Lean into the cute
May. 23rd, 2021 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrMy favorite science podcast, Ologies, has an interesting and slightly spacy closing theme: over mellow instrumental, a woman's voice recites a list of different scientific fields, "ologies," if you will. Pathology, serology, nanotechnology. My fave is pachydermatology--the study of large, thick skinned mammals, as shown here. Almost chose this as "today's theme" on Instagram yesterday, but decided instead to go with what I'm known for: Baby elephant, baby squirrel, bunnies; lean into the cute.
Both of my neighbors were leather crafters, but their displays couldn't have been more different. Gera (pron. HAY-rah), to my left, has a full booth with trade-show grey fabric panels, an EZ-Up canopy, counter space. Gordon, to my right, has a blue pipe-frame rolling cart, a folding card table, and a chair. And a portable anvil to punch holes and cut belts to size. They both seem to be having pretty good days, Gordon sold all but three bracelets, numerous belts and a couple of big courier bags.
I had a very good day as well, over $800 in sales. I keep expecting some sort of crash, and it keeps not happening. Good thing I'm firing a kiln before my next Market.
It's our first full week since the new CDC masking guidelines dropped. All but three or four of the vendors I saw were still masked, and a good 80% of the public, including all the of customers in my booth. Of course, there's also the usual naked-nosers, and an older woman who keeps pulling her mask down to talk to me. I'm fully vaccinated, so a little more blasé about it; no longer wiping down pots with hand sanitizer after customers handle them. Keeping my mask, though.
A little girl comes in with a white mask with pink tongue painted on. I point to my teddy-bear mask and say, Look, our masks are twinses! She agrees, and laughs even harder when I show her my teddy bear with her mask. Kids are the best sometimes.
I sold a lot of Denise's greeting cards, nine in all, I think. They're actually a collaborative effort, copies from my watercolor sketchbooks mounted on her handmade paper. My favorite sale is to a college girl. She wants two, and one has to be the barn owl pic; the other is one of five different floral patterns, and she just can't decide. Her friend is no help, she goes 'round and 'round, and finally, I get a quarter out of my pocket, and start flipping it. Heads, this one, tails, that--ope, that one goes back in the box. Now these two, then these--four flips later, she's down to the apple blossoms card with the honeybee, and happy with it.
And because nothing ever just happens once: There's a young married couple who just got their first house, and have been telling me since Market opened that they plan to replace all of their commercial dishes with handmade ones. From me. Today's the day they start; they want to pick out two dinner plates. In coming weeks, they'll get more, one or two at a time.
Of course, no sooner do they tell me this, but they get distracted by crab and octopus stew mugs--octo is her favorite pattern, crab his. Maybe they should get these? But they planned on plates. Well, they could get two plates and the crab mug--but they'd initially planned on one plate, talked themselves up to two, this would blow their budget.
I tell you, it was more entertaining than the Eurovision finals.
Meanwhile, I'm digging through the plate stack to find the octopus plate, opening the restock box to get out a few more, including a crab. She immediately latches on to the octopus, he's less committed to the crab (I think he likes the stew mug better). They're also looking at a saw-whet owl plate that came from under the counter, and she's not sure and he won't choose.
You guessed it. The quarter came out again. She called heads, and took home the owl and octopus plates. I'm gonna hold on to this quarter. Think it might be magic...
Both of my neighbors were leather crafters, but their displays couldn't have been more different. Gera (pron. HAY-rah), to my left, has a full booth with trade-show grey fabric panels, an EZ-Up canopy, counter space. Gordon, to my right, has a blue pipe-frame rolling cart, a folding card table, and a chair. And a portable anvil to punch holes and cut belts to size. They both seem to be having pretty good days, Gordon sold all but three bracelets, numerous belts and a couple of big courier bags