No, no, and no.
Not at 84% relative humidity and over 80 degrees F with a constant breeze. It was what I would imagine a slow roast in a convection oven would feel like. Totally unpleasant. And absurdly inappropriate to have the vendors come to set up at 7AM, when the main attraction, which is live music (that would be the Swing part of the event's name) doesn't even begin until 3:45PM. So for 6 and 3/4 hours we were pretty much twiddling our collective thumbs, waiting for the crowd to arrive. What were the Treasure Island Chamber of Commerce thinking when they planned this act of stupidity? What a complete and utter waste of our time.
Note to selves: we won't we doing this event next year.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
The ultimate in recycling
As we continue to fill our landfills more quickly than new ones can be created, it's worth looking at how green it is to market antiques and collectibles. What could be more wise than to reuse an object, rather than to discard something to a garbage bin and purchase a new one to replace it?
This is more than clever marketing - this is about reducing our production of refuse in our world. If we encourage people to buy gently used glassware, linens, clothing, dishes, and decorative objects, we are preventing those very objects from becoming fodder for the overburdened landfills. It makes huge sense.
I often speak of the treasures that we find at garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. We also have things just outright given to us to resell - and these things would not otherwise be used. We aid in finding these items their new lives in peoples' homes. Buying used items means that you're not contributing to the mindless cycle of always buying new, and discarding your old, things. You're breaking that cycle - interrupting it - and also extending the life of an object by enjoying it for many years, before in turn, sending it on to another home yourself. And likewise, when you're done with enjoying something in your home, think about donating it to a charity shop, gifting it to someone else in your family if it's a precious heirloom, or have a sale of your own, instead of putting it in the garbage. Just because you're done using it doesn't mean someone else won't get years of enjoyment from it - if anything, it's kind of wonderful to think of the extension of life it will get by being passed on to another household.
It's another way, however small, to green your small corner of the world.
This is more than clever marketing - this is about reducing our production of refuse in our world. If we encourage people to buy gently used glassware, linens, clothing, dishes, and decorative objects, we are preventing those very objects from becoming fodder for the overburdened landfills. It makes huge sense.
I often speak of the treasures that we find at garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. We also have things just outright given to us to resell - and these things would not otherwise be used. We aid in finding these items their new lives in peoples' homes. Buying used items means that you're not contributing to the mindless cycle of always buying new, and discarding your old, things. You're breaking that cycle - interrupting it - and also extending the life of an object by enjoying it for many years, before in turn, sending it on to another home yourself. And likewise, when you're done with enjoying something in your home, think about donating it to a charity shop, gifting it to someone else in your family if it's a precious heirloom, or have a sale of your own, instead of putting it in the garbage. Just because you're done using it doesn't mean someone else won't get years of enjoyment from it - if anything, it's kind of wonderful to think of the extension of life it will get by being passed on to another household.
It's another way, however small, to green your small corner of the world.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Internet store to live another day
First of all, wouldn't you know that we got an order on the TIAS site yesterday??!! Massive panic as we searched through multiple storage bins to find the item that was purchased - I knew this would happen! After months of packing and unpacking for show after show, never being able to pack a bin the same way twice, it's become complete chaos to try to find anything that we've listed on the website that is also something that we take to the shows.
Which is our complete internet store inventory.
And now approaches the end of the TIAS store, and an opportunity to start fresh someplace else. We are going to set up shop with eCrater, a free web store builder and a free online marketplace. With this new store will be different merchandise, however. I have seen (and did see, the entire time) the sheer folly of listing the same inventory in the old store that we were taking to the live shows. Keeping track of items sold was never a problem - I keep very detailed records - but that nightmare of actually putting my hands on something that's been carefully wrapped and packed away in a box that's buried 3 deep and 2 back in the spare room - well, that dream was realized and it wasn't pretty! The air was blue with the language coming out of my mouth, oh my!
And we never did set up our shipping rates properly at TIAS, which meant that we hadn't covered our expenses properly. So this time we'll be doing our homework more diligently, and also, having to weigh each item as we put it into the new store. The shipping rates will correspond to the postal service's Priority Mail rates, which is how we prefer to send items out.
My head is spinning at the work ahead of us. I've got the postal scale already, as I'd bought one months ago, then not used it when setting up shop at TIAS. Hopefully, this will dovetail nicely with the end of the live show season here. As we slow down with the shows, we'll be ramping up the new internet store.
Which is our complete internet store inventory.
And now approaches the end of the TIAS store, and an opportunity to start fresh someplace else. We are going to set up shop with eCrater, a free web store builder and a free online marketplace. With this new store will be different merchandise, however. I have seen (and did see, the entire time) the sheer folly of listing the same inventory in the old store that we were taking to the live shows. Keeping track of items sold was never a problem - I keep very detailed records - but that nightmare of actually putting my hands on something that's been carefully wrapped and packed away in a box that's buried 3 deep and 2 back in the spare room - well, that dream was realized and it wasn't pretty! The air was blue with the language coming out of my mouth, oh my!
