A star is born

Hi Everyone,


Wow, two blog post in two days, the world may now officially come to an end, LOL! 


Back home again after two very good days in St Charles and we met a whole lot of new friends as well. Another wonderful outing! I am still saying silent thank you's as the weather is holding and it was beautiful here in Illinois, 48 degrees and sunshine instead of the typical horrific snow storms we always have had this week in past years.


After every show we finish, I always do a recap, what we sold, how I perceived people reacting to our merchandise and what conversations took place, so as to prepare for the next show. It has always been a standing rule in all my businesses that you really need to listen to what is and isn't being said in your store to get a feeling for what the customer is truly looking for. So, to that end, I try to talk to everyone that stumbles into our little world. Today, I heard the best line ever I think.


I approach a nicely dressed woman who was looking at our brown paper packages line and she asked if I made all the flowers and butterflies that were displayed on our primitive wooden ironing board. I told her yes they were mine and that I tried to introduce at least one new flower every show and a new butterfly every other show so as to keep my little garden fresh with nice package trims. Operative word here, try . . . .


She was very complementary and told me how much she liked all the different pieces. And then she said, very sincerely I might add, " You are truly talented, all these things are really so pretty but boy, it must be so very noisy in your brain, with all those ideas trying to get out."


I started laughing and she did too, and I told her she couldn't have been closer to the truth if I had written it out for her. It's true, some days, there is a real traffic jam up there trying to format all the ideas into reality and other days  . . . there is NOTHING, nadda, zilch, buptkus, zero. It is so maddening at times. You never really know who is going to show up and whether or not is is really going to work. An honest to goodness crap shoot from the get go.


But then, there are times when it really does work, like today with our old rusted bed springs. We sell quite a few of them, mostly to people who have absolutely no idea what they are going to do with them but just love the idea of having one. True, that's what most of them say! It is so funny to hear that sometimes as I am packaging them up.


So to help everyone get a clue, I came up with this idea and boy, was it ever a hit today.

A simple bud vase made with a test tube with our rusted bed spring. A big thank you to our next door show neighbor, Jeanine ( I need a French cruller now ) from Chippy Shabby. She always has fresh flowers in her booth and she graciously shared a beautiful Shasta daisy with me for this. It was so simple but so spot on for one of those perfect touches. A design star was born. If you need one of these, drop me an email, we still have a couple left ( you are on your own for the Shasta Daisy part tho).


We will be up at Grayslake IL next weekend for the Antique Show so if you are in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello. I will be the chatty one there . . . .


Til then I need to create a few more new goodies for the booth,


Suz the muze
All My Musings
630.917.8777

Welcome Surprizes

Hi Everyone,


Just walking in the door from a very busy day at the Antiques and Collectibles show in St. Charles at the Dupage Expo Center. Lots of great folks showed up at 11 AM and we stayed busy thoughout most the day.


I took some new things to this show that I was able to finish up in the nick of time.


First, is a new item for our Brown Paper Packages line called Prairie Hearts, a neat 4" heart cut from our wrapping paper and embellished with old Sherlock book pages, buttons, muslin and gauze. These are so sweet in real life and we sold some of them today.

Next is one of the many new designs in altered tin cans I am doing. This one is covered in paper with old antique foreign stamps and shipping tags attached to the outside. It will be perfect for a pencil or tool holder on a desk.

I have done these little covered books before but they sell so quickly I have never been able to get a picture posted. Gotcha this time !

The biggest surprize today came from one of our customers, Annette. When I saw her, I recognized that she had been a customer in the booth before but not remembering what she had bought until I looked at the bag she was carrying.


We are always encouraging everyone who stops in and visits to be creative and wrap a package, create something from paper of our elements and use some of those wonderful coffee bean bags into something.


Well, Annette did just that. She made this great tote bag from one of our coffee bags, one from El Salvador to be exact and it was just outstanding ! ! ! !  Talk about a full circle moment, it was really humbling.


Look at this adorable bag . . . 

I have plans on offering totes in our booth by this Spring, but was just tickled pink when Annette showed hers today. I am so thrilled to see our coffee bean bags finding new life and oh so fashionable to boot! Congrats Annette and can't wait to see the new ones you will create ( she took a armful of new burlap home today!). Thank you so much for being so generous in sharing your work. It truly was a pleasure seeing you and your bag today.

We are at St Charles tomorrow for the last time until Fall of 2012 and then on to Grayslake Antique Show next weekend. No rest for the wicked they say . . . 

