New friends we make along the way

Hi Everyone,

While traveling this past 12 weeks, we hopped over to Springfield OH for the big Extravaganza market in September. The weather was amazing compared to our first visit and a whole lot cooler by comparison.

This is quite a production and we were thrilled to be invited to participate in the Vintage Marketplace area where they gather all of the shabbies and vintage type booths together. Lots of cool stuff to be discovered and neat people to meet.

This is a three day show and we come in an entire day earlier to do set up. Its a lot of work for three days. On day one when we were headed back into our hotel, we observed a fairly large group of women pushing 2 large baggage carts. What drew our attention was the items on the carts. Cart one contained lots of baggage, which raised the question of how many were checking in and cart two took the cake. From top to bottom, it was chocked full of food and beverages, from chips to nuts and all sorts of adult beverages. I looked at the happy bunch and asked where the party was. I was then informed that 8 of these lovelies had come from several different states for the entire 3 day market experience.

Every year, they all decend on Ohio and have a huge party doing the market. So the following morning, very early as we were getting ready to go and open up for the day, I noticed these ladies starting their breakfast and all had these green shirts on. Finally one passed me and I started smiling.

Here's the coolest Tshirt I have seen in a long time.

But the clincher was the back . . .

Is that cool or what ? Everyday I would see these gals, whether it was them unloading all their treasures into their multiple vehicles, cars, vans and trucks or at breakfast plotting out their day.

Sunday was special as they finally made their way to our booth and we had the privilege of snapping their group photo, of course in their shirts.

I have said it before and I will say it again, we get to meet some of the neatest folks on the road in this industry. I thought this group was pretty cool!

Need to get back to making new gift bags,

Suz

the muze

our Etsy address  All My Musings 

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Where in the world is AMM?

That is a great question . . . and I haven't the slightest idea as to where to begin.

Hi Everyone,

I so apologize for my very lengthy absence but I truly have some really good reasons.

Let's start with since our last visit, we have done . . .

28 shows
driven over 7,000 miles
sold over 1,800 individual items
visited with, laughed with and enjoyed over 1,270 customers
visited 9 new markets or shows
eaten entirely too much fast food
heard back from 9 very happy brides and Mother of brides

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Been just a tiny bit busy and something had to give. The blog got the short straw. So let's see how I can make it up.

Back in July, we had the misfortune of doing a show in Ohio during the height of the really hot weather. How hot you ask ? Well, for three straight days they closed the show early because the heat became hazardous, 126 degrees on the asphalt, the county health department asking people not to go out, it was crazy. We were almost 400 miles from home and couldn't sell anything because people stopped coming out to what was a normally really busy show. So we packed up and left almost empty handed, no business. The following weekend we thought we would try something new and go as far north as we could, maybe cooler weather.

Midland Michigan ended up becoming really important. It was a good show for us, met a lot of cool people including the owner of the show, Lori Oberlin. In a conversation with her, it came up that she is a lover of all things shabby and really wanted to do a special shabby area at her next show in September.

I volunteered to help produce this event. What was I thinking? The heat must have fried my brain the weekend before and I said something to the effect of, 'Sure I can get a dozen vendors to come up and do this new show'. After all I had 8 weeks to work on it and only 12 shows to do in between, piece of cake.

Shoot me now.

But it was fantastic.

Here's a picture of the entrance to 'The Shabby Experience' at the Michigan Antiques and Collectibles Festival from last weekend.
More pictures are available at their Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/antiquefestival

I created this wonderful shabby bed with our stained muslin and a layer of beautiful fresh roses, carnations and other exotic florals. The little nightstand and accents were from our dear friends at Re-Imagined Just for You.

A close up of the pillow. It was gorgeous to see and the fragrance was wonderful.

I also sweet talked some of my favorite industrial vendors to come up and play in the other half of our area called 'Industrial Way'. Cool sign, huh? I am pretty pleased how it turned out and a special thank you to Steve at MAF who sat for hours attaching all those nuts, bolts and tools to it. Then mounted it to our pavilion tent so that that gale force winds wouldn't tear it down. Nice job Mr Yoder !

Cool sign, huh? I am pretty pleased how it turned out and a special thank you to Steve at MAF who sat for hours attaching all those nuts, bolts and tools to it. Then mounted it to our pavilion tent so that that gale force winds wouldn't tear it down. Nice job Mr Yoder !

The industrial dealers brought their best to show, like these fantastic pumpkins from Mike at Amsterdam Antiques, Saugatuck MI that literally flew out of his booth.

The whole experience was very exhilarating, very tiring and I can't wait until next June to do it again. 

I have to download more pictures, including wedding photos of some of our very happy brides and grooms.

It has been a whirlwind of a summer and fall doesn't look any slower !

Here's the details;

September  30 Allegan Antique Market, Allegan, MI

October  13 Indie Vintage Market, Indianapolis, IN

October 19 & 20, NA DA Farm Event, Esmond IL

Back to creating,

Suz

the muze

our Etsy address  All My Musings 

our Facebook address  All My Musings