And we never did set up our shipping rates properly at TIAS, which meant that we hadn't covered our expenses properly. So this time we'll be doing our homework more diligently, and also, having to weigh each item as we put it into the new store. The shipping rates will correspond to the postal service's Priority Mail rates, which is how we prefer to send items out.
My head is spinning at the work ahead of us. I've got the postal scale already, as I'd bought one months ago, then not used it when setting up shop at TIAS. Hopefully, this will dovetail nicely with the end of the live show season here. As we slow down with the shows, we'll be ramping up the new internet store.
Monday, May 19, 2008
A new look (template)
I've changed a few page elements and so thought I would freshen things up a bit overall with a new template.
We're getting ready this week, after a bit of a break, for the Sun, Sand and Swing celebration right in our own backyard here in Treasure Island. It's only a mile away from home - what a treat! And so we're shaking things up as far as what we're bringing to the show. We're debuting a $5 table, with selections taken from our original inventory of items that came with the purchase of the business. Something for everyone, we believe. I'll be making up an eye-catching sign for the table to help draw attention to it.
In preparation for this weekend we had the chance to really go through most of our inventory - several hours worth of work, but very satisfying as there were odds and ends that were in bins that we had forgotten about; so they'll get to see the light of day again. It's interesting to take a fresh look at these things given our accumulated experience of having done a few months' worth of shows, and having gone to estate sales, and auctions. It really helps you see what you have with new eyes - sometimes more discriminating, and sometimes with more appreciation.
What we're surprised about at the moment is the number of garage sales in the area at any given time. There hasn't been a weekend when there wasn't an enormous choice of sales, whether they were church rummage sales, community sales, multi family sales, estate sales run by professional appraisers, or people who just dragged all their contents of their garage out to the front lawn and stuck a sign on to a telephone pole with some duct tape. You can always find a good 10 to 15 sales going on within several miles of where we live. We've never had to go beyond our county limits.
A lot of it has to do with where we live, geographically. You can hold garage sales year-round, unless there's a hurricane bearing down on us. No danger of being frozen out, or often, in this years-long siege of drought that we've been in, rained out. So we don't have a season when people are clearing out their homes - it's more of a perpetual happening. I've already done my haranguing about the garbage versus garage sales that goes on, but I'm thinking that's a cultural happening that I just hadn't been exposed to before. Kind of in the same department as the guy next door who you never see wearing a shirt, and you wished to god that you could cover him up, because it's not a Chippendale moment when you lay your eyes upon him! It's just what some people do, put it all out there, because, well, they can. It's a free country, ain't it?
We're getting ready this week, after a bit of a break, for the Sun, Sand and Swing celebration right in our own backyard here in Treasure Island. It's only a mile away from home - what a treat! And so we're shaking things up as far as what we're bringing to the show. We're debuting a $5 table, with selections taken from our original inventory of items that came with the purchase of the business. Something for everyone, we believe. I'll be making up an eye-catching sign for the table to help draw attention to it.
In preparation for this weekend we had the chance to really go through most of our inventory - several hours worth of work, but very satisfying as there were odds and ends that were in bins that we had forgotten about; so they'll get to see the light of day again. It's interesting to take a fresh look at these things given our accumulated experience of having done a few months' worth of shows, and having gone to estate sales, and auctions. It really helps you see what you have with new eyes - sometimes more discriminating, and sometimes with more appreciation.
What we're surprised about at the moment is the number of garage sales in the area at any given time. There hasn't been a weekend when there wasn't an enormous choice of sales, whether they were church rummage sales, community sales, multi family sales, estate sales run by professional appraisers, or people who just dragged all their contents of their garage out to the front lawn and stuck a sign on to a telephone pole with some duct tape. You can always find a good 10 to 15 sales going on within several miles of where we live. We've never had to go beyond our county limits.
A lot of it has to do with where we live, geographically. You can hold garage sales year-round, unless there's a hurricane bearing down on us. No danger of being frozen out, or often, in this years-long siege of drought that we've been in, rained out. So we don't have a season when people are clearing out their homes - it's more of a perpetual happening. I've already done my haranguing about the garbage versus garage sales that goes on, but I'm thinking that's a cultural happening that I just hadn't been exposed to before. Kind of in the same department as the guy next door who you never see wearing a shirt, and you wished to god that you could cover him up, because it's not a Chippendale moment when you lay your eyes upon him! It's just what some people do, put it all out there, because, well, they can. It's a free country, ain't it?
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Darn #@!!$$ Internet!
Say - here's a link to our storefront at Amazon where we've been selling our books - and thanks to the fellow seller on the forum there who suggested I put it here...
