Liberty Grove Historical Society Vintage Market

One of you wrote to me yesterday and said it had been a while since she had heard from me and she wondered if Mark and I were OK. I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but yes, we are both fine!

For the last month, I have been preparing to set up a booth at the Liberty Grove Historical Society Vintage Market. There was one today and there will be another one on September 11th. (Just a heads up that I might not be very communicative before that one either.) They only charged $10 to set up a booth!

You may recall that I started a quilt kit-making business last summer called Camp Quilter Kits LLC. I had set up a website and a Facebook page and I barely made any sales all year. I had been paying for a number of services all year and my business bank account was shrinking, so I shut down some of those services. I moved my online business to Etsy and I’ve made a few more sales there than I did on my own website, but the things I’ve sold on Etsy have been used patterns that I didn’t make. I have been wanting to sell my own stuff, so I decided to set up a booth at the Vintage Market and try selling live. Mark shared my booth and had some of his leatherwork for sale. He didn’t sell anything, but he was perfectly happy just sitting there working on his leatherwork. I did quite well!

I wore one of my costumes from the Noble House. I wasn’t able to set up all my kits, but these were the ones I brought with me.
I made a storyboard to show how to make one of my campers.
This is a sample I made to show what can be done with my Wanda’s Journey collection.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my Wanda’s Journey collection, there was a woman in Sturgeon Bay who was an avid sewer. She developed dementia and couldn’t remember how to sew, so I got a stack of T-shirt pictures she had collected, and I thought that it would be good to sell them and donate half the proceeds to the Alzheimer’s Association. The Alzheimer’s Association has a fundraiser called The Longest Day on June 21st each year, and I was going to make blocks for people who donated to The Longest Day through a page I set up on their website. I got plenty of donations, but nobody wanted me to make blocks for them, so I thought I might be able to get people at the Vintage Market interested in designing their own campers and picking a T-shirt picture to go with it. Two teenaged girls sat down and had a lot of fun designing their own campers, but they bought them to fuse onto a shirt of their own. Someone else wasn’t interested in buying it, but she donated outright to the Alzheimer’s Association, so I had $17 to give to the organization.

Build your own camper!
Mark chose to face away from the rest of the market so he wouldn’t be disturbed. 😛
The other booths
From 1:00-3:00, a really good music group serenaded everyone!

The weather was overcast and humid throughout the sale, but fortunately, the rain held off until everything was packed back up and put away at the end of the sale. Mark and I got loaded up sooner than most of the booths and we got home and brought everything inside. Then I went through the cash I took in today and I had enough to take Mark out for dinner and dessert!

I learned some things from the sale today. Most people don’t like Halloween, at least not as far as decorating is concerned. Next month, I’ll bring more stuff for Thanksgiving and Christmas and see if they sell better. Also, when women would come by and I’d ask if they sewed, most of them would say, “I used to.” A couple of times, people asked me if I was selling my samples. I may have to make some of my kits up and sell them for a higher price. Also, a couple of people asked if I would take a card. I just bought a square and received it about a week and a half ago, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to use the darn thing. I will need to get that up and running before the next sale. On the whole, though, I was happy with the sales I made!

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