MORE new signs in my etsy shop

Just added several new signs to my  etsy shop.

Man Cave sign at a special Father’s Day price.

Two different wedding sign sets.

Unlike most of the other signs in my shop that are ready made and ship out within 2 business days; the wedding signs are custom made, and take 3-4 weeks.   Reason being that the placement of the arrows will be different for each wedding.

AND they are available in a variety of colors.

Prince and Princess signs.

BIG 24″ long ‘No Soliciting’ signs.  (almost TOO big?!?!?  I didn’t pay attention to the size of this stencil when I ordered.  I will be getting a smaller one soon.)

Scatter Kindness.  I have also taken copies of all of these new signs (except the wedding sets) to both Stars and Curiosities.

Potting shed.

ANTIQUES with stars or pointing hand.  (I LOVE that pointing hand!!!  It can even be used on the wedding signs instead of the arrow!)

And a smaller ANTIQUES sign.

The bed is back in my space at Stars . . .

 . . and I totally rearranged 75% of the space yesterday!  WHEW!  That was a LOT of work.   But it’s the kind of thing that once you move ONE thing, it’s a snowball effect and it ALL has to be moved!

Here’s what’s going on, in general, with my space at Stars.  My sales have slowed considerably since the first of the year.   I’m not sure if it’s ‘just me’, of if everyone else has seen the same slow down or what???  I’m not friends with other vendors that I can ask ‘how their sales are’.  Soooooooooooooooo  I work on the assumption that I just need to ‘DO BETTER’.

The first six weeks in the new space (and with the bed in place) and sales had not picked up, I decided the bed had to go BECAUSE it was not a ‘real bed’ and not for sale so it wasn’t doing anything to improve my sales.  Maybe it was even HURTING my sales because it made my booth SO cramped and difficult to move around it.  Out with the bed and in with some additional furniture.  No difference.

So I decided I may as well put the bed back in, if for nothing else but the ‘ahhhhhhhhhhhhh’ factor.  But now I had to make ROOM for it again.  I took out one big display shelf, and used a smaller table for the bed this time.

For some reason, this BIGGER booth (than the one I moved from) has always FELT smaller to me.  I thought it was such a GREAT idea to line the two outside edge OPEN sides of the booth with back to back shelves to really maximize the space.  But it didn’t seem to improve my sales any.

Another reason for putting the shelves on the OPEN sides was that I wanted to use the other two actual walls for hanging things on.  Ah, but ONE of those two walls was really only HALF a wall, halfway back; making it unusable for hanging things.  Might as well cover that spot with a tall shelf.  And THAT is where this latest rearrange began.

THIS is what the ‘aisle side’ (as opposed to the side that faces the back wall side) originally looked like.

THEN it occurred to me that it would look more cohesive it both the shelves on either side of the entrance to my space were the same color; so I switched that up.

THIS is what that side of the booth looks like now.  The BIG aqua hutch that was on the left is now along the inside wall, just behind the little round table on the right hand side.  HERE:

The entire part of the wall that this hutch is covering up AND the area that the shutter behind the round table is in the previous picture is the ‘unusable’ part of the wall.

This is what that same area looked like before.  I was trying to make use of the hanging space by using shutters, but that ‘sloppy space’ on the far left where you see the fabric always bothered me.  So I just covered it up.  With less space to hang signs now I’ve just had to display some like this:

Time will tell if this works or not.  Might have to have Michael build me a sign display box.

This is what the outside corner of the space USED to look like.  The right side faces the aisle and the left faces the back.

This is what that corner looks like now.

This is what the booth looked like with the original bed.

Then this is what it looked like after I took the bed out.

And this is what it looks like now.

This little corner is the part that hasn’t been changed just yet.

And this is what is on the other side of that corner, facing the back wall.

I’m happy with the changes for now; although I’m sure I’ll do a fair amount of ‘tweaking’ still.  But it still FEELS smaller than my previous space which actually WAS smaller.  sigh.

