Notes From The Road :The Land of The Incredibly Tall Festival-Goers

Y'all, it's been a while. While I'd love to excuse my silence by saying I had been doing something really cool, it's just been life getting in the way.

Surely you can relate.

ANYWAY, life finally allowed me time to do some shows, and I got accepted into three in a row. The first was this past weekend in a lovely, hip neighborhood in Chicago.

Perhaps the only selfie I've ever taken that didn't make me look deranged...

The weather was beautiful, which was obviously a result of my having (after way too many years of getting soaked inside my tent during downpours) put waterproofing sealant on all the seams of my tent roof. Kinda like taking an umbrella to guarantee it won't rain, or getting your car washed to guarantee a monsoon, right?

As always, art shows are great people watching venues. A few random observations from the weekend:

            1) Apparently, it's a requirement that one of every six or seven people who attend this show
                be over 6'2" tall. Seriously, I have never seen so many statuesque people in one place in
                my life.

            2) Two very pregnant women were strolling down the street together, with one of them
                pushing a stroller with no child in it. Either the stroller child was in the park with dad, or
                these ladies were very prepared in the event of labor.

            3) A skateboarding dog will stop everyone in their tracks to watch (sorry, I was too
                 astonished to take a video)

            4) Accosting every fair goer who walks by your booth with a shouted question will, in
                 short time, annoy the hell out of the vendors around you.
          4a) Corollary to this observation, I could recite for you my neighbor's come on questions
                and subsequent sales pitch verbatim. The fact that they were selling candles and kept
                referring to their "best smeller" should sum it up for you.)

            5) Wearing a parrot on your shoulder as you walk the show will stop almost as much as a
                 skateboarding dog (see #3 above).

It's probably also great advertising for your business, which is why I blurred his t-shirt

At a certain point on the first day, I noticed that a number of people were stopping to gaze in the direction of my booth and taking photos with their phone. While I'd love to say they were overwhelmed with my jewelry, turns out they were taking pictures of the house behind me that looks like it's being devoured by ivy....

The windows are nearly covered!!

So all in all, it was a good weekend - one down, two to go over the next couple of weeks. 

A Long Hiatus, Killer Trees, and Show Lessons Learned

Hoo boy! If the road to perdition is paved with good intentions, my plans for making regular blog posts over the past seven months has me more than halfway down the road...

Lots has happened over the past few months (sold our house, bought a new place, moved, been asked to step into my former boss' position on an interim basis, took an anniversary trip to Paris), but I'm going to pick up the blogging where I left off -- smack in the middle of summer show season.

Each show has its learning opportunities.  For example, I learned that all the time saved by my neighbor artist when she set up the display of her whimsical bird houses in the open air instead of under a tent was equaled out each morning, when she had to spend quite a while cleaning the bird poop off of her pieces. Lesson One: there is no real shortcut in display setup.

The next show had no advance set up - rather, we were to arrive at 6 am to set up for a 10 am open. It was raining. A lot. And I was alone. I got my tent up enough to shelter the rest of my stuff, unloaded completely, and went off to park the car. I came back to discover that my spot was near a blocked storm drain, so that all the water draining down the street was pooling at the back of of my tent and those near me. God bless the volunteers who tracked down shovels and brooms to clear the dam and keep us from floating away! And thank goodness I had "borrowed" a straw fedora from my husband that morning so that I could stuff my rain-soaked hair up underneath and look (at least in my own mind) cute and stylish despite having been soaked all morning.  Lesson Two: rain + show setup = bring extra shoes and a cute hat.

The after effect of all the rain became obvious as the sun came out and the show opened.  Across the street from my tent, I saw this:

Take a closer look:

See it?

Killer tree!! Killer tree!! Yes, they moved the artist for everyone's safety.

This was a fun show (once I dried out from setup), and a good one. People were engaged with the art, enthusiastic about being there, and willing to buy things that they liked.