Til then,

Suz the muze

All My Musings

630.917.8777

The Little Things That Really Count

Hi Everyone,


Well, here I am, apologizing for being MIA . . . again! This seems to be a recurring theme in our lifestyle of late. Hmmm, put that on the list to work on as well in the near future.


It really has been nice to be home, in my work area, creating and plotting a I call it, and not being gone at least 3 or more days every single week that we experienced every single week from spring to winter last year. Please don't misunderstand, we love doing our shows but the road is very tough sometimes. The upside is we have missed our regular customers and booth neighbors as well. The off time also has given us time to attend to some pressing personal matters at hand.


The 'Mother Unit' as we have been referring to her as of late, Fran, has had yet another surgery and this time was better than most of them have been lately but still very taxing and tiring on all of us. She had been so helpful all season with keeping us supplied with our handmade shopping bags for our customers, that this seemed like divine inspiration, we didn't need as many bags with fewer shows for a couple of months and she needed recuperation time. Funny how things work out like that. She is improving every day and will be back to her ornery self in no time, I am sure of it.


But since I have spent countless hours in waiting rooms lately, I have had time to finalize all the changes we will be bring to our lines for this year's season. It also gave us plenty of time to discuss were we will actual be showing this season as well.


A lot of what I have been reading about on different artist websites and blogs is about how many fewer venues there seems to be to choose from. I should correct that that and say how many fewer really good venues there are. It seems right the opposite for us right now, thank heavens. We were so incredibly blessed to have been chosen by so many great promoters to do shows this year. In fact, we have a HUGE debate going on about a certain weekend in June, where we must choose one show from five possibles. It is quite emotional to decide against a promoter, really tough. Little bit by little bit we are trying to set the schedule. In today;s mail arrived an invitation to do a show for September, jeez Louise, I can't even figure out March yet!


A couple of weekends ago, we went south to Gifford, IL, population 975 salute, don't worry we didn't know where it was at first either. But it ended up being a good weekend. It was a beautiful venue, Gordyville, that deals mainly in horse shows,

and once a month they host a flea market / antique show. Mostly flea. We had never done a venue where so many customers stopped at our booth to acknowledge that we were new blood and how appreciative they were that we did the show. It was a very unique feeling to say the least.


We traveled to the show with our friend Rick who does primitive, rustic and industrial antiques and set up back to back with our booths. (We are used to being side to side) So this is what we started out looking like at this show,

He had placed that red kiddie car on top of one of his cabinets but every 3 year old in the place tried to climb my display to get to it. After it sold, we went back to being a bit more shabby looking. All the farmers were so disappointed when they found out that our burlap bags were only coffee bean bags and not corn and soybean bags, something I explained at least three dozen times.


In the next couple of weekends, we will be doing the last St. Charles show at the Dupage Expo Center on February 4th and 5th and then back to Grayslake IL to the Lake County Fairgrounds for the Antique and Collectibles Show. I can not say enough about much we love showing here. The building is wonderful and large and the show is so well run by our beloved Zurko crew. We have developed a nice following, thank you very much and have the coolest booth neighbors that are enjoyable to be around. We have learned so much about the industry, new venues and the art of doing road shows, we will be eternally grateful for all the kindnesses they have shown us. We laugh, we eat, we commiserate, it truly is about the little moments in our everyday life that matters most.


A little bit of creating is starting to appear as well. The new displays I designed for the January shows for our brown paper packages line made a huge impact and I am in the process of adding more new 'Elements' to the board. I have added about 12 so far and the very latest are these wonderful little goodies, 1 1/4" metal rimmed tags covered with beautiful shabby chic cotton prints, just a fun little tie on accent for any package or brown paper bag.

Aren't they adorable? They will be available this weekend, 3 pieces to a package, assorted patterns so that you will have variety in your trims.


There will also be be new paper hearts, new slip-covered journals, (the last ones sold out so fast, it was scary! ), and if I could only figure out how to hang a wreath without a tent wall, I could show my new burlap wreath designs. Always a new challenge it seems.


In the meantime, I need to get back to creating and being appreciative for all the wonderful moments this crazy adventure has taken us on so far. As soon as we make the travel decisions, we will post a schedule here on the site as well as the new schedule for the Spring Brown Paper Packages classes coming up. So much to do and so little time to get it all finished . . . 


Til then,


Suz
the muze
All My Musings
630.917.8777