Learning The Ropes (not the tight-rope kind)

This is Dionne (the owner of Strawberry Creek, in the stripes) and Jeanette. Dionne bought some of my wholesale goods for her store over the past year and a half. She was really helpful when I was doing just the wholesale, giving me names of reps, tips on what other stores I might approach, and being very open about her side of the business. Not all store owners are as open and friendly as Dionne. I have really enjoyed doing business with her. Now that I have my own store (and since it's in another state than Dionne's is) I visited her store while I was in California to take some notes on some of the goods she carries. Strawberry Creek is a wonderful store that my friend Lucille took me to as a possible place to sell my cards. Lucille always knows the magical places to shop.

I have to say that I hardly expected Dionne to stop what she was doing for an hour to give me advice on window displays, merchandising, and finding good shows...but she did. It's always so wonderful when people are willing to share their business experiences with new people in the same trade rather than shoving them into shipping boxes and sending them back to where they came from because they might be competition. I don't want to have a store identical to Strawberry Creek, but Dionne and I certainly share the same taste in many ways and I would like my store to have the same effect on people as hers has on me: you walk in and immediately lose track of time because there is so much to explore that you have never before seen, lots of sparkle, and lots of color. I feel like I'm being mentored. No, I didn't say MENTAL, I said mentored. Everyone knows I'm always mental, sheesh, don't need to tell anyone that anymore, do I? Anyway, thank you for the great visit to your store Dionne! And if you make it to McMinnville Jeanette, please stop by!!

While in California, the land of the harried people, I spent a little time with my friend Lucille, the genious behind the company "Forest Whimsey". She makes these very unusual stylish felted fairy dolls trimmed with pretty vintage bits and bobbles. I must note that she sheds a lot of blood making these so they are graced with a bittersweet aura. (To prevent them from being too precious.) I've perched these gals in a few places around the store, here a fairy lounges on a baby doll quilt.

Philip stayed up late last night to merchandise the store, finish moving the rest of our stuff from the old location to the new, and to hang things up on the walls. I think he's made some big improvements.

This table is now all Lucille's hand crafted goods. The old blue head is wearing a fairy crown, the basket holds gnome trinket boxes, and there is also a basket of mushroom christmas tree ornaments. I've already sold four of the ornaments!

Waiting for us when we got back was our order from Anvil papers which Philip re-arranged against this wall. The buckets were my doing. We also got journals from the same company, gift enclosure cards, and gift tags. Also new are gift packaged sets of cards from our friends' company Furlong Flowers.

This apron is one of Chelsea's finest. Chelsea is busy putting her own company together called Chez Lulu. This apron won first place in it's category at the Harvest Festival. I have to admit that I seriously covet it myself and would buy it from her but it makes me look like a russet potato. It would make most women look like a fiery sexy sirens. Trust me. It's HOT. You should know that in my circle, Harvest Festival and County Fair awards are something to be proud of.

The front windows are enjoying some improvement. I won't claim they are fantastic, but give me time. This is a whole new skill I'm building. I have ZERO experience doing it. Until now. I feel like I should have tried doing this when I was much younger, (this isn't a regret type thing where I WISH I WAS YOUNG AGAIN SO I COULD DO THINGS OVER...I don't believe in that crap.) I just can't help thinking that I could have been having this much fun all these years. What was I thinking trying to become a respected poet and writer? (head banging on the table...) Why was I such a serious youth? (I'm using a wooden spoon now...) Lord, being in my thirties is SOOOO much better than being in my lousy twenties. (Actually my twenties were pretty good, I was just way more serious than I needed to be.)

Can you see the wax turkey? Can you smell it? (Ugh.) Thank god it isn't scented strongly enough to make the whole store smell like fake wax turkeys. I think BBQ Sue is looking particularly fetching in this headscarf. I'm worried that she's still bare-foot. She isn't made to wear high heels (very surprising in this strappy-spikey-six inch heel-craze that swept the nation in the nineties and never went away.) I have to find her some modestly heeled shoes. Unless I can work her cold bare feet into the story line.

I hung sparkling snowflake ornaments behind BBQ Sue and Bob. I won't say it was easy, but I like the way it looks. I just wish I had the patience to hang about fifty more. Unfortunately I had to stop because the sensation of them getting caught on my clothes while hanging the others was making me grind my teeth in annoyance.

See the turkey baster? I love mannequins. They are so surreal. I think this is a pretty nice scene. I have only to print out a story for passers-by to read. The explanation, the punch-line to my strange little world of fiber glass people.

Yesterday really wasn't very busy. Which turned out to be a good thing because we had a lot of pricing to do, and more setting up. Today was different. I can't say we were swamped exactly, but we got close in sales to our best day in our last location and there was a really good flow of foot traffic for most of the day. This is how keeping a store is supposed to be!

Quite a few other store keepers came to visit which made me really happy: Nancy from "Found Objects" who is really a fun lady to hang out with (and to drink wine with!) and she's also very open and free with dispensing advice when asked. Linda from "Hopscotch" came in and bought some of Lucille's felted mushroom ornaments because her family is very mushroomy (plus I have to say she came to check up on us yesterday which is so awesome because she was really slammed with business!).

Laurie from "Redfox Bakery" came in to see the store and chat and she's one of those people I can lose all sense of time talking to because she's so interesting and funny, Patti Webb (who doesn't own a store but is the manager of the Downtown Association) also came in and had lots of nice things to say, and also Lori from Ranch Records (who is the owner of Ranch Records with her husband Kit and also is our new landlord) came in too which really pleased me because she's such a casual, helpful, and nice person to work with.

Right now I feel like we are being so supported by other business owners downtown, and by McMinnville in general. So let's just hope I can manage not to alienate anyone in the near future. Surely some terrible gaff is waiting to be played out in my court. Whatever... I had a great day! I sincerely hope we succeed because I'm really enjoying the path we're on. The only thing missing, besides an income, is a couple of acres to farm. Wait, didn't I just say that the other day? Well it's still true.

One other really awesome thing: the weather report says it might snow on Tuesday. Did you all hear that? IT MIGHT SNOW ON TUESDAY!!!!!!!