My favorite show of the season was held in a park on the shore of Lake Michigan. This was the view out of the front of my tent:

And this was the view out of the rear of my tent:

Not a bad place to spend a weekend! And though there were no Jingly Men, the music was great, the weather was lovely, and I went home with less jewelry than I came with. This was also where I learned Lesson Three: a tent that's near the boat launch will regularly be subjected to diesel or exhaust fumes from the trucks hauling said boats to the aforementioned launch. Nice views sometimes entail health hazards...

So another show season done. More lessons learned, and more fun memories.  Next time, I'll share some of my latest work.

Busted, Blown, Weighted, and Moved -- The First Show Of The Season

I love doing art shows and festivals. I really do - I get to spend two days outdoors in the fresh air, meet fun and cool people, and hopefully make lots of folks happy with my jewelry.

At one point, I was doing ten to twelve shows a year.  Yep, that's a lot. Since I moved, I've gone pretty much back to ground zero, discovering and applying for new shows and learning what works for me.

All that said, earlier this month was my first show of four (five, if I get off the wait list for one more) between now and September.  And boy, howdy, was it an adventure!

The Saturday forecast called for rain late in the afternoon. Except that the rain started right after noon. This was my view for four hours.

The silver lining is that my tent did not leak, despite many hours of saturation. The wind did not blow the rain into the tents.  And there were a few hardy souls who came out with their galoshes and umbrellas and shopped the show anyway. Gotta love 'em!

First day = not so great due to crappy weather.  Okay, Day Two was supposed to be sunny.

And it was sunny.  But it was also windy. Chicago windy.

Holy crap, y'all.

Necklace busts were flying all over the place -- this one finally gave up the ghost and broke in two.

The clamp solution wasn't pretty, but it was effective.

The show organizer required 40 pounds of weight on each leg of the tent.  I thought that seemed a tad excessive, but I dutifully strapped two 20-pound hand weights to each tent leg.

I can only imagine what the guy at Dick's Sporting Goods
 thought when I bought eight 20-pound hand weights

And thank goodness I did -- by the end of the day, the tent had stayed on the ground, but even with that much weight, it had shifted several inches from its original location. When the day started, the front edge of the table was inside the tent leg, not two inches in front of it. Astonishingly, none of the frames suspended from the tent fell, and no jewelry broke.  That, my friends, was a minor miracle.

If you've ever eaten at Waffle House, you know they call the various preparations of their hash browns "scattered, smothered, covered and chunked." I'll forever think of this show as "busted, blown, weighted and moved."  And just like Waffle House hash browns, it's not a bad thing -- just not something you should experience too often!

So what did we learn this weekend? That an investment in a good tent is worth the money if you don't like leaky tent roofs. That when the show organizer says you need 160 pounds of weight on your tent, you respect their wisdom and experience. That necklace busts will bust apart after five or six impacts with the pavement. And, despite the soggy shoes from rainstorms and achy legs from chasing down flying necklace busts, I love doing shows. Next one in three weeks!

I Survived the Show!

This weekend's incarnation of the booth setup. It worked okay,
but there will be layout changes for the next show. Granted, I was half-asleep
when setting up, so it's a miracle anything is upright and organized!

This weekend was my first art show in many months, and I went into it with equal parts excitement and dread.  Not dreading the show itself, but worried that after several months away from doing shows, I would forget something crucial, like a vital part of my tent.  Or all of my jewelry.  Or my pants.

I'm happy to report that I did remember to wear pants.  Both days.  Win!

We were supposed to set up on Friday evening at 7:30 (they had to let cars clear out of the town's center before letting the artists invade).  At 6:00, it was raining, with predictions of continued rain and gusty winds until after midnight.  Been there, done that, could do without it again.  So sweet husband agreed to help me set up the next morning at 6 a.m. (putting him on the fast track to sainthood).

The next morning was dry and clear. And early.  Drag-your-butt-out-of-bed-at-4:30 a.m.-to-shower-and-dress early. After setting up, sweet husband went home with all good intentions of not going back to bed.  Intentions that went out the window about 30 minutes after he got home.

