Bohemian Mermaid Palace

I always have. Now, I'm trying to make a living making stuff... sheesh. It's fun, but there are plenty of challenges. Mainly I like selling at craft fairs and such. I have a great time. Traveling, camping out, meeting interesting folks. I love all that. The up side (along with all that stuff) is I'm getting full retail price for all my goods, personal interaction with my customers and therefore direct feedback. The down side, I suppose, is the added cost of travel, booth fees... and personal energy. Physical and emotional. Well, that's not really a down side I guess, but a cost none the less. The travel, setup, and breakdown takes lots of physical energy. And being 'on' all weekend, schmoozing customers and such, is exhausting as well. Still, it is my preferred mode of selling... versus say, wholesaling to shops. That's a separate post I think. The problem I'm trying to solve right now is, well... there are only so many craft shows. The ones that are goo

O k, well you can all relax now. I got my confirmation in the mail yesterday... whew. Not only that, but it looks like I have a killer spot! All alone on a little island, in the middle of the show. Sweet. I did this show once before... when I was doing Wax Hand job. That is, the job where I worked in a kid's wax hand booth in college. As I recall, the quality of crafts was mixed... not too high end handcrafts, mixed with buy/sell goods. Well populated, large festival with a difficult setup. I also remember hitting some bars at night and having fun. I think it's a sort of historic section of town. Anyway... I think I'm set up to do as well as possible, which is all I can ever do. At the very least, I'll cover my expenses. Not worried about that. And I'll get some quality time with my little sis, a rare treat. Get a little visiting time with Dad, also fairly rare. AND get out of town to someplace warm where I'll be doing my thing. Good times. But first, I have app

This could be a blues song... But I hope not. Any day now the Dandelion Days - Lions Club guy is going to call me back and confirm my booth space. Yep. Pretty soon. Festival is this weekend. Ha. Anyway I'm proceeding as if it's a go. My first ever double booth. Yessss. I've got bead kits, hat kits, dye kits, lots of new jewelry... oh, and some new goodies for my booth set up. Extra baskets, better dressing room and awnings! Oh, I'm ready. And clothes . I always have lots of those. Jackson is waaay down near Stockton, so there's a bit of travel involved. I'm getting excited to leave town, now that spring is starting to spring forth. It's gonna be in the 70s! Plus, my little sister will be my sidekick for the weekend. That will rock. So... yeah... once I can get this all uh firmed up... that will be cool.

Well, it's been decided. The Same Old People will run the North Country Fair this year... and Washington Whatshisname has resigned as coordinator. Yippee! I can't wait for September and my same old festival.

Well, I think my foggy winter head is waking up finally. I have my lists of potential craft fairs and application deadlines nicely plotted out on my yahoo calendar. Printed and color coded and pinned to the bulletin board. I'm even sending off applications! I have my lists and charts of new bead and jewelry stuff all laid out. Sweet. Gawd how I do love going through the bead catalogs and web site. Rather than doing it for 2 weeks, though... in a cave-dwelling haze of notebooks and pajamas... I'm getting it all done in a couple days. Not bad huh? Sometime today I'll be conferring with The Buz about some new clothing designs. Heehee. I'm gonna have my OWN original designs. So, we need to get going on all that and work out some details. I'm also working on my booth setup. I want to order a few items to beef up the display a bit... it's getting freakin crowded in there. I've been needing a rolling clothing rack for the travel of wrinkle-prone clothing... and a f

(Hey, there's my booth up in the top left corner... see that purple spot?? That's me!) Ah, the saga continues. You can see my previous posts about this on my Craft Fair Reports list over on the right there... and more recently, here . So, the other day I got a letter and email from the Same Old People, the traditional organizers of the North Country Fair. They seem more than confident about reclaiming the fair from Washington Whatshisname. So, that's good. Apparently, they both have submitted applications to the city to use the Plaza for the festival this year. No decisions yet. But, I see also that the city has adopted a new policy of only issuing permits of use to non-profits. That's pretty cool, considering the SOP have now attained that status. They had always worked like a non-profit, but never really felt the need to officially get the papers... because things just worked very well as they were. Anyway, that might be a help. Also, they have issued a letter to What

At work, we sell this movie called The Secret. I haven't watched it... but I watched most of Oprah's show about it. Man, she can make even the most deep and wonderful things so very cheesy and lame. I didn't realize that The Secret isn't just a movie, it's a book and a lecture series. A little weird, as far as 'spiritual' type teachings go I think... the method, not the message that is. Anyway, the secret isn't so secret really. Stuff I've lived by for years. Ask for what you want. Visualize your life as you want it. You create your own reality. That sort of stuff. The idea being, you reap what you sow... or putting out thoughts and energy will create that path for you. I know all that, but I think (aside from the television-cheesiness) it's neat to see it put out mainstream style. I guess. I mean, if that's what it takes for folks to accept some of this info. Things enlightened hippy-types have been spouting forever. Somehow on Oprah it'