antiques/junking

This month I am trying something different in my Good Juju space.  See all of the blue tags?

They border on obnoxious, huh?  That is the point, I hope.  

My booth is piled floor to ceiling with small things.  And they do pretty good most of the time, I think people enjoy the treasure hunt.  But I also think that they are so focused on the mountains of minis that they do not see the bigger picture.

That furniture underneath the massive stacks is for sale too!  And I am done with my umbrellas, am ready for a new entryway display, so they are also gaudily tagged.

Sadly, I rarely sell furniture.  Oh, a piece here and there, but usually small and extra inexpensive.  (Not that I have anything high dollar anyway)

People probably don’t even notice the tables, shelves, and dressers.  So, I tried to tag them in a way that made it obvious.

It certainly is a scramble when someone does buy a table, since there is a possible avalanche of goods on top of it.  But,  I am always happy to unload and redo.  It’s like a timed design challenge, to reshuffle as fast as I can while shoppers are looking around.

I like my spot to have a different look each month, so I don’t want the same furniture there forever and I am constantly hauling things back and forth from home.  Which is inefficient.  I’d much rather sell some and find more pieces to fix up and redo.  

Well, we will see, huh?  This month is my one year anniversary at the venue, I am still trying new things.   It’s also my birthday Friday while I’m there.  My second Good Juju birthday weekend with post concussion season.  (Not a tradition that I want to continue!)

At last month’s Good Juju sale, I tried a new out a new booth for my jewelry.

Well, that didn’t go so well.

 I think the space was too tight and hard to shop in for so many pieces of jewelry.  That stuff needs to be spread out more.

 I have already paid my rent for the 3’ x 3’ corner, so I decided to try something else for May’s shopping event.  I have a lot of vintage clothing, but could only bring a couple of pieces at a time into my man booth since a gown can take up so much space.

Rich helped me make over this jewelry spot into a clothes closet.  It feels more efficient this way, but what do I know?  I’m still figuring this whole thing out.

Since I am a big believer in using the WHOLE piece of real estate, I had Rich add some shelves for me. 
He made the clothing rod out of one of his grapevine walking sticks and the rest of the installed bits and pieces are things we had in the garage.  So the changeover didn’t cost us anything. 

It was sad to see him cut up one of his cool sticks, but he has a few and using it does class up the area.  I think I’ll ask him if I can have more of those, then I’ll fix them up and sell them.  I think there could be a market for his whittled grapevine walking sticks, I really like them.  I might add some leather and crystals to them.

 

The Good Juju sale is the first Friday of each month.  Which means we have a full month to set up after the previous event ends.  I typically get right in there, get all the furniture shifted, wallpaper changed, and basics set up as soon as I can. Then start filling in.

Over the next few weeks, I tidy up and add more, but it is usually looking okay if something comes up and I cannot get back to do more.  

Well, I sure am glad that I have that habit of getting done early, because something sure did come up.

After my head bonking last week, I have done nothing but rest.  Then rest some more.

I have had nothing going on but rest.   Usually, I’d be  bored by that much laying around and tempted to sneak out to the studio to find a project.  Not this time.  I felt so bad, all I could do was doze in a dark room, listen to an audio book, or watch tv with a blindfold on.  

I’m finally up and even going for walks now, to get my rubbery muscles moving again. Between my jiggly brain and unused body, I am a mushy mess.

But my gray matter no longer does summersaults when I look at a screen and my stomach has settled, so I am easing back into the real world.

I am even starting to feel curious about some of the shows I listened to while my eyes were covered.  Was that Meryl Streep, Ed Norton, Ross from Friends and that guy from Hamilton on Extrapolation?  I think I might have heard Diane Lane too.  

That show might deserve a rewatch while actually watching.

I can’t say that I am fully back.  I am enjoying the improvement, though.  And need to be ready to spend 12 hours on my feet Friday and Saturday.

Come by to see us there if you can.  I will be very happy to be out of the house, functioning and talking to friends.

I hope. 

For right now, writing this might have used up my entire screen time for the day, so I’ll be slapping the satin mask back over my eyes, going back to my dark room and listening to another episode of Extrapolations and trying to guess which stars are popping up.

