The Show Must Go On

Monday, Dec. 02, 2002
3:31 PM

I had a really nice Thanksgiving, even if I had to spend most of the weekend working, to get ready for the craft show. Thursday morning, Kevin and I drove down to Charlottesville to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner, hanging out with the family and celebrating my birthday. The food was awesome and I got a yummy cake with lemon frosting for dessert. Usually when my birthday falls on Thanksgiving I get pumpkin pie with candles in it but I got a real cake this year. I figured out why - my mom's now retired. Lots more time on her hands! =)

We spent the night at my parents' house Thursday night and on Friday morning we went to my grandmother's house in Waynesboro. My cousin Sara was up from NC with her little daughter Hannah, who I had not seen before (she's almost three, so it's been probably close to four years since I've seen my cousin). It was good to see her, and Hannah is absolutely adorable. She definitely looks like a Wilbur child. When we first came in, she looked up at Kevin and said, "Oh, I haven't seen you in a long time ago." Never mind that she has never seen Kevin before. It was very cute.

So we had lunch with my grandmother, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, my cousin and Hannah and another aunt and uncle. A cozy bunch but we had a nice time and yummy potato soup, salad and muffins. Unfortunately we had to pretty much eat and run so that we could get back home in time for Kevin to make it to work by 4. Even though it was a short visit, it was nice to see family again. It is increasingly hard to get any number of relatives together at any given time, so it's nice when we do manage it.

Friday evening and Saturday I spent working in the basement, getting ready for the 24th annual Herndon Holiday Craft Show. I had a lot of grouting to do, plus cleaning and finishing each piece. I got everything done in pretty good time, including finishing a banner with my business name and logo on it and making a tablecloth for my display table. Kevin took pictures of each piece and we managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Sunday morning came way too early. We got up, got everything loaded into the truck and headed over to the community center which is fortunately 1 mile from the house. Got the display set up in plenty of time, including the really cool display shelf that Kevin made for me. It's basically a 10" box with a back to it, so nothing can fall off. We covered in with a green brocade tablecloth and it looked great. I had probably a good hour to spare before the show officially opened, which was nice.

The show takes over the entire community center: gym, meeting rooms, even racquetball courts have exhibitors in every spare inch of space. My booth was in racquetball court #3, in which I have played many times. Fortunately, all the tables and displays absorbed sound, so the court didn't echo like it does when you're playing. There were four other exhibitors besides me in that court.

Anyway, the show was definitely very busy, much more so than the one I did in October. There were actually people waiting outside the doors at 10:00, when the show opened. Throughout most of the day there was a steady stream of people coming through, though there was a bit of a lull around lunchtime and then things started to really taper off around 2:30. I sold a mirror and three tea light holders. I did manage to make my booth fee back, fortunately, and I got a deposit on a commission order. I'm doing a tea tray with a flamingo on it for a customer to give to a friend. Should be fun and I won't have any problems finishing it by Christmas. A bunch of people took my business cards, so hopefully I'll get a call or two from those.

I wasn't too disappointed with the show, probably because I still don't have much of a basis for comparison. But the guy across from me, who was selling jewelry, said that his sales were down 90% from the same show last year. The lady to the right of me, who was selling fake floral arrangements and centerpieces, said she didn't do very well either. From what we observed from the other exhibitors, it was much the same story all the way around. I'm not too surprised - the economy in this area just isn't good right now. It probably also didn't help that the Town of Herndon calendar (that gets distributed to all town residents) had the show marked as Dec. 8. =( Oh well... better luck next time.

So once the show was over, we packed out and headed home. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, relaxing in front of the fire with my book. Nice to put my feet up and chill! Kevin spent the evening working on my Summer Tree website, which has been updated with more pictures. Some of the pictures still need the dimensions of the pieces added, but we'll get to that in a day or two.

I'm being a little bit of a bum today, but I'll be ordering the tiles for the commissions I have (got another one to do for a friend) and planning the designs. Tomorrow I'll probably be cleaning up my workspace, as it's a total mess right now, and getting ready for new projects.

Ciao!