Bohemian Mermaid Palace

Crazy dog... she's pretty cute though, huh?

Get moving, Woman! Ok, well as you can see... the shows have begun. Heehee. So, for the next uh, at least 3-4 months I'll have a craft show every other weekend, sometimes 2 weekends in a row. Good thing I'm so studly. Yeah. Ok. So, this has been my goal right? This is how I want my life to go, shows all the time. Enough so I can eventually quit my day job. So I need to figure this all out. How to go to a show out of town, come home, go to work and still have enough stuff to sell for the next show. Normally, I spend about 2 weeks preparing for a show. Ordering and receiving supplies, dyeing them, washing, ironing, sewing labels and printing mermaidy stuff onto them. I like to do the dyeing in large blocks of time over the weekend, 8-10 hour chunks. Then it's done and I can spend evenings after work during the week pressing and printing. Obviously this won't really work if I have 2 shows in a row. My new strategy is to make the buying and dyeing more continuous. Order as

Well, I have to say the Spring Fever Festival this weekend was a success. Woo! I mean considering it's so new... and the amount I made last year at this fair. I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did. I um, let's see... made about 3 times what I made last year. Yeehaw. I learned something too: the Power of the Discount. Holy moly. I mean, I always have a clearance rack going in the booth for flawed or discontinued things. But, I decided to have a supersale and clearance out a bunch of shirts I'm sick of... bam! half off! I also made all the skirts, pants and jacke ts $5 off. People bought stuff generally in twos, threes or more. It rocked. Oh, and I won a gorgeous pair of earrings in the door prize drawing. The chica next to me was doing her first fair and I picked her earrings from the prizes. They are so cute and sparkly! I also bartered for a handmade journal and scored some super sweet gifts for Mother's day. I want to tell more about them, but she might read th

See how cute the girls' faces are? Just ignore that weird one on the left... Here's the Lampgirl hanging out with Redballs in my bedroom. As you can see, his balls are no longer red. But, when I found him sitting next to a dumpster behind the thrift store... he had bright red balls and a magic marker bikini top. Leaving him outside for a while took care of that. And below you see Betty in all her glory, wearing my dress from The Buz's castle wedding in Prague. The ladies next to her are old fashioned blouse forms, with wooden ball-joint arms. Pretty sweet.

I have a small collection of mannequins... have I mentioned that? I love every one of them. Betty here is the original family mannequin. My dad passed her down to me as I will pass her down to Josh's daughter some day. She wears outfits, she has a box of wigs. She is glamor. I also got the frilly lamp girl from dad. Her body lights up green. She usually hangs out with Redballs... hm, I need a photo of him. The girls here are pretty neat. They have beautiful old-fashioned faces and one-piece bodies. They prefer no hair or clothing... unless they model for my website. I have a few more... but no photos. I'll work on that.

Woo! I'm scheduling a ton of festivals this year, and I'm pretty set up through July at this point. Here's how it's looking (if you really care about exact dates and locations look here )... I have one at the end of April here locally called the Spring Fever Festival. It's very new and not yet very well attended. But, it's put together by a local art chica and it has great potential to really take off. There's also a fall version in october. Good quality crafts, non-profit booths, activities, music. So, this is my second time doing it... who knows if money will be made there. But it's my first chance to visit with some of my craft buddies and see what other festivals people are doing etc. AND it's literally right down the street. May will be interesting, no local festival really during May. So, I'll be going to Shasta for an Old Time Fiddle Jamboree. Then for memorial day weekend, heading down to Lakeport right on Clear Lake. I'm looking forw

So there I was... saturday afternoon sometime, I turned on the tv. First thing I saw, the very first thing, was my ex-boyfriend's big face. Stunned, I watched as they zooooomed in on his face even more. He was talking on the phone on tv, his wedding ring glistened on the handset next to his big face. 'Weird' I thought to myself. Then, I figure out why he's on the phone on tv. It's the local Easter Seals Telethon. Weirdness #2 - I worked for ES for 2 years and volunteered behind the scenes of that very telethon twice. Whoa. As I'm staring, still stunned, STILL seeing whatshisname's big face ... the mc lady says, "now let's speak with someone pledging all the way from Bismarck North Dakota!" I almost spit out my beer. Why, I used to live in that very part of North Dakota ... in fact my mother still does. It felt like I turned on the tv and the tv people pointed right at me and said, "HEY MERMAID!!" Weirdness, no?

Man, my head is spinning. Lookit all those applications! But see how organized I am? Yeah... I know. I made a map and everything. Yep, tis the season for planning out the craft festival season. It's fun! I'm trying to do as many shows as physically possible this year. It may kill me. If so, please give my mannequins to my boyfriend. I'm looking at doing all the usual local fairs... oyster fest, north country fair, 4th of july, trinidad sunday market. Also some things in oregon and mendocino. Sweet. Check out my web site if you care about exact dates and places. (Don't bug me about the crappy width of the screen ok? The html edit thing stinks.) Really, I can't think of anything else right now. Must... do ... more ... fairs...

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