Most shows involve a story about a neighboring artist. This time is was the stogie-chomping neighbor.  Mercifully, he didn't light up the big ol' cigar he kept clenched between his teeth.  But he did talk. A lot. Bless his heart, he was so eager to share the stories of his work that he'd chat the ears off his customers.  I saw more than one couple flee, heads down, without a backward glance.  On the bright side, if he'd had to step away, I could have told any of his customers all about each piece from having heard the stories so many times!

There were no jingly men or killer cicadas at this show, but there were a couple of toddler meltdowns, including a hysterically funny moment when a boy who looked about 2 or 3 sat down in the middle of the street and said, very emphatically and in a voice that must have been an imitation of what he'd heard his mother say a thousand times to him, "No, no, no and NO!"  Every parent in the vicinity chuckled.

My learning takeaway of the weekend was just how rough I look at the end of the day when I've been up and working hard since 4:30.  It was not pretty.  On the bright side, I slept REALLY well!

The best line of the weekend had to come from a lady who, after looking at some of the beadwoven pieces said, "I appreciate that you price your work according to the Pain In The Butt factor that was involved."  So my new pricing formula may be

materials x 2 x PITB factor = wholesale price...

New Town, New Show

My first show of the season is this weekend!

Keep in mind that I haven't done a show in a good nine months, and have moved in the intervening time.  My fingers are crossed that I haven't forgotten any major component of the setup, and that I still remember where everything goes in the tent.

Like any show prep, there are a thousand and one little details that still need attending to, but I'm getting excited about getting back in the show routine.  And I'm interested to see what kind of good stories the weekend brings (hopefully no giant bugs or surprise thunderstorms, but you never know!)

But if you're in the Chicago/Evanston area, come see me!  Whatever happens, I'll share my show tales with you here next week!

Snow and Shows and Summer Plans

Ok, so when I moved to Chicago, I expected snow. I'm not sure I expected 19 inches of it to fall in one day, but that's what happened Sunday. And committed Southern girl that I am, I loved every flake of it!

The snow looks blue because the sun wasn't completely up when I took the photo -
believe me, it's bright, bright white out there!

This was outside my front door yesterday morning as I set out for work. See that third lump from the left? That's my car. I expect to see it again sometime in May, when the thaw comes. Thank goodness I take the train to work!

In other news, I got notification yesterday that I've been accepted into my first Chicago-area show this summer!  It should be fun, but I wonder if there will be cicadas the size of Volkswagons at this show...It will have been about 10 months since my last show when this one happens, so I'll just be happy if I remember how to set up my tent without causing a crisis.  Stay tuned!

Freight Trains, Gas Leaks, Wearing Tablecloths -- Must Be Show Season!

Egads. I have been out of the loop on blogging recently (family stuff that's kept me far away from the computer, but that's beside the point). The upshot is that I did two shows last month that generated plenty of stories, but I have been remiss in sharing them here.

The first show was in the downtown of a small town east of Louisville. It was my first time doing this show, and I had heard good things from artist friends. Most of the show was set up in the park, but I was on the street next to the park. We really were in the heart of the town, and every few hours, a freight train would rumble through, half a block from my booth.

Yep, that's the 12:07 freight  from Louisville...

Running concurrently with the art show, and just a block away, was the town's colonial heritage days celebration. There were numerous people in colonial costume walking around to publicize the event, and even a few stilt walkers and giant puppets.  Gotta say, I think the stilt walker was cute, but the giant puppets were vaguely terrifying -- I imagine they provided traumas that many children in attendance that day will be dealing with in therapy sessions when they grow up.

What the colonial heritage people didn't warn us about were the colonial cannons, which were shot off several times a day, at unexpected moments and on no apparent schedule. Dear lord, they were loud, and boy howdy, did they startle the bejeebus out of people walking down the street!  But every time they shot off, I thought, "another story for the blog, people.  It's another story for the blog!"