The ONLY think I can think of that could me making it ‘feel smaller’ is that I am leaving ‘openings’ 3-4′ wide on BOTH of the open sides of the space.  And my old space only had one open side to work with.  So maybe next time, when I work on that other corner, I’ll go ahead and close up the entry on that side and make the only opening a bit bigger.

Sprucing up my space at Stars.

 . . and for now the bed is gone!  

This is the view looking into the booth from the backside, the dresser is now where the bed was.

I LOVED how the bed looked.  And everyone who saw it did too!  I got TONS of compliments on the bed.  Alas, it was ‘just a prop’ and not a piece that was for sale; so I just could not justify letting it take up that much floor space for long periods of time.

While it was there, the bed DID ‘earn it’s keep’ though.  I sold three chenille bedspreads, one of the net canopys, and one pillow.  I’m sure I’ll bring it back in from time to time, but I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic with so little room to walk in the booth.  Now there’s room for 2 or 3 people in the booth at the same time!

I did leave the chenille spreads and pillows in the booth, for now at least.  Testing to see if they will still sell well without being displayed on a bed.  Put some on a shelf, with an old baby bassinet on the bottom filled with the big bed pillows.

And one of the chenille spreads (the really HEAVY one!) and a couple of pillows on the white high back bench.

This space doesn’t NEED lamps as much as my former space did, being more open and directly beneath an over a ceiling light.   BUT I still have several lamps that I need to sell, and with the bed taking up so much space, I didn’t have room for other furniture that I could set the lamps on.  Only managed to create space for these two for now.    Will work on creating space for the rest of the lamps over the next few weeks.  Even if you don’t NEED lamps in your space for lighting purposes, they really add a lot of warmth to your space and help draw customers in.

I also brought in a little upcycled bistro table.  (an old wood bar stool base and plywood top).

And a chair to go with the table.  Had hoped to have room to put the chair on the floor.  Atop a table is always an option when space is limited though.

Brought he white bird cages in, 2 sizes.

A newly repainted foot stool, with a stenciled design on the top.

Moved the stack of benches to the outside end spot where the dresser had been.  Will be changing that up again soon by moving a bigger display shelf to that spot; which will be ‘back to back’ to a shelf on the inside.  That will give me a little more space INside the booth.

At that point, the entire outside of the booth will be lined with permanent (as in not for sale) shelving.  Walking UP the aisle from the front of the store, this is wat you see first, starting on the left.  Tall skinny shelf – opening – big hutch.

Rounding the corner (this booth is a back end cap, open on two sides) is another big aqua shelf.  With Michael’s help I just made a ‘hutch top’ for this shelf, and will be adding that soon and taking the two smaller shelves off the top.  I COULD have butted these shelves right up against each other at that corner, but couldn’t think of any place else to put this tall skinny spinner rack filled with smalls.

A small bench with a little hutch on top is alongside that big outward facing shelf, and flanks the other opening.  The far left is where the dressed USED to be; and the stack of benches is now.  And where the other tall aqua shelf will eventually go!

My ultimate goal is to have all the outer facing shelves be ‘permanent display shelves’.  Not that I couldn’t sell these shelves, but I don’t WANT to.  With the quantity of ‘smalls’ that I stock my space with, it would be an absolute nightmare to unload those shelves if the did sell!

So then the smaller shelves that ARE for sale will be on the INside of the booth; and hopefully that logic will evident to the shoppers.  The Stars staff is very good about explaining those kinds of things to shoppers.  AND I do put ‘not for sale’ tags on the display only shelves.  But it’s mostly the smaller shelves that shoppers inquire about buying anyhow.

A new little painted cosmetics case.  (does NOT open though)

A three compartment aqua trug embellished with sand dollars.

Hopefully, now that the furniture is more accessible, it will start selling better.

Fine tuning my new space at Stars

After looking at the pictures I took last week of my new space, I decided I needed to ‘switch up’ a few things.  As well as I THOUGHT I had planned everything out, I had quite a bit to do-over.

First was this out facing ‘wall’.  I have several of both white and aqua display shelves.  Can’t believe it didn’t ‘occur to me’ that it would look better to have all the same color on the same side?!?!?  Not that it looks BAD like this.  Just that it could look BETTER if both shelves were the same color.

