Booth Adventures: Pt. 1
You ever notice how you set out to start something and follow through and life just kind of gets in the way? Yeah, that has been me keeping up with this blog. After my last post a few months ago, I even set down and wrote out a whole schedule for the following two months of new activities and posts to write about and it all kind of fell by the wayside for some reason- looking at you, life.
But, all that being said, I have been staying busy with some new stuff and have luckily not fallen in to the cycle of: work, sleep, contemplate my existence, repeat like I normally do when I find myself getting distracted from writing this blog.
What have I been up to? Well- let’s dive in!
So our couple friends, B&C own a few small businesses, one of them being a new vendor mall that they just opened this week. About a month ago we went with them to see the new location and one of their daughters joked that there was plenty of room for me to have a booth if I wanted to put some of my crochet stuff in. I automatically said: “Hard pass” but over the next few days, I thought on it more and toyed with the idea and thought it could be a fun idea. I was quickly humbled when I realized that I would have 3 weeks to get enough crochet done to fill an entire booth (they had a vendor moving out at their other location at the end of March) and the rate I’ve been going, it sometimes takes me a whole weekend to crochet an entire scarf start to finish. So I decided if I wanted to be able to keep up with running a booth, I would need to learn to make so smaller items that take a lot less time to make- that’s how I stumbled on Amigurumi.
For the longest time I have always said that I would only ever crochet in straight lines since it required minimal thought and basically zero counting (I know you are technically supposed to count when you’re working on scarves or blankets, but I like to stitch dangerously). My first try was a sea turtle with this pattern: One Cent Crochet- Crochet Turtle Tutorial It was a great beginners tutorial and I probably have watched it 30 times in the last few weeks.
In the last few weeks I also learned how to crochet ghosts, pickles, Pokeballs, sting rays, and I came up with a design for a fortune cookie. I also learned how to use a mug press to make mugs, how to make sublimation coasters, how to make stickers, and practiced making some tote bag with iron on vinyl. Needless to say, I crammed a lot in the last few weeks in order to get things ready. Luckily, I ended up getting a smaller “booth” in one of B&C's other locations which actually turned out be small corner in the hallway so I felt a little less stress to have so much product done.
I also made a large batch of my world(close friend group) famous pretzels to sell. My friends have been telling me for years that I should try to sell them but I have never been able to come up with a name that didn't sound too bland but also popped. I settled on the name on Wednesday and quickly designed the logos and ordered labels to print on. Friday night I got the pretzels baked then heat sealed.
Friday was a mad dash to the finish line, I was up individually pricing items, making coasters, and printing and attaching free sample labels until 2am. I was in stage of a panic but I got everything done I needed to!
This last Saturday morning Danny came and helped me get all moved in- here is the final results!
The next challenge will be keeping up with as items start to sell. But for now I am taking a few days of much needed rest and have been hard at work at my other full time job (Pokopia) and catching up on my "down time."
This weekend Danny and I are off to Denton, Texas for our first rodeo of the season. A 4 hour long drive will hopefully give me plenty of time to get some back stock crocheted!
Next week, I hope to kick off a new series I'm calling: "Movie Mondays...on a Tuesday" where I'll be slowly working my way through this Letterboxd List I stumbled on and writing my thoughts on each film!
Until next time, -Roy