Pretty. Quirky. » All My Treasures

Boothy News and Arkansas Purchases.

Lara Jo — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:10:52 +0000

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SO: I gave notice at the Fayetteville antique mall and prepared my booth with a closeout sale for the months of July and August. Everything is 50% off right now and then, come about August 15th, we’re putting up a 75% sign to try and get rid of what’s left. I have to give a HUGE shout out to my friends Kristie and Barb, who both have a booth at All My Treasures (frankly, the BEST booths in the place) who helped me price stuff there at the end– Barb had me change a price tag on a children’s cabinet that I was selling for half off of $25 to $80 — I didn’t think the cabinet was in near enough decent shape to sell for that price but within three days, it was gone. I feel pretty secure having the two pros advise me on this stuff!! I even got the storage space all cleaned out, which I didn’t think I was going to be able to do; I was trying to figure out how I could get down there again sometime in August to finish up things at the booth and empty the storage space. A few things happened that helped me be more efficient, though: the morning sickness started to seriously dissipate, I was able to fit more stuff into the booth than I thought, both older nieces stepped in to help a great deal, and their superwoman of a mother, Michelle, was relentless with her help despite the fact that she herself is seven months pregnant. “Let one of the girls lift that, Michelle,” I would say, only to turn around to see Hercules heaving some ridiculously heavy object onto her back and tossing it into my car like it weighed nothing. So in the end, I got to close out my storage space and JUST IN TIME: the day after I got everything out, I got a call telling me that a flash flood had flooded my storage space! I was happy to inform them that I had moved out the day before. The girls have promised to accept an hourly wage for going down at the end of August and boxing up what’s left for Goodwill. I was so relieved to realize that I wasn’t going to have to make another 10-hour drive in the August heat that I wasn’t as sad as I thought I would be about giving up the booth.

After Fayetteville, I drove up to see my parents in Little Rock, where my Mom and I did a little antique/thrift shopping. Shout out to Savers Thrift Store (which we don’t have in Chicago), who puts all of their maternity clothes in their own section — none of the thrift stores in Chicago do that, that I’m aware of. I have been sick over the thought of paying full price for maternity clothes since they’re SO temporary (hopefully — for all I know I could still be fitting in to maternity clothes this time next year!) so I was thrilled to find a ton of really good quality thrift store buys. I think I spent around $80 total but got SO MANY outfits — I’m probably set for September and October…I just have no idea how big I’ll be at that point, so I don’t know what to expect. I haven’t said this out loud on the blog before but we are actually having TWINS! I wanted to wait until we were pretty far along since there is always the possibility of a vanishing twin and it just seemed more prudent to wait. So, with twins, as everyone and their mother is all too happy to tell me, you get REALLY REALLY BIG.

Along with maternity clothes, here are a few little things I couldn’t pass up:

Everything in the first five squares came from Midtown Antiques, which I wrote about in my last post. The lamb and the bird dish are for the nursery (!!), the cake plate and the vase are because I couldn’t resist them, and the bust is for resale at the Vintage Bazaar. I actually got two of those busts for a REALLY good price but my mother purloined one of them for herself. The wicker baby buggy planter is a gift from my mom — she bought it off of ebay a year after we got married and has been sitting on it in the hopes that we would get pregnant. Thank goodness we did or it would have gone to waste! And the cute McCoy planter is from a REALLY scary antique mall in Morrilton Arkansas, which we popped into while in town to spruce up my grandparents’ graves. It’s so puzzling to me how places like that stay in business, but hopefully, my $4 contribution helped SOMEONE out.

March Booth Madness.

Lara Jo — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:49:36 +0000

I am obsessive with the booth when I visit. I am there everyday, often for hours at a time, moving things around. Michelle has gotten to the point where she can’t even watch me, it drives her so crazy. I don’t know that it would be a good idea for me to be in the same town as my booth — I think I may hide in the corner, spying on people as they shop, frantically replacing each item as it’s purchased.

I love being there, though, and always end up having conversations with the shoppers. That place does the business, let me tell you. Even on weekdays, the foot traffic is unbelievable.

The highlight of this booth re-do was meeting my long-distance friend Kristie in person. She has a booth at All My Treasures too and knows my SIL — she called me to chat about the biz. She’s amazing — she’s running two booths right now in two different malls. I can barely keep up with one. Kristie, you need to start a blog and teach us all how it’s done. She and her daughter Bailey have come across some amazing finds that would make for intriguing blog fodder!

I loaded the ol’ booth up this visit. The idea is to give it layers, like an onion, so people can peel off a layer and reveal a new one. That way Michelle has to do the least work possible. The whole idea was that she would be putting her own stuff in there as well, therefore mitigating my guilt feelings at leaving her in charge while I’m in Chicago, but what with the toddler and a new one on the way (that’s right! I’m going to be an aunt for the fourth time!) and the fact that she is the world’s most generous person and says no to nothing and no one means that she hasn’t had time to forage for merchandise. Despite my trying to boss her around and MAKE her go to yard sales. I packed up a lot of things — mostly things that have been there since the booth’s first iteration in November. I was pretty confident that it was the right thing to do but as I was boxing things up a woman came around the corner and said, “I saw a teapot I wanted to buy! Did someone already buy it?” and I had to unwrap it from the box I had just put it in. I guess there’s no way of knowing whether it’s the right time to take something out of the booth or not — who knows when that teapot collector is going to come in and buy every teapot you’ve got on hand? But I’m trying to keep it fresh so people wnat to come back often.

The second day I was there I came in the front door of the shop and saw this:

Is there any sight better than something of yours sitting on the front counter, waiting to be purchased? It sold the second day it was in the booth! (The person also got that awesome vintage camera for $5. Sweet score!) I’ll be anxious to see if the other two lamps sell.

Scottie Dogs!

Lara Jo — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:29:10 +0000

In my last post about the booth re-do I somehow forgot to highlight the adorable hand-made Scottie dogs that my Mom is making out of vintage and felted fabrics.

These three are currently in the Fayetteville booth but she’s sending me some more to sell this weekend at the Vintage Bazaar.

I’ve been sick for the past week so I’ve lost some serious time in preparing for this — it’s next Saturday! So soon!

And before I close I want to say a big HELLO to my new friends Christie and Bailey in Fayetteville. It is so nice to talk to people who share the same interests (obsessions?). I am looking forward to meeting you in Fayetteville in March!

Booth Re-do.

Lara Jo — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:54:46 +0000

I zipped down to Fayetteville last weekend to do a quick rehab of the booth. The last time I did this, the second week of December, we had our biggest month yet. Of course, that can probably be attributed to Christmas, but I’ve read that shaking things up on a regular basis can really help with sales. I drove down on Thursday and drove back on Saturday…and felt like I had been hit by a mack truck the day after I got back. My niece Alex was on the basketball homecoming court on Friday so I managed to pack a lot in 24 hours.

Michelle and I are wondering how long we should leave something in the booth before rotating it out — I packed up about three boxes of stuff that didn’t sell this time around. These items have been in the booth since November — about three months — so I figured they should come out…but then I stopped at an antique mall on the way home from Arkansas and noticed that people there leave things in their booth so long some of the ink had faded on the price tags! So maybe three months is a little hasty. I had three vintage cake stands that didn’t sell — and they were priced super low. That surprised me. I thought cake stands were still really collectible. Maybe this is a case of me loving something so much I just assume everyone does as well.

So the biggest new change is in the lower left photo — we built a linen rack. I should say MICHELLE built a linen rack. Prior to having this, I had no way to display linens and they were all languishing in the storage space. I have a bad feeling that it’s going to be difficult to keep the rack neat, but I thought it would be better than stacking them all up on a shelf. We also increased platter racks because the platters were selling so well. While I was setting everything up on Friday a lady stopped and said, “I was just here two days ago! You didn’t have any of this china! Did you hit a really good sale or something yesterday?” and I had to admit that it was all in my storage space. She lifted her eyebrows in what appeared to be a judgmental way. Oh well, just one more person who thinks I’m a hoarder.

See the plant stand in the top middle row? I happen to love it. Very 1950s faux-Mexican. Michelle and I had the following conversation about it:

ME: Don’t you love the plant stand?
MICHELLE: Oh, yes, it’s awesome.
ME: How much do you think I should mark on it?
MICHELLE: Oh, I don’t know, that’s a hard question. Something like that is PRICELESS.

And it was at that point that I realized she was being intensely sarcastic. She hates it! She also hates the rustic, rusty, vintage store display rack that you can almost see in the upper right hand photo, in the corner. I LOVE this shelf. I shifted a bunch of our display shelves around, bought a new one from another vendor, and got rid of a few — and all of the conversations about these moves went like this:

ME: I bought a new shelf and I’m going to move it to where the green shelf is and then –
MICHELLE: — we can get rid of the green shelf?
ME: No, I thought we would set the green shelf on top of the cream shelf in the corner but eventually –
MICHELLE: — we’ll put a price tag on the green shelf and sell it?
ME: No, no, I was thinking we could use it for garden items once we get further into the Spring.
MICHELLE: But eventually we’ll sell it, right?
ME: Call me crazy, but I’m getting the feeling that you don’t like the green shelf.

She says it’s dirty and rusty and all she can think about when she sees it are tetanus shots. I told her that eventually I would put a price tag on it, see if we can sell it, and if we do, I WIN.

I’m thinking I’ll go down again for a few days during Spring Break (late March), then again right after school ends. I’m hoping that if I shake things up a lot every two months or so, and Michelle re-stocks in between, we’ll keep things fresh enough to make sure things keep moving off of the shelves.

Bling!

Lara Jo — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:17:21 +0000

One of my fellow vendors at All My Treasures in Fayetteville had these AMAZING vintage sewing appliques for sale in her booth while I was home.

I think they must have come off of 1950s beaded sweaters and fancy dresses. I’m not sure where the rhinestone trim would have come from but it’s AWESOME and there’s so much of it. And I bought ALL of this for $8! $8! $8! Thank you, fellow All My Treasures vendor!