I did spend too much time trying to figure out how to add the link as a permanent page element to this blog, unsuccessfully. I tried over and over to add it as a page element, only to have the link not appear. Luckily, though, it only reminded me of an Eddie Izzard discussion about computers that I watched the other day on YouTube, which totally made me laugh out loud.
Sigh. Now my eyeballs are hurting from forgetting to blink! Tine for a break.
Early the next day.... I tried again. Turns out that I needed to give the link a name. (Cyber dope-slap to the forehead.) Now it works great! Thanks again to the seller on Amazon who walked me through the maze to get there. I will link to his blog and sites too.
I did spend too much time trying to figure out how to add the link as a permanent page element to this blog, unsuccessfully. I tried over and over to add it as a page element, only to have the link not appear. Luckily, though, it only reminded me of an Eddie Izzard discussion about computers that I watched the other day on YouTube, which totally made me laugh out loud.
Sigh. Now my eyeballs are hurting from forgetting to blink! Tine for a break.
Early the next day.... I tried again. Turns out that I needed to give the link a name. (Cyber dope-slap to the forehead.) Now it works great! Thanks again to the seller on Amazon who walked me through the maze to get there. I will link to his blog and sites too.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Stuff from Under The Sink
I really, really wish that people would not sell their half used toiletries from underneath the bathroom sink. Gross! One place this morning had three tables' full of it - hello? Would you buy an open tube of toothpaste from a garage sale? Do people actually buy this stuff?
Not us, obviously.
I used a bit more discretion today in how carefully I looked over some the stops on the garage sale trail - I didn't sit in the car the whole time, but I was rather quick in my perusals. It saved my senses from feeling overwhelmed, so it would seem that I learned my lesson last weekend.
Generally speaking, we do best at the homes of older people, whose belonging are also older. That makes sense. At the same time, you have to look much more carefully at these stops for the condition of the items; there will be things that have been used for decades, and so will be much more worn. We're always looking for those treasures that come from a loving home - well cared for.
(And if you can believe it, we even bought a couple of teapots today. I never thought that I'd be buying more teapots!)
Not us, obviously.
I used a bit more discretion today in how carefully I looked over some the stops on the garage sale trail - I didn't sit in the car the whole time, but I was rather quick in my perusals. It saved my senses from feeling overwhelmed, so it would seem that I learned my lesson last weekend.
Generally speaking, we do best at the homes of older people, whose belonging are also older. That makes sense. At the same time, you have to look much more carefully at these stops for the condition of the items; there will be things that have been used for decades, and so will be much more worn. We're always looking for those treasures that come from a loving home - well cared for.
(And if you can believe it, we even bought a couple of teapots today. I never thought that I'd be buying more teapots!)
Friday, May 16, 2008
Getting Re(t)a(i)l
OK, so that's an awkward title for a post! But I'm actually excited that yesterday I took delivery of a credit card terminal so we can put through those sales that I've been whining about. I'm waiting on a call from the helpful technician from NACCA, who sent us the machine. He'll run me through how to operate the thing, and we'll be off.
It's a step backwards technologically speaking, since we started out being set up for doing the transactions with them for the internet store. But since that's about to close up shop, we had to make alternate arrangements so that we could still have the convenience of offering the convenience of plastic at our shows.
This company has been helpful and supportive throughout the entire chaotic experience with TIAS. They actually speak with me on the phone, and answer their emails within hours, if not minutes, of getting them. Yes, I'm still a mite titchy about the treatment we had at the hands (-off) of TIAS.
So we'll be able to do the manual imprinting at the shows, and run each transaction through the terminal at home (or wherever we are, as long as we have electricity and a phone line) and that will be it. What a relief. And, what an advantage!
....The training for the terminal unit was a breeze. I was able to key in the transaction that I had left over from the West Palm Beach show. So great not to have to worry about the website coordination to do these! This is older generation technology - you need a land line for the phone, and a plug. None of this handheld wireless stuff - but then, this IS an antiques business. Aw! Isn't that cute! (But I loved it!)
It's a step backwards technologically speaking, since we started out being set up for doing the transactions with them for the internet store. But since that's about to close up shop, we had to make alternate arrangements so that we could still have the convenience of offering the convenience of plastic at our shows.
This company has been helpful and supportive throughout the entire chaotic experience with TIAS. They actually speak with me on the phone, and answer their emails within hours, if not minutes, of getting them. Yes, I'm still a mite titchy about the treatment we had at the hands (-off) of TIAS.
So we'll be able to do the manual imprinting at the shows, and run each transaction through the terminal at home (or wherever we are, as long as we have electricity and a phone line) and that will be it. What a relief. And, what an advantage!
....The training for the terminal unit was a breeze. I was able to key in the transaction that I had left over from the West Palm Beach show. So great not to have to worry about the website coordination to do these! This is older generation technology - you need a land line for the phone, and a plug. None of this handheld wireless stuff - but then, this IS an antiques business. Aw! Isn't that cute! (But I loved it!)
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