Sunday, July 30, 2006

Weekend Update

As promised, I am posting some pictures today. My sister took them and made me a teriffic brochure for my craft business. I finally got some new batteries for my camera so I should be updating with pictures more frequently pretty soon.
Things haven't been going very well with the markets for the past two weeks. I did well in Brandon last week as there were a lot of tourists in the area. However, in Rutland last Saturday I got put in a bad spot and we got rained out around noon time. It was pretty disappointing. There is a lot of trouble going on this year regarding assigned spaces, people who pay by the season or the week, people showing up late and expecting to have their spot saved, and people showing up and taking other people's spots. It has gotten pretty tense.
This weekend was the annual Ethnic Festival and Sidewalk Sales in Rutland. It has become a pretty big event which draws a lot of people to the area. There are all types of foreign foods to try, a beer tent, craft vendors, plenty of wholesale junk, stores selling their clearance merchandise, and music. The Samples come every year to play on Saturday night as they are now based in Vermont and one of their members is from Rutland. I just found out they will be doing another free show in Burlington, Vermont on August 3rd at Battery park. Anyway, we decided at the last minute to participate as a vendor. On friday morning we set up and were put in an awful spot which was kind of out of the way next to an ice cream cart. It started out very slow and continued to be that way all morning and early afternoon. We could see that the other two streets were filled with people but they just wern't coming over in our direction. It began to rain on and off with gusty wind. Around 2 pm I went to check on my car and found it to have a pretty flat tire. Luckily the woman in the car next to mine had a nifty air pump that you plug into your cigarette lighter. She helped me get enough air in the tire to make it to the gas station to get some more air. At that time it started to downpour and the wind really picked up. By the time I got back to our tent, my mom had almost finished packing everything up. It turns out that the tent had blown up and into the street, leaving everything exposed to the rain. Unfortunately, everything had gotten drenched. Quite a few of my treasures were distroyed and most of the cards that things were on were ruined. I was going to spend the weekend at Eric's house after, but I just really needed to get home to clean everything up and lay it out to dry. I managed to salvage most everything but it all needs to be put on new cards or in bags. I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. We had to go to Tire Warehouse to get a new tire which ended up costing $75. Bummer.
I went back home to Middlebury to deal with everything. We were absolutely exhausted after that day. We didn't end up going yesterday to the festival or the market. I came back to Rutland last night to see Eric for the rest of the weekend. We went back to the Ethnic Festival last night to eat, have a beer, and to watch the Samples for a little while. It turned out to be a lot of fun just visiting there. Our cat Squeeky found a mouse in the middle of the night and caused quite a commotion. It was hiding in the baseboard heater in the kitchen. It explains why she has been sitting out there buzzarding over the area all week long.
I have to go get ready to go out to do some laundry. The washing machine broke at home two weeks ago. A new one is coming from Sears on Tuesday but my mom and sister have a huge pile of laundry to do at home and I am just about out of clean clothes.
Have a great week. Hopefully my coming up weekends will be more successful. Here are the pictures:

I have been making these barrettes out of old zippers. I just love these.
barrettes

One of my star zipper pins.
star zipper pin

A new square design.
square zipper pin

New pins made out of melted beads.
new bead pins

Suncatchers.
Suncatchers

Keychains.
suncatchers_3

Zippy Pins.
Zippy Pins

Earrings.
Earrings

Button Thumbtacks. You wouldn't believe how many of these I sell!
button thumbtacks

Bookclips.
bookclips on cards

And here we are picking up at the end of the market in Brandon.
The tent in Brandon

3 Comments:

Blogger Sales Rack Raider said...

Sorry you've had a spell of bad luck. Hope you've recovered from it.

Thanks for posting pics of your work. Your crafts are great! I especially like your barrettes and the star pin--beautiful!

10:54 PM  
Blogger Stacie said...

Thank you! And also thank you for all of your other comments. I always enjoy reading your blog as you have a lot of great money and time saving tips. Good luck with your new fridge. You should see a decrease in you electricity bill soon.

2:34 PM  
Blogger Miriam said...

Wow, wow, wow! Your things are just so beautiful! Those zip accessories are extremely clever, I love them!

1:46 AM  

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