Archive for March, 2009
Maybe Next Year
Well, the Conyers Cherry Blossom Festival just didn’t live up to its reputation this year. It rained so hard on Friday that most of us couldn’t set up. Saturday was even worse with the day completely rained out. I didn’t show back up until about 6AM Sunday. It was about 62 degrees and you could see the stars so I thought this would be a great day to recover. I had my booth set up and ready to go by 9AM, just about the time the clouds came rolling in. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees and the wind started howling making it feel like it was in the 40s. I started out in a short sleeve t-shirt, added a hooded sweatshirt by 10AM, and then a polar tech fleece on top of that by noon. I told the guy in the booth next to me that my next step was to fire up the propane heater I had sitting in my trailer.
There were a surprising number of people that turned out for the show, but they just were not buying. The show extended its hours until 7PM, but by 5PM there were very few people and most crafters were closing up shop. I held on until about 5:30 and decided to pack it in also. I was one of the lucky ones in that I did make a slight profit. Many of the crafters in my area didn’t even recover their booth fee. I talked to a lot of crafters that had done this show for many years and they were very surprised since this has always been a very good show for them.
I can’t blame the weather on the show however. The promoters were very organized and this was the easiest show to load in/out that I have experienced. The venue at the International Horse Park is perfect for this type of event. Everything is level and most sites have space to park your trailer behind your tent. Oh well, we’ll see what next year brings on this one. With good weather, this show can be spectacular.
My new shelving system worked great. Even with the wind howling through the tent and shaking it back and forth, the shelves never moved. They are pretty sturdy!
What a Miserable Day!
Today I braved the trip from the West side of Atlanta to Conyers on the East side of Atlanta. It’s 58 miles from my house to the Conyers Cherry Blossom festival and normally I can get there in about an hour. However, this morning the rain was coming down in buckets and I was pulling my trailer. I think the highest speed I reach during the trip across the Interstate was about 45 MPH. It was a miserable 2 hour drive.
The festival has a mix of grass and pavement booth spots. I was supposed to go on a grass spot right at the entrance of the show, but it was like a quagmire, so the show promoter moved me to a pavement spot where she had a cancellation. We are supposed to get slammed on Saturday morning with very strong thunderstorms and high winds. So after a long discussion with the promoter and a few other artists, we decided to not set up until after the storm rolls through on Saturday. This essentially is going to give us a one day show. I hope to be able to setup late Saturday afternoon providing that the storm gets through the area. Otherwise, it could be a Sunday morning setup.
I just parked my trailer behind my spot, unhooked it and went home. The trailer has about 900 pounds of cutting boards sitting in it, as well as my tent and shelves. We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow. This is a picture of where I hope to set my booth up sometime this weekend.
Count Down
Two more days and counting until the Conyers Cherry Blossom Festival. I finally got my new shelf display unit completed and stained and the trailer is partially packed. I was waiting for the rain to subside to get my product containers and shelf system moved to the trailer, but I guess I’m going to have to get wet.
Booth Shelves
This is a picture of three of the assembled sections. There are actually four sections, which will give me an eight foot section. I discovered a small issue once I got this “dry run” assembly done, but it should not impact this weekend’s show.
The weather forecast is for rain through Saturday, so it looks like I am going to be setting up in the rain on Friday and watching it rain with possible thunderstorms on Saturday. Fortunately, the forecast for Sunday is partly cloudy so maybe it won’t be a total loss.
The Pressure Is On
It’s a week before my first show, and I’m getting nervous. I have enough products, but my new booth display is still not ready. It’s been an on-going project for the past couple of months, but I keep getting side tracked by other jobs. I have a basement renovation that I have been working on for the last few weeks, causing me to loose three days in the shop.
Today I got all day with the display and got a lot done. In fact, I should be able to start staining all the wood this weekend. I could have gotten a little further today, but I ran over to Home Depot early this morning to get some more bolts and they had a big sale on cypress mulch. Normally, it is $2.25 per bag, but today they had a sign out front advertising it at .99 cents per bag. Not being one to pass up a deal, especially when I needed about 30 bags, I loaded up the truck. Consequently, I knocked off a little early so I could get the mulch spread out. It’s always something pushing me back.
Working on Shelves
I have a delivery of closet material coming in tomorrow morning, so I am going to hit it early before the freight truck comes in. Once, I get the truck unloaded, I have to start cutting and fabricating the material for a closet installation next Tuesday. Fortunately, all my yard work is done and I can concentrate on staining the shelving system this weekend. I also have to get more cutting board care instruction tags printed up. There always seems to be something that still needs to be done. I was sort of hoping to pressure wash my deck, but it’s not a high priority right now.
So much to do, so little time.
What a week! I haven’t accomplished anything in the shop. Last weekend was spent shooting pictures of new board designs and getting them uploaded to Etsy. I also changed web hosting providers and was in a frenzy to get my site back up. Of course, we had bad weather and snow all weekend, so it was a good day to stay inside and get administrative tasks completed. Monday and Tuesday were spent at a customer’s home working on a basement remodel. Wednesday was spent getting the e-commerce package and shopping cart installed on my new Appalachian Craftsmen site. I actually spent about 15 hours on it, but it’s working correctly now.
Today, I had to take my daughter (she’s a flight attendant) to the airport at 2 PM, so I spent all morning doing the Etsy thing and updating the Appalachian Craftsmen web site. AT&T also came by this morning to troubleshoot my slow DSL connection. At least he found and corrected the problem so I am cruising real fast right now. I decided that I would hit it hard on Friday, but then a long time customer of mine called this afternoon and wants some accessories installed that I have in stock, so I am going to spend Friday morning getting that done. I hope everyone leaves me alone this weekend so I can get some woodworking done.
It is about 3 weeks until my first big show of the year and even though I have a lot of inventory, I am a little thin on some new designs. I am also half finished with the new shelf system for my booth. Last year I used all tables and was having problems fitting all my products on them. This year I intend to utilize the vertical space on one side of the booth with a shelf/display system made out of cypress. I have designed it to be easy to assemble on site, but look very nice. Unfortunately, I am making it up as I go, so the building process is a little slow. It should look real good in the booth. I’ll post some pictures this weekend.
