OK, so I'm a liar...

We just had a sale on eCrater.

I swear, you write something in a blog and it causes the universe to take action. Or someone might be reading.

Nah.

This Saturday - Trash to Treasures in Tarpon Springs

The weather's warming up, the sun is shining again, and it's time for Trash To Treasures, the flea market sale in Tarpon Springs at the other end of Pinellas County from where we are. We are well prepared this time around with the appropriate inventory; we'll have our portable shade with us, and items priced to sell! Bargains for everyone, from books and ceramics to jewelry and glass.

We passed on the chance to set up at the Thieves Market earlier this month on Anna Maria Island, as it was simply too cold, windy, and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Not conducive for customers to stroll and shop, and it would have been utterly miserable for us (well, ME, as Bob seems to be able to handle any weather condition thrown his way) to set up wearing mittens. This can be a capricious time of year with the weather, and I don't blame the snowbirds for their dismay at our out of whack seasonal temperatures.

Meanwhile, sales at Patty & Friends are holding their own, although my Teapot Extravaganza sale has been a fizzle. I don't think it was a wise idea with the coincidence of the Tea Party, perhaps. I could be all wet here (antique and collectibles folks certainly cover the gamut of political views), but maybe my choice of merchandise struck a nerve with some people. I'll finish it up at the end of this month and try a different promotion for March, and try to give the selection more thought.

One place that has definitely gone silent has been the eCrater site. I added a large number of items before the holiday season, but there hasn't been a single sale since October. I don't know what could have caused the sudden drop in sales, but I am just happy that I have no cash outlay in that part of the business, because if that was the case, I'd be very upset. At the most I'm just really puzzled and disappointed.

I am continuing to develop my paper and found object jewelry necklaces, and am really enjoying the creative outlet it affords. When the glaze is dry and the findings are crimped on, I'll take some more photos and post them here.

Now listed at Collectible Detective! and other neat stuff

(I just think that's the coolest name for a search site!)

Time Travelers was submitted and accepted for listing at the Collectible Detective site, where over 6,000 links to vintage and collectible websites can be found.

Interestingly enough, our submission of website information to the ACNA hasn't been listed yet. I'm hoping they are doing a massive re-do of the site.

Patty & Friends Antiques is undergoing changes as more dealers are joining during this start of the store's 30th anniversary. The Furniture Gallery is in the process of being altered to accommodate dealers who were affected by the recent closure of the Central Avenue Antiques store. It's an exciting time to be a dealer at Patty's with all the new, old wonderful enticements about. Currently we're running a teapot "extravaganza" with reduced prices on some really whimsical pots, practical pots, and collectibles all. Also to come will be an improved jewelry department as we better highlight our selection of necklaces, brooches, and earrings.

Merchandising at the store

These are some photos of the remerchandising that I've done using color themes in our booth space at Patty & Friends Antiques. Previously I had grouped items together by type or function - now I'm trying out a more decorative approach.

Today I worked on the jewelry display in anticipation of Valentine's Day, using heart motifs - earrings, ankle bracelets, pins, and necklaces; and the color red. I consider the display a work in progress ( = I'm not totally pleased with the result yet!) but we'll see if it has any impact.

What I took away from this year's ACNA meeting

I am so glad that we decided to attend this year's ACNA (Antiques and Collectibles National Association) meeting in New Orleans. We met with other dealers and collectors; mall owners and auctioneers; and received expert instruction in several areas that we're able to take directly back to our business and apply immediately. Now THAT'S what I call a well-placed investment.

The association has 3,000 members nationwide and the meeting attracted 50 attendees. Bob and I attended seminars on furniture construction, rhinestone jewelry, going green with antiques, and ceramics. We participated in a charity auction that raised over $1600 for St. Jude's Children's Hospital (and came home with some treasures!). We took the bus trip to Magazine Street, ogled the high priced French antiques, ate some enormous and delicious oysters at Cassamente's, and - came home with a couple of treasures.

We took to heart the message that part of the greening of the antiques business is the repurposing of our own inventory: fine dining sets of china have fallen out of favor with the buying public, as have those small, 2.5 oz. wine glasses from the 1950's. Any wine pour these days is of 6 ounces or greater. So what to do with those small glasses? What to do with those sets of luncheon and salad plates, when all people want now are large dinner plates? (And forget cups and saucers.) It's not a matter of waiting for these items to come back into fashion - it's more important to identify the need for those items now and repackage the merchandise so that it's more attractive to your customers.