So I switched it to this.  The white and these aqua shelved are back to back; so I just switched them around.  (had to completely EMPTY them first of course!)  It just looks more ‘cohesive’ now.  Agreed?

The next issue was the walking space (or LACK thereof!) inside the booth.  The bed took up more space than I thought it would; leaving very little room to actually walk through the booth.

I didn’t want to get rid of the bed, but I needed to ‘make it shorter’ somehow.  It was a folding aluminum cot, and could not be shortened at all.  Michael had cut a couple of pieces of plywood for me to lay on the cot springs to protect the air mattress; so I thought I would use those and some stacked wood crates to make a faux and shorter bed.

So I went to our storage garage to get the crates and had to move an old folding card table out of the way.  LIGHTBULB MOMENT!  Why couldn’t I just use the card table for a bed?!?!  Having it higher would help keep kids from climbing on it.  But one card table wasn’t quite long enough for all the pillows and some folded spreads at the foot of the bed.  So I used the two sheets of plywood to ‘extend’ the length of my card table a little at the head and foot!  And I’ll have storage space underneath!

I was now able to put the vintage baby basket full of additional vintage chenille spreads and a basket full of little heart pillows  at the foot of the bed; which pretty much used up all the extra floor space I had just created.  BUT, as that stuff sells I’ll be able to move the baby basket.

But it still ‘opened up’ the space quite considerably.  And the bed really doesn’t look like it’s not a real bed.

I can believe I didn’t think of using a table for a ‘make shift’ bed before?!?!  Like back when we had our own shop to display all the vintage bedspreads on?  And when we did shows?!?!?  Pillows and bed ‘thing’s just look SO much more ‘appealing; ON a bed (or something that LOOKS like a bed!)  So, save this little nugget of information in your memory bank for future use if you ever need a display bed and don’t have room for or just don’t HAVE a real bed!

Recent finds

Little wood benches are ‘one of those things’ that I’ll ALWAYS buy (IF the price is right!) because they always sell.  And they are really handy to use for creating height in your displays.

On stools (or tables of ANY piece of furniture for that matter!) that have designs such as this painted on them, BE  SURE you completely sand off the design.  Otherwise it will show through after you paint.  The COLORS don’t show through; but you can see the raised areas where the design was painted.  (and yes, I DID learn this the hard way!)

Three tiered wood table.  Just waiting for a dry day to paint it!  Might use one of my new stencils on the top!  OH!  And I can stencil something on top of that little stool too!  (can you tell that I am chomping at the bit to use those new stencils?!?)

ADORABLE vintage baby book in PERFECT condition!  This will be going into my etsy shop.

Are these the sweetest graphics of what?!?!?  They just don’t make them like this anymore!  I seriously thought about keeping this and doing if for my son.   I never did get around to doing one for him and he’s now 30!?!?  I have a shoebox filled with little scraps of paper that I wrote things down on!  (sigh!  BAD momma!)

A bunch of vintage tiny white plastic lace wedding bells going to my etsy shop also.

BIG (half-gallon!) jar of buttons I bought at Stars from another vendors booth.  I’ve used up about 3/4 of them already; stitching them onto wool felt hearts and the heart pillows.  (I really love the ‘jarfull of buttons’ look and would have loved to just put it on display with my spool collection.  Alas, it’s $56.00 price tag necessitated that I use it to generate some funds to justify having bought it)

THE biggest ‘spool of thread’ I have EVER seen!!  It actually makes that half-gallon jar look small!?!?!  I’m keeping this baby for now, and adding it to my string/spool collection.

Before I found this big one, the biggest one I had was this tan one; which is also dwarfed by the new bigger one.

Just for kicks, some size comparisons.  An ‘average’ size spool of thread; an average cone size and the bigguns!

All week the weather people have been promising us a DRY DAY.  And every night, the weather report says “A few sprinkles today, but sunshine and a dry day tomorrow.”    So I have put off running errands and going grocery shopping over and over, waiting for that dry day so I could work on some bigger projects outside.

