I am finished with
bead shows for the year. The show last weekend went pretty well. I'll never retire on what I'm making at bead shows, but I came out of the weekend in the black by about twice what I had invested in the show and with a new wholesale customer.
Green Girl Studios didn't show up for the show. On one hand, I kinda missed having another vendor next to my table. (There was a door there that someone kept opening because there were climate control issues with the venue. If there had been a vendor set up there, no one would have opened that door and I'm sure that things would have been more tollerable for those of us at that end of the room.) I'm sure that they'd have done well and that people may have spent some extra time looking at our table while waiting for the hordes of customers to clear so that they could get their turn to browse through and buy all the wonderful pewter charms. On the other hand, I'd have been right there next to the irresistable charms all weekend and would probably have spent more than I made. Maybe I'm lucky they weren't there afterall. I did pretty good this time. I bought 4 mixed strands of freshwater pearls so that I could work up a porcelain and pearl necklace to show off the porcelain. I also bought some nylon string for stringing the necklace because I'm thinking about knoting between the beads and pearls. The knots will protect the pearls from the porcelain.
After Louisville, I spent some time trying to figure out what I hoped to achieve with the bead shows. I reached the conclusion that, as long as I met my expenses for the shows, my real goal was to use the opportunity to promote myself, and (eventually) my wholesale customers. The shows are a way of raising awareness of artisan ceramic beads.
Post bead show, I seem to have come down with a cold. That combined with my usual readiness for a break has kept me out of the studio. It's cold enough that I need to either gather my tools and supplies into the indoor studio (which needs some pretty major re-organization before I can start working in there again) or move a portable heater out to the screen porch so that I don't freeze while I'm working.
You'd never guess from the huge smile on Miss Mica's face that she was not so fond of Santa this year. I guess that she liked the Clifford hand puppet that the photographer was wearing and tickling her with more than she didn't like Santa.