Saturday's weather was hot. HOT. So did I check the weather forecast for Sunday? Of course not. I dressed for hot weather.  (You know where this is going, right?)  Yep, it was 50 degrees and cloudy all day. I was wearing shorts and sleeveless blouse. Thank goodness I had a table cover that I'd used for a Christmas show among my setup stuff, so I spent the day wrapped in a red tablecloth. I may have looked ridiculous, but I was warm! (And no, there is no photographic evidence of my poor fashion choice.)

Imagine this in Christmas red. That was my wrap all day Sunday. Classy, huh?

The next weekend (after carefully checking out the weather forecast for both days!), I did a lovely small show just north of town. When I went to set up on Friday, there was a distinct aroma of natural gas in the show area. Turns out that the guys who were setting up the music tent accidentally hit an underground gas pipe when they were hammering in the anchor spikes, and the utility guys were scrambling all over the place to fix it.

Fortunately, the leak was fixed, the show went off without a hitch, and it was a beautiful weekend. I'd been playing with my booth setup for a while, and this was what happened:

If you do shows, you know that the perfect booth is a constantly moving target, but I was pleased with this. A few tweaks on the to-do list, but not bad.

No real "oh my gosh" moments from this show (other than being relieved that there was no way anyone could blame me for the gassy smell), but there were two things that saved my life.  First was the fabulous food truck down the street, where I found this delicious ham, chevre, and red pepper aoli crepe (yes, from a food truck, and every bit as tasty as it sounds!!). 

Second was my little fan, which kept the air moving around inside my tent just enough to keep me from melting when the sun was high and the breeze was low.  Sometimes it's the littlest things that make the biggest difference!

No more shows for a month, so I have a great excuse to hole up in the bead room and make stuff!  Have you been to any great art shows this summer?

Clouds, Chills, and Jingly Men -- The Show Season Begins!

If you're looking for the BSBP8 reveal, go here!

This past weekend was my first show of the season. It was the first time I'd done this show, but I'd heard it was a nice one, so I was excited.

I was by myself, so to get my tent up I had to use the "crawl under the frame and push up from the center" technique. Quite effective, actually, unless you're like me and forget to plant your feet firmly on the slick grass.  Yep, I promptly fell right on my butt. But I was under the tent, so no one could see me blush (though they may have heard me laughing at myself).

I was happy to have the tent up and weighted down quickly, though, because all of a sudden the skies turned dark, and the 30% chance of rain became a 100% certainty.

Thankfully, there was no lightning with this storm, because I was
in a metal-framed tent underneath a very tall tree. 

Saturday dawned rain-free and chilly. Silly me, I believed the forecast and left the extra jacket at home. Thank goodness I'm still carrying an extra few pounds of fat insulation, so I was okay, but I did drive the whole way home with the car heater blasting at full force!

My new table covers worked well, but I forgot the curtain rods, so no drapes - oops!

And there's always one oddity at every show. This one didn't have swarms of locusts or torrential storms. This one had jingly men. A group of six men, dressed in what looked like English folk costumes, gathered on the lawn in front of my tent and did an odd combination of dance and whacking at each other with sticks, all while wearing big ol' bands of jingle bells strapped to their knees. While I admire the commitment and bravery it may have taken, I must admit I was relieved that their performance was brief.

Curious? Here they are!

As for the show itself, it was as nice as advertised.  Terrific volunteers supporting the artists, an indoor bathroom for the artists (seriously, that one thing sold me on going back to this show!), and some wonderful art. A couple of weekends off, and I'm on to my next two shows.

Bacon, Shrieking Cats, Snowstorms, and Deciding What's Next

There are lots of great things about doing shows. The chance to meet some really great people. The opportunity to share my jewelry with customers. And since my children are well beyond their toddler years and I am currently between full-time jobs, doing shows is, without a doubt, the best fodder for wacky stories I have in my life right now.  And no matter how bizarre things get at a show, I can keep it in perspective by reminding myself that "it'll make a great story for the blog -- no one will believe this!"

