was still in progress with her area.  She tends to fit just as much in her space, but in a much tidier way, no danger of being buried alive in hers.)

I’m always surprised at how much I squeeze in.  Maybe it’s because I’m still sorta new at this, I am not good at knowing how much to bring in.

Each month, I rearrange it all, taking home items from the last sale that no longer fit, changing up the furniture layout.  I don’t sell much furniture at all, because you can barely see it under the piles of inventory.

Which is funny because in my previous incarnation as an antique dealer, I specialized in hand painted furniture.   Now, I try to concentrate more on mountains of small and hand made pieces.

I still paint most of the tables and cabinets, but also go with natural tones of wood too.

I have discovered that what works best for me is to have a couple of larger tables, and a ton of smaller ones balanced on top, stacked underneath, and lined up.  More than I should, because they look more like wall units of shelving than individual pieces for sale.

Every once in a while one sells and 

oh

my

gosh!

You should see me scramble to unload it, and find somewhere else to stack my crap!  It’s crazy.

Part of my problem is that I looooooove to make things.

And I am prolific about it.  If I create one doll, I’ll just go ahead and make ten.

One little gnome might be lonely, so of course, I need a dozen.

And I probably shouldn’t even talk about my mushroom addiction.  I’ve probably whipped up a couple hundred by now.

I feel very blessed to have such a lively, fun environment to market my excesses in! 

For a cheap winter display at my booth, I made some snowflakes.  I seriously had doubts that it would look cheesy, or like a kindergarten class project.  

But I liked the effect even though I could not quite do what I wanted unless I moved things already set up, and since the building has very little heat turned on between sales, I wasn’t going to linger any longer than I had to.

I’d like them on both sides of the stained glass window, but just could not reach.  While I had the heavy duty, sky high ladder out, I hung fishing line in as many spots as I could stretch out to reach.  Now, I can reuse those dangling lines to hang other seasonal decorations throughout the year.

The snowflakes are made from two colors and three sizes of paper bags.  I’d give you steps, but there are so many out there already that are easy to follow, it would just be redundant.  

Another thing I wish I’d done differently is to make all of the cut outs heart shaped.  I thought of that part way through, and really like it.  Plus, I saved the cut out hearts, glued them together on more fishing line and made streamers to hang with the snowflakes.