Those small luncheon and salad plates, especially odd ones out of sets, make lovely stands for pillar candles. Display them with coordinating colored items in your booth, and your dead inventory items have a second life.

Small wine glasses come back to life with a tealight placed in them and similarly displayed. What are the new wine glasses? Water glasses with stems - they exist in many older glassware patterns. It's not always necessary to go out and source new inventory; we often just have to take a fresh look at what we already have - that's part of the greening of the antiques business.

Candles can be purchased in bulk at little cost and when paired with these re-purposed housewares from our existing inventory make easy point of sale items for your business.

Break up that stuffy dining set by placing coordinating colored items amongst them to add variety and flair. A white china set with a grey floral pattern is instantly modernized by adding some pink glasses and candles sitting on pink glass side dishes to the setting.

I came home from this meeting, and immediately started to rearrange my booth space at the shop, shelf by shelf. (I've got 3 displays done so far and I've been back for a couple of days. I'm fired up!) Today's project was to spread our remaining inventory out and categorize it all by color so that we know exactly what we have. Which is: a lot of BROWN. A lot of GREEN. (I had no idea until this morning, honestly.)

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm so excited to be excited!

We just went out for ONE garage sale, honestly!

...And came back 2 hours later, 5 sales later, the car full. Jeez, we thought it was late in the morning to be sale-ing, but I guess the weather (coolish and overcast) was on our side; and most of the shoppers MUST be at the mall.

I was getting a wee bit panicked with 2 shows coming up quickly in January and so much of our inventory tied up in the retail store. We really stopped doing any kind of serious buying months ago and have been working on trying to sell our existing inventory, but since one of the shows is the second Sunshine City show, the sister show of the one we did in October, I had that deer-in-the-headlights feeling that we'd better not have the same old, er, old things to bring. So we found some new old things today.

A glass topped bamboo cocktail table. A 1970's era framed abstract floral needlepoint in the colors of the age, orange, green, and gold. A Penguin round ice bucket (I love these!!) - every time we find one of these, we flip it fairly quickly. It needs a bit of TLC that my newly-tended to elbow can now give. Two cute vintage mini Santa mugs from Japan, very timely. A 1948 Zenith radio in a beautiful Bakelite case, a Tone Register model. The cord looks like it would set a house on fire nicely. A very pretty set of Alessi salt and pepper shakers from Italy - stylish and they have that instant vintage look about them. And a green glass sugar bowl of a pleasing shape. Oh, and what we went out to shop for - some assorted Wedgwood Queensware dishes in cream-on-cream.

I can relax now. Ahhhh.

Antiques are Green!!

Say it again. Repeat. And again. It's true! This year, National Antiques Week was promoted and celebrated in Great Britain during the week of November 23 - 30, 2009. This week long event with the theme Antiques are Green came at a pivotal time for the antiques trade when public and media interest is heightened by campaigns such as "Antiques Are Green" spearheaded by Nigel Worboys and the petition on "Antiques" designed to persuade the British government to provide more support to the Fine Arts and Antiques Industry.

Why hasn't this caught on here in the land of consumerism and mass consumption? Oops, wrong question. Why aren't more people educated to the high value of recycling housewares, decorative articles, and furniture that are widely available in the antiques and collectibles market?

Let's take a look at some facts about the purchasing of antiques as recycling:

Purchasing antiques antiques results in minimal greenhouse gases; no rainforests are depleted, and no additional minerals are extracted from the earth. Their carbon footprint has long been eradicated.

When looking at purchasing antique furniture, look for pieces that are solidly built and made to last - in stark contrast to the made to items that eventually self destruct, but provide instant gratification that are manufactured for big box stores today. Also, it's helpful to try to buy local - look for styles that are native to your region, rather than ones that might have been transported at great cost over long distances to end up in the antiques store.

With a little bit of effort, we can each do our part to encourage our customers to appreciate the impact that they can have on the earth by recognizing the recycling process in purchasing antiques and collectibles over newly manufactured products.