Boothy News.

I’m finally starting to get back on track with stocking the booth and was relieved to get my check this month — it’s the first really good check I’ve had in a while, which is nobody’s fault but my own. Stocking a flea market booth is a lot harder than people realize (a lot harder than I realized before I got my first booth) and takes up a lot of time and energy…neither or which I’ve had since March or so. But I’ve started finding some bigger furniture pieces, finally, which is the hardest piece of the puzzle, and have actually been painting them and getting them to the booth, which is the second-hardest piece of the puzzle. Furniture is SO hard to come by where I am. You wouldn’t believe how much furniture I passed by while in Chicago this last time — we didn’t have room to transport anything big but MAN it was hard to pass up because it was all so plentiful and CHEAP! I really should plan a buying trip where I pull a trailer to pile it all in. When I signed on to take the bigger booth, my mantra was “all I have to do is sell a big piece of furniture for $150+ and I’ll have rent for that month” but that was easier said than done. But, of course, summer is a much better hunting season than winter, and I have quite a few pieces out in my garage, ready to load in to the booth this week, just in time for the college kids to return to town.

Here are a few pictures from my foofing expedition this past Friday.

I’ve had those crochet pieces for a while, waiting for me to make a garland out of. I finally did it and was underwhelmed with the results, because the pieces are so small. They make for fairly anemic garlands. But I thought they looked better all hung together like that.

I’m finally selling this set of down-insert pillows. I bought them — probably ten years or more ago — at the Junior League thrift store in Evanston, IL. They were ridiculously cheap and are SO well-made, I couldn’t resist, but I’ve never really had a place for them. They were on the guest bed for a short period of time but the cat liked them too much there so they’ve been put up for years — I figured now might be a good time to get them to the booth, with the apartment-dwellers shopping soon.

I love this little table. I found it at an old shed sale for TWO DOLLARS. The top was a mess but the bottom was in perfect condition, so I just left it as-is. It’s fold-down size makes it quite handy.

I can’t resist brass animals. I’m not sure they’re selling anymore but I buy them any time I see them.

I got this little cabinet for cheap because the glass was missing from the doors and then used my new FAVORITE napkin mod podge process on two wood inserts and VOILA, a new look for an old cabinet.

Those are pretty boring pictures. Next week should be a little more interesting as I’ve got a ton of new stuff to take and the booth will look stuffed full for the first time in a long time.

One thing I haven’t talked about much here is Shara and my booth at Fayetteville’s Funky Yard Sale — a giant warehouse-y flea market in the town where I live. We started out with a set of shelves but expanded to a pretty big booth in late April. For me, it’s primarily for my prints — I do have a few odds and ends there that are more “funky” and less vintage, meant to appeal to the college-age crowd (we get college kids at my booth at Daisies and Olives, too — lots of them — but they’re generally looking for things that are more vintage/shabby chic). Each of the booths have a totally different personality and there are very few times when I have bought an item and thought, hmmm, this could go in either booth — things I buy have a very distinct place in one booth or the other. Even with the prints, I’m slowly figuring out that what sells in my D and O booth doesn’t sell at FFYS — I sell more nerdy prints, less romantic/motivational prints there. This will be our third month in the bigger space, and our first where we should see some sales from college students returning, so I’m anxious to see how much we made. With the shelves (which were very cheap — we were each paying $15 in rent), we always made a sum that surprised us — when it’s not all of your stuff in a space, it’s hard to gauge how much has been sold, so we always erred on the pessimistic side and were pleasantly surprised at the end of the month. The same is proving true with the new, bigger booth, and we’ve been happy so far with the results — it will be interesting to see what sales are like during the school year. I need to get some pictures of that space for the blog!

Hope your summer is progressing nicely. It’s been in the mid-90s for over a week here. Doesn’t make me want to get out in the garage and paint, I’ll tell you that.