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I did a show in a nearby city. So I get set up and ready for a fantastic weekend, when all of a sudden, I smell bacon.

It was not the cologne worn by enthusiastic art buyers or the aroma of credit cards being swiped fast and often.  There was actually a booth about 100 feet away from me that was selling artisanal country ham and bacon, and dear heaven, they were cooking up samples. You will be proud to know that I limited myself to one sample each day. But it was pretty funny to watch customers walk down the aisle with their noses twitching and a puzzled look on their faces...

Not an actual photo from the show. But now I'm hungry

The music, however, was a completely different experience. Piped in holiday music for eight hours a day. I do not know how store clerks make it through the holiday season, endlessly listening to it, without wanting to slap the living daylights out of someone.

There were 32 repetitions of "Winter Wonderland", about 29 "Jingle Bells", and so many people singing about chestnuts roasting over an open fire, I figured the world supply of chestnuts was depleted for in-home cooking purposes. (I'm not exaggerating too much  -- I actually kept a running tally of the songs played Sunday to amuse myself). Sometime mid-afternoon on Saturday, an aural offense was perpetrated that was so heinous, it nearly had everyone running from the event space with their fingers in their ears. Remember the "Jingle Bells" done with barking dogs?  This horror was similar, only using the meows and moans of cats.

What I imagine the lead "singer" in this particular holiday
nightmare looked like in the recording session.

Good grief, it was terrifying. People looked alarmed. Children wept. Have you ever heard two cats fighting? Yeah, that's a Beethoven symphony compared to what this sounded like.  Thank goodness it did not get played again. Happily, the show was better than the soundtrack!

And this weekend was my last show for the calendar year. A local show, with high-quality work, with an enthusiastic crowd of buyers who eagerly await it each year. It opened at 2 on Friday, and ran all day Saturday. But we woke up on Friday to sleet and ice, which made getting to the venue and unloading the car an adventure.  By 3, the sleet had changed to snow, and this is what it looked like outside the venue.

A lovely volunteer kept trying to shovel the walkway,
but as you see, it got ahead of him.

What you can't tell from the photo is that it was snowing when I took the picture. Heavily. All afternoon. The customers who'd braved the sleet evaporated when it started snowing.  The artists had a lovely time that afternoon visiting with each other, because there certainly weren't any customers (can't blame them!). Saturday, though, dawned clear and cold, and the roads were clear, so we had a strong Day 2.  I spotted someone wearing a necklace she'd purchased from me at the same show eight years ago (!!!), and helped a number of folks cross things off of their gift lists.

This was one of the things that went to a new home on Saturday. Yay!

Now that I have a break from getting ready for shows, I want to hop in on some of those new things I've wanted to explore. Perhaps some soutache. Maybe I'll finally tackle CRAW. Probably not. Then again, haven't done any freeform in a long time.

What's on your list of techniques or projects that you want to tackle next?

Old Friends, Monkeys On Unicycles, and Eating My Way Through Town

This past weekend was the second of my three shows this month, and it gave me the chance to go back to Tuscaloosa, AL, where my family lived for over a decade. I was thrilled to be part of the Kentuck Festival, which is a fantastic show, and I was excited to be able to go "home" for a while.

And to start things off right, look who showed up at my booth almost as soon as the show opened --

It's Therese from Therese's Treasures! What fun to see online friends, and what a kick to see her again!  She is, truly, every bit as sweet and encouraging and fun as you'd expect from reading her blog.  If you don't read her blog, get on over there and start following her!  She was a bright spot in an early morning that had started with some passing rain.

Around 11, the showers stopped and the sun started peeking out.  Pay no attention to the water bottle I forgot to hide before taking the booth photo.  Duh.

 Each night I was in town, I ate at one of the restaurants my family used to enjoy when we lived there.  I may or may not have gained five pounds. Do the calories you eat when you're having lots of fun count?