Today, I HAVE to go; and of course the sun is starting to peek out!!!  argh!!

All moved in to my new BIGGER space at Stars!!

And I’m STILL hurtin’ from all the moving!  And of course I did not have nearly as much room as I thought I’d have!  But the bed did fit, BARELY.  Actually I’m going to have to build a ‘half bed’ to replace it, because there is barely room to walk into the booth right now.

If you recall the schematic I shared of how I ‘hoped’ to arrange the space, the plan was to put most of the shelves along the two open sides of the booth.  And that part DID work.  It just didn’t leave me as much interior space for other things as I’d expected. This is the entry/exit space on one side of the booth; looking in you can see the bed.

 

Narrower view.

On the right of this picture, the space between the blue and white shelf is that same entry/exit.  This view is more of the outside corner; with the spinner rack at the corner between the two biggest shelves.  And another entry/exit to the left of that other big blue shelf.

And this picture takes us all the way to the opposite side of the booth, and better shows the second entry/exit spot (and a glimpse of the bed inside!)

Looking in and across from the ‘back’ entry.

THE BED!  I love how it looks SO MUCH!!  Just wish there was more room to MOVE inside the booth!

LOTSA pillows!

The net canopy.  The one over the bed is not for sale; but I have another one that IS for sale.  You can see it hanging on the wall to the right of the bed.

This shelf is propped across the top of the side and back walls.  Perfect spot to put my sign.

Bed viewed from the side entry.

A better view of the stuff that’s on the back wall.

This is opposite the corner where the two big shelves intersect.  These shelves back right up to the ones on the outside fo the booth.

Wall stuff.

More wall stuff.

Two shabby white picket fence sections and one solid white fence section.  (they are fun to use as headboards!)

A couple of vintage spool beds, head and foot boards (no side rails though)  No room to actually ‘set these up’ so they are just propped against the wall.

LOTS of great vintage chenille spreads!

Cream color and whites.

LOTS of pillows!  Many of them completely hand stitched.

Embossed white pillow shams with NEW (still in their original plastic wrapper!) pillows.

Hand made blue cotton ticking pillow cases, again with NEW pillows inside.

Piles of pillows stuffed into a big shabby basket.

Vintage chenille hand stitched starfish accent pillows.

Completely hand stitched wool felt pillow covered with vintage buttons.  I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to individually hand stitch all those buttons on!  But I LOVE the end result!  Only ONE pillow got that many buttons!

The rest I only partially covered.

Still a lot of work, but SO dang charming!!

And some vintage quilt pillows.  The big square one is a removable pillow sham with a new foam insert.  The heart shaped one is hand stitched and stuffed with fiberfil.

Well that’s the gist of the new space.  Close up pictures just show all the smalls.    Had to remove two small round tables and one corner shelf to make room for the bed.  And I’m already thinking about how I can ‘make a shorter bed’ to allow for more walking room.  Just might build a ‘faux 1/2 bed’ out of old crates.  Then I could put the big basket of chenille spreads at the foot of it!

Soooooooooooooooooooo????  Whaddya think?!?!

I’m MOVING!!

 . . . into a BIGGER space at Stars!

HALLELUJAH!!

I have been waiting and hoping and praying for a bigger space at Stars for over TWO years now!  When it looked like none of the bigger spaces were NEVER going to be available, they offered me that secondary small wall space (3′x8′) near my original space.  I did the best I could with it, but really needed ONE bigger space to have room for BIGGER pieces; AND More wall space.

After fumbling my way along with that additional small space, and realizing that it really wasn’t working for me, I gave notice to move out and just resigned myself to ‘patiently await’ a larger space.  The space I have is actually SMALLER than the typical 10×10 booth; and is only 8′x10′.  AND it’s 10 feet DEEP and only 8 across; AND only has walls on two sides.  

