Christmas in the Heartland

I have been creating Christmas goods for almost two months now, but realized that I haven't put much up on my blog about it.  I have this idea that I am going to decorate my own house right after Halloween.  This will involve much scrubbing of floors and reorganizing my creative chaos that has escaped the craft room, crept into the dining room and starting to edge its way into the living room.  I will just have to see how I cope with that.  I do feel the need to have a sparkly tree on the premises, so will just have to make myself get to cleaning.

I have been putting out a plethora of little trees and assorted Christmas goods, here is a sample:

I Had Low Expectations, and I Was Still Disappointed

No surprise, Clarinda show still only 25 customers.  I did newspaper ads, 250 flyers mailed, facebook ad--reaction was "meh."  Here are some photos:

The faithful 25 seemed really happy with the show,  and also excited that I would be back for a Christmas sale, so I will.  I am contemplating trying one here in Iowa City, where the biggest problem is that there is no parking on my street and all customers would have to walk a couple of blocks to get to my house.  I will have to ponder.

 Also, what is the deal with the weird spam comments that I get on my posts?  I keep having to remove them.  News to the spammers--I have about 5 readers, your time is wasted.

Negative Self Has Come Out of Hiding

My positive attitude that anything is possible and that having a show again would be wonderful is starting to fade and negative me is yelling "You must be out of your damn mind."  This is certainly true, but also true that I have to go to Clarinda anyway and maybe, just maybe someone will show up this time.  

My ebay store is certainly full to overflowing, I don't think I have ever had over 800 items listed.  It is much more normal to have about 400.  Sales are uneven to say the least, lots of no sale days, but others have my car filled with packages I have to post.

This weekends offerings will include:

Darkness in the Primitive World

I finally got my Halloween goods photographed today and am off to list tonight.  I have also decided to do two Clarinda craft shows this fall.  My optimistic self is planning beautiful displays and getting all excited about what I can create in the next month.  My pessimistic self is being uncharacteristically quiet.  I am still pretty sure I will be back here next month saying "but no one came to the show!"  

The reason for the shows is this:  we have a downtown building that we re-roofed and gutted when we bought it, but then life got in the way and nothing else got done.  The city got all pissy about it needing paint, so James has been working on weekends, putting in windows and scraping paint.  Since we have to be there anyway, I figured I might as well make my $5 profit.  Here is the building in progress (the one with James on the ladder):

Here is a little bit of blackness:

It is a Trudging Kind of Day

I have been working non stop and finally have things photographed--today I think I took 300 pictures.  So much editing, so much listing to do now and I am having to force myself to do it.  Every thing is really cute and are all my favorites.  I worry about not selling them as much as I worry that they will sell and then I won't have them anymore--and I know that is nuts, but very true.

Here is a portion of what I need to list today:

What Happened to July?

I have pretty much spent the month of July at antique shows, spending way over my budget and forcing me to work overtime trying to get everything listed and hopefully sold.  I found some very unusual items, like this early butter stamp:

I bought way too much antique blue fabric--oh, now that really isn't possible, it is just that I should have saved the money for other things, but then I would never see more for years, so I had to.  

I made some things that I don't think will actually sell, but I indulged myself to just make a few things that I love--that Blue Italian tin is soooo me.

I have done up a few fall things, but it is so hard to do when it is so hot.  Predictably, I am just making more Christmas items.  The dress will be $98, the stockings $48.

And finally, here is a little primitive grouping of some pretty awesome antiques and some new papier mache numbers that I covered in old photos:

I Need Christmas

As the summer slow down lingers on, I decided dabbling in a little Christmas crafting would make me feel better, and it has.  I am very happy with these trees:

and these aren't exactly Christmas, but the bright reds are so pretty.  I've had these for a while, they just got a new photo session.

I just might start on fall next, that one always takes me a while, fall inspiration never comes naturally to me, but last years goods turned out ok.  Hoping for a brilliant plan to present itself!