I got to see lots of old friends and neighbors, which was great, and very nostalgic. Even after eight years, it's like the blink of an eye.

"But wait," you're probably thinking, "you said something about a monkey on a unicycle?"  Why yes, I did.  And it was in the booth next to mine, the work of a truly awesome artist who handformed whimsical and weird creatures from steel wire and found objects.  This monkey stopped people dead in their tracks, inspiring laughs, gasps of wonder, and lots of photo ops. The artists were terrific neighbors, and they won a well-deserved merit award.

Seriously, click on the photo to see it in more detail.  Awesome.

No peeing dogs this weekend.  A few mildly hungover patrons on Sunday after Saturday's Alabama football game in town, but they managed to control themselves.  Great sales, great fun, great food, great football, and great friends.  Now I have a couple of days to recuperate and make new stuff to get ready for this weekend's show!

My Life In The Forest, Or The 3-Show Month

Things have been a little quiet on the ol' blog recently.  But they haven't been quiet around the workroom!

Over the four weekends of October, I have three shows -- two of them out of town. The first weekend of the month (the only non-show one), I traveled to the Carolinas to visit my folks and hear a recital my sweet husband was playing.  So I'm not particularly well acquainted with my own bed this month, much less with my computer!

Anyway, last weekend was the Kentucky Artisans' Guild of Artists and Craftsmen fall show in Berea.  The weather was glorious, the setting was in a gorgeous forest on the side of a mountain, and the show itself was good.  The picture above was the view out of the back of my booth.  Not a bad way to spend a couple of days!

Of course, no matter how glorious the weather, any outdoor show has its own risks, which I've documented several times on this blog.  Rain?  Wardrobe malfunctions? Bad hair days?  Yep, yep, and yep.

This show was no different, although they were mostly things that make you say "hmmm" instead of things that make you say "yikes!"

Spending a couple of days in the great outdoors means spending a couple of day with the critters whose territory you have invaded.  I spent much time relocating daddy long legs spiders that decided my necklace displays were their favorite new climbing toys.  My tent, being on the side of the mountain, was on a slight slope, which meant that things leaned a little off-center the whole time.  Oddly enough, I'm inherently off-kilter enough that I didn't realize the issue until partway through the first day.

No matter what I may have encountered, the painter across from me had an experience that absolutely takes the award for story of the show.  He had leaned many of his canvases against the poles of his tent for his display.  A dog that apparently lived near the show site was strolling by, and decided to express his admiration of the artist's work by peeing on one of the paintings.  Yes.  Believe me, I kept an eye out for that dog the rest of the weekend!

So now, back to prep for this weekend's show, the wonderful Kentuck Festival.  If you're in Alabama this weekend, come see me!

Spotting My Work In The Wild

Hi!  Remember me?  I know it's been a dog's age since I last posted....

For the past two weekends, this has been my home, doing two art fairs.  Both fairs went well -- great crowds, good sales, and good weather (none of the predicted rain on the first weekend, and a good 10 degrees cooler each day the second weekend than it was at the same show last year -- seriously, last year you could see people's brains melting as they trudged through the show grounds....).  All but one of the pieces I blogged about in advance of the first show went to new homes -- hooray!

You better believe I was extra cautious as I passed by the Killer Cicada Tree this year. I managed not to drop food on my clothes.  I did perform a spontaneous interpretive dance otherwise known as the "YEOW, I Put My Glasses On Top Of My Head And Now They're Completely Tangled Up There" jig, closely followed by the "Now My Hair Looks Like A Scary Witch" boogaloo.  In terms of my typical show kerfuffles, both weekends were relatively calm.

I did spot a surprising number of people wearing pieces they'd bought from me at previous shows.  What a cool feeling!  It was kind of like spotting your favorite kind of bird perched in a tree outside your window.

Another cool result from the past two weekends was two new galleries interested in carrying my work, a new show that I might do next month, and a connection with a local company that could lead to some really exciting things. I have a few weeks' break before the next round of shows, but with everything else going on, I'll be spending every waking hour in the bead room.  I know, getting up and saying "I HAVE to make some earrings today" is an incredibly fortunate position to be in.  Excuse me while I go do a happy dance!