Originally it was one larger space that got divided into two.  My greatest hope was to someday be able to have ‘that whole thing’.  Alas, that was not to be.  And may very well have ended up being a case of ‘biting off more than I could chew’.  I covered the back wall with shelves, which severely limited my ‘usable wall space’.  I’ve got SO much product that I can’t  sell because I do not have the wall space to hang it on!  sigh

So, a couple of weeks ago they asked me if I was interested it ‘trading spaces’ with another vendor who has a 10×10, and was wanting a slightly smaller space.  HECK YEA!!  Many phone calls and emails later, we (Stars, the other dealer and I) worked out the details of the swap, and will be moving this Saturday.  

Any other time that I have moved to a new/different space, that space has always been EMPTY; and I was able to just move my stuff in.  easy peasey!  But this time we both have booths FULL of product, and I can’t move mine until hers is empty; and she can’t move her until mine is empty?!?!  AND we are both along the back aisle, so will be traveling the same path to/from old/new spaces?!?!?  Quite the conundrum; and I’ve been doing a LOT of thinking and planning and pre-organizing!

We managed to get the opportunity to start a couple of hours BEFORE opening.  HOPING we can get most of the big stuff done in that time.  She sells a fair amount of vintage clothing, and has a big rolling furniture rack, so that will be fast and easy to move.   since I have WAY more stuff than her, we’ve decided that she will empty her booth first, and stack her stuff in the aisles just next to mine.   Then WE will be able to move our stuff directly into our new space.  (after we get the fabric hung on the walls first!  Gotta cover those orange walls!)  And fortunately for us, she has opted to KEEP the fabric on our existing space, so we don’t have to tear that down.  It was worth the amount of time and work it would have taken to remove it; to just let her keep it for free!

Our NEW space is also on the back corner, the next aisle over, AND only has 2 walls also.  I am DETERMINED to not block those walls with furniture of display shelves so that I can actually HANG stuff on the walls.  I’ve got two cream colored queen size flat sheets that are just long enough to cover both walls.  Beyond that, I really wasn’t sure ‘what I was going to put where’?!?  

Considering we are working against the clock, and given the fact that I just cannot ‘move things around until it looks right’ the way I used to (because of my back!)  I decided to make a ‘to scale’  floor plan of the new space and all the display shelves and big furniture pieces I had.  And after playing around with it for a while, here’s what I’ve come up with:

The white is the booth size.  The back and left sides are where there are walls.  Other 2 sides are open.  The big dark rectangle is the area rug (to cover up some of the orange floor!) The smaller rectangle at the back corner is a twin size bed, and will hold piles of pillows and vintage chenille bed spreads.  That ‘tab’ sticking out over the top of the paper is a tall skinny shelf that will be set on its side and put across the top of the booths two side walls for additional display space.

Then the plan’ is to ‘cluster together’ as many of the display shelves as possible in the corner where the two open sides meet; as shown above.  Biggest display shelves in an “L” shape facing outward, with room at the very tip of the outside corner for my round spinner rack.  Then MORE shelves backed up to those shelves facing inward.  Then still more shelves as ‘end-caps’ on the ends where the others meet ‘back to back’.  And some of these are only 3-4′ tall shelves, so I will be stacking those!

That just leaves me with TWO shelves to find spots for.  Where I have the one on the far right in the schematic is where the side divider wall doesn’t come all the way to the aisle.  Not sure that will stay there or not.  It MAY go to the opposite corner, backed up to the single shelf that is shown there.  Then maybe I will use my tall shutter dividers to fill in the missing side wall part. And/or create a little corner vignette with them on that side.  I just have to wait and see how monstrous the cluster of shelves looks!

At least we’ll know exactly where to put a good 90% of the big and display stuff without any ‘figuring’ (and wasting of time!)  Once all the big and heavy stuff has been moved, I can let Michael go home; then I can ‘putz around with the display’ by myself at my own pace.  

In the back corner where the bed will be (bed is NOT for sale; just used to display linens) we’ll be attaching a big shutter to the wall at the head of the bed. I’ll lose a little bit of floor space by doing so, but the corners really aren’t very functional.  Bu rounding it off, I can at least hang things from the shutter.

I’ve got one of those pretty net canopies to hang over the bed.  Excited to see how that looks.  Just might add some little white lights to the canopy too.  