 

In my previous post, I had mentioned that one section of my booth had a Yellowstone inspiration.

That is a pretty loose reference.  I guess what I was going for was my typical, romantic neutrals with a dash of western rustic thrown in. (Really, just boots and Stetson hats, but hey, I can spin all sorts of tales in my head about the stories behind the look)

There is some of the more neutral Easter decor on that side too.

And throughout the whole booth, I have scattered nests.

I seriously love the look of an all neutral design, but I cannot pull it off for my whole booth.  Because I also adore cottage roses and pretty colors too.  So I try to designate sections for each theme or color.

Hmm, my whole Yellowstone theme might just be in my head, because if you watch the show, you see very little white.  

As I said before, though- inspiration and copying are very different.  You want to keep that line separating the two.  I doubt if there is anything truly original left to do in this world, but the trick is to add as much of your own self to any idea as you can, right?

As I usually do, I’ve managed to cram a lot into my small area.  And then mentally slap myself when I start to day dream about expanding into even more booth space… or getting another spot somewhere else….

If I was smart, I’d just try to beef up my online shop.  Honestly, editing photos and writing descriptions is not half as fun as arranging things in person or precariously trying to hang decor from the ceiling.

There is a pile of goods accumulating for my Boutique, though. And I love the nice people I meet online who shop there.  Wrapping up the packages to make them pretty is my favorite part of selling through the website, I should concentrate on letting that part be the carrot on the stick to motivate me to get more done.

Then again, I am trying to give myself some grace and realize that I just can’t do it all.  
We could all use some of that Grace in our lives, where we try to appreciate what we can do and not feel bad about being unable to do more.

ps- Good Juju is open First Friday and Saturday of each month

For a place that is only open two days a month, I sure spend a lot of time working on Good Juju stuff.  It is all things I like to do, make pretties, buy junk, fix up old things, repurpose, and then decorate with it all. 
But- I really, really, really put too much time into it.

Like setting up this display at home as a practice look before even getting the crap to the venue.

Some of the problem is that I’ve not even been doing this a year yet and my booth space changed four times during those few months.  I don’t exactly have a firm feel of what I need to fill up my spaces.  Every time I take a load in, I think I’m done, then I realize I could fit another carload into the area, so I bring in more.

When I began, I had zero inventory.  It was right as we were emerging from Covid seclusions, and I, like many other people, did major closet clearing during lock down.  I gave truckloads of things from my storage areas, garages, cabinets and just things I was tired of looking at, all to Goodwill. 

And I had a pretty serious concussion that affected me more than I realized at the time.  Looking back, those couple of months after my dog’s head slammed into my head, are all fuzzy and seem like I was peering through a dark tunnel.

Also, I am still trying to figure out what will sell.  When I craft, I usually go all out and make a ton of that item in many variations.  And sometimes, I’ll only sell a couple.  Or I will sell most of them, make more for the next sale, and everyone who wanted one already got it earlier.  Or I’ll sell out of something online by showing photos ahead of time, and not have any for my booth.

I guess my issue is that I love everything about the creative side, but struggle with the marketing end of it all.  It’s a learning curve and I might think in a squiggles shape with curves all over the place instead of a gentle arc.

Then there are the things that I make or display that are just because I want to, not because people will be buying them  After hanging big snowflakes from the rafters above the entry to our booth for winter, I decided I want to do a different theme each season.

This month, it is birdcages.  But once I got these minis up there, I didn’t think they make enough of a statement.  I had plans to hang big cages and white frames too, but needing to use a ladder the size of a skyscraper (that weighs as much as a building too) had me adjusting my plans.

Still, I do enjoy my obsessions, I mean themes.  Like all of the handmade nests I spent an entire day on.

And as far as marketing goes, I might never figure out what is the best way to go. I am hoping that as I build inventory up, and get used to just how much I can squeeze into my booth, I can become more efficient in my set ups.

And I’ll keeping on completely immersing myself into my projects, because it’s just my nature.  Sure, I could get nests wholesale and pop eggs from the hobby store into them.  But I loved spending a day making a few dozen hand crafted nests and repainting those purchased eggs just the right color of blue, so they’d all look pretty together.