And The Fall Show Season Begins!

This week marks the beginning of the fall show season for me.  If you've been around here for a while, you know that this signals the onset of my own brand of slapstick and wackiness -- attacks of cicadas the size of a B-52, meteorological rolls of the dice, unexpected hairdo's, and the chance to meet wonderful new people.

This weekend is the Woodland Art Fair in Lexington KY, which was a terrifically fun show for me last year.  Here are a few of the freshest things from the work table that will be making their debut at the show.

And hey, if you're around, come visit me in Booth 153!

Wherein We Kick Off The Show Season, Try A New Setup, And Make Some Discoveries

This weekend was the first show of the season for me, a smaller, new (to me) show called Art on the Parish Green.

Arriving at setup, I found I had a corner space - and decided on the fly to change my booth arrangement to take advantage of the additional open side.  I also found that the person whose house I was in front of had cut his grass, kindly sweeping all of the clippings off of the sidewalk.  Right into the area of my booth.  Discovery #1: shopping bags, when used like miniature snow shovels, make a pretty credible grass clipping removal broom.

Usually I have my earring screens at the front of the booth, on either side of the entrance, with the tables set up along parallel to the back wall, with enough room for me to stand, handle transactions, and wrap purchases.  For the corner setup I lined the earrings all along one side, used a screen for extra necklace display, and shoved the tables together to give an island o' jewelry that people could walk around.

It worked pretty well.  And it led to Discovery #2: Dear Husband, who is my stalwart setup and breakdown assistant when he's in town for a show, was quite patient as I dithered around trying to figure out where things should go.  He's a good guy (but I already knew that!)

I had been thinking of making some tweaks to my earring cards, and I figured this show was as good a time as any to debut the new ones.  Spent several nights cutting, laminating, trimming, punching holes, writing information, and putting earrings on all the cards.  When I went to add the little strip of velcro (the hook side) to the back to hang from my display screens, I remembered that I had finally used up the industrial-sized roll of velcro I had, so grabbed some little hook and loop dots that were hanging out in the craft room.  I mean, hook & look is hook & loop, right?

Discovery #3: Different brands of hook and loop do not necessarily play nicely together.  Saturday morning, I arrived bright and early to put all the jewelry out, and started hanging earrings on the screen, only to see each card sail, gently yet insistently, to the ground three seconds after I attached them.  The hooky parts on the backs of the cards just would not attach to the loopy strips on the screen slats, no matter how hard I pressed, how nicely I pleaded, or how nastily I cursed.

After a few really frustrated minutes that included a fleeting fantasy of calling and waking Dear Husband to make an emergency run to Home Depot (it was still quite early, and even he has limits to his patience), I figured the only way to get the cards to stay was to wedge them between the slats and backing of the screens.  This worked, but the cards were, by necessity, a little at an angle and off center.  You'd think that someone who enjoys freeform peyote and asymmetrical design would revel in this little bit of freeform display, but having my earrings look like a bunch of drunken fraternity boys careening around after a hard night of partying made me slightly crazy all day.

Kind of hard to see how catty-wumpus these are, but it made me crazy.  Okay, crazier.

Discovery #4: Home Depot opens at 8 am on Sunday, and you can replace the velcro tab on nearly 100 earring cards in less than two hours if you work really, really hard.

Even harder to see in this pixellated enlargement cropped from the booth shot,
but the cards are all nice and orderly, back in their proper arrangement.

All in all, the show went well -- some really nice art, very nice people, and good sales, which leads to Discovery #5: Challenge pieces often are the first ones sold at the next show. These Adventures in Freeform and Bead Soup Blog Hop #7 pieces were among the works that went to new homes this weekend.




 

So, while there were no divebombing bugs and flying strawberries at this show, it did have its adventures.  And it's just the first show of the year!