SO, all that is pretty much ALL I have been thinking about lately.  Getting all the linens that have been stored away for years washed, folded and priced and ready to go.  Don’t plant to take very much additional stock for the space on moving day, with the exception of the bed and bedding.   Can figure out what else to add in the weeks to come.  

Gosh, I’m worn out just telling you about all that!  I think I need a nap now!

 

It figures!

We finally get ONE  warm sunny day last week, and I was stuck INSIDE working on my space at Stars all day!  sheesh.  The local weather forecasters keep predicting these ‘strings of several nice weather days’, which typically end up being ONE partially sunny afternoon!  I am really itchin’ to get outside and paint some furniture!  Anyhow . . . here’s what I accomplished at Stars while everyone else was out enjoying the sunshine:

Pulled the left over Valentine stuff and put in a good amount of spring.

A BIG vintage Easter chick blow mold.  Paint is a bit faded and worn away in some spots, and it is missing the light fixture, so I’ve priced it considerably lower than what they would go for in perfect condition.  Another booth had some just like this, with the light in tact and they were $49.95.  Mine is $21.95.  Fun bit of nostalgia for your Easter decorating.

Lots of Easter decorations on top od the dresser.  A big Easter egg topiary tree, a glittery Easter egg wreath (shown hanging from a table top wreath stand, sold separately) .  The big bunny on the far right is holding a butterfly net.  Lots of Easter smalls too, including a faux chocolate bunny!

I was going to take the buttery fly net off and have him hold an Easter basket, but I just ran out of time!

Vintage and reproduction smalls.

New punched metal accent table.

Lots of vintage style framed bird post cards, nests and jars filled with moss and eggs.

Little bagged nests with aqua glittered eggs, if you already have a jar or pedestal to put them on.

Apothecary jars of speckled eggs.

Jar of layered colored eggs.

White pedestal birds.

Bunnies!!  Many of the smaller ones are salt shakers!  One is a bank.  The rest are just decorative.

A new batch of aqua birds with vintage sheet music crowns.

Burlap bird wreath.

Moss nest and eggs in a vintage cherub wall sconce with feather bird.

Weathered wood two part hearts with old hinges

Had to dig out some old templates from my former ‘primitive crafting days’ for these new hearts and shutters I just made:

This is one of my all-time favorite patterns that I’ve designed; for the fact that it leaves ZERO wood scraps behind, and requires a very minimal amount of cutting.  And you get TWO finished items by making only four simple cuts!

“Back in the day” I used to make the shutter part longer at the bottom, and add a shelf and a few pegs.  And I didn’t have the grubby old hinges to use.  I used to ‘wire them’ together.

Love the old wood look too!

I also cut out some slightly larger hearts, that do not have coordinating shutters.

Perfect ‘guy Valentine gift.  And something that can be left on display year round.

I’ve only listed ONE of the hearts in  my etsy shop ; four shutters and eight of the hearts have gone to my space at Stars.    After Valentine’s Day, if I have any left; I’ll probably list more on etsy.

LOTS of Valentine gifts and decor still available in my space at Stars

I have sold quite a bit of the Valentine stuff, but there is still plenty left!

And, as always, a plentiful selection of vintage Ironstone and other white dishes.

LOTS of these little vintage English Ironstone dessert plates!

Soooooooooooooooo pretty white feather angel wings with gold halo.

Handcrafted LOVE banner.

LOTS of  dessert stands.  Full cake size to indicidulal cupcake size.

With and without dome tops.  Single and multi layer.

Perfect for your next dessert buffet.

New batches of the felt  hearts; in pink and brown.

Red with word labels.

And cute containers to display them in!

Pink glitter owls with crowns.

Neutral tones more for year round display.

Yes, it DOES take a long time to sew all those buttons on!  But I love the end result!!

Another batch of darker reds.

Love potion and bottles of  Bliss.

Big and small.

Simple blank note cards.

Box of heart shaped and chocolate scented candles!  (no calories!)

Amen to that!

Whites that can be given for Valentine’s Day and displayed year round.

Neutrals.

Pinks and signs for friends.

Sweet cherubs.

Stop on by and ‘shop to your hearts content’!