The ups and downs of art shows

It's not only, all about the designs at these shows.......

This past weekend we worked at our Art and Wine Show in Novato CA. 

This is me. All ready to share our designs with you on Sunday. 

The weather was so crazy beginning with temperatures raging around 100. 

Our first two sales came early, in the first 10 minutes. That should be a good sign!! Neither one of our square swipers would work and we ended up selling the items for cash. Later I found a card swiper that did work. We had quite a bit of traffic but as the heat rose the comments were all around how hot it was. It seemed the vendors making money sold lemonade and slushies. Our next sale came at 3 pm. 

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That gave us lots of time to people watch. We noticed so many people walking down the middle of the street in a zombie like march as if they were on a conveyor belt. The were all busy talking and it seemed they had no idea why they had arrived at this street fair. The ladies who did make it in commented on how hot it was as quickly moved on. Deciding on jewelry was not the current concern. 

 

A teenager on a skate scooter flew by on the sidewalk behind our tent with 2 parakeets, not parrots,  on his shoulders and a little chihuahua running beside him. 

Two older ladies came in our booth with wine glasses hanging like a necklace on a leather strap. One of them also had a insulated cup and her friend mentioned her frozen champagne in it. She suddenly tossed it to the grass in the rear of our tent and said some street person would find it. He friends mouth dropped and in embarrassment and they left. We just looked at each other in amazement. 

Sunday was nearly 30 degrees cooler. We started off with Peet's coffee's new coconut latte and enjoyed a decadent breakfast at Rustic Bakery. They were located about a block from our booth and we ended up eating there all weekend. I can't tell you what you were missing, but the almond pastries and Chinese chicken salad were amazing. This was one of the best parts of this weekend. 

The reason we are here is we also enjoy talking to the many people who stopped to admire our work. At one point we chuckled and said if we had $5.00 for every time we were told we are "True Artists" or "How beautiful our designs are!!" we could make a lot of money. 

One of my new artist friends I met though Etsy, Tina and her husband came out to meet us. That is always fun.  It seems at nearly every show we have customers or other artists from Etsy come to meet us. 

In all seriousness it is always so encouraging to hear the comments and we sold more on Sunday. I received a tip for the most gorgeous eyelashes. A beautiful lady shared her secret. Latisse. 

We sold  art bead necklaces, bracelets, hand crafted earrings, some art work and lots of key fobs. 

The topping on the weekend was when we were dead tired and taking down our displays. A man walking his dog came by claiming to be business man and told us we were idiots to take our own tent down when we could pay someone to do it. 

We packed up the van and arrived home to a 1/2 bowl of soup and fresh toast from that bakery 

and it did not take long to hit the pillow. 

Our next shows will be in the next month and with some of our new designs and displays we are ready to go. Watch for our show schedule and lots of new listings coming this week.