Plastic ladies and a lot of ugly fabric

I have been getting ready for summer market season, kicking off tomorrow (saturday) with a one-day indoor market in chinatown.  I’m very excited about playing store, meeting customers and making whacks of dough.  I ordered four white half-mannequins, the kind with no head, arms nor legs, and only the front half.  They arrived all nested in a huge box the other day, from a canadian retail supply company that only charged me 9 bucks for shipping, hooray!  And they are beautiful, pure white with a sort of wood grain texture, about 16 bucks each, with a hook at the top for hanging, light and durable, easy to dress (you just clip or pin the clothing at the back so it fits properly).  I love them.  They are my team of sales ladies and I’m going to use them tomorrow at the twinkle market. (yes, twinkle, it has something to do with shopping in Holland or something).

Whenever I prepare for a market I get all antsy about cleaning out and going through all my stuff.  I discovered a pile of clothing I made last year and the year before, that didn’t sell and got lost in the clutter.  So it’s going to the twinkle market, and prices have been slashed to less than half the original prices.  Everything must go!

I also realized, as I looked through my overflowing stockroom closet, that I have a lot of fabric that’s really ugly, I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it five years ago, but i guess it was cheap and it’s been sitting in the closet ever since.    I have so much fabric, and other weird stuff I have been accumulating, that I think I will have a good old fashioned yard sale in May.

In unrelated news, I have had items on the etsy home page four times in the last seven days (normally I get something up there once a month or so, so this is unusual).  It must be pissing a lot of people off; there is a contingent of people who think it’s unfair that some people get featured a lot, and that everyone should have a turn.  I say to those people, go look at artfire and see what a “fair” site looks like.  Not so pretty.  I may sound arrogant, but I just believe in rewards going to those who work hard, have talent and taste, and keep going.  I don’t even mind seeing Red Ruby Rose on the front page sometimes two or three days in a row–her bags are beautiful.

Now if only those views would translate into sales like I used to have before the global market meltdown, I would be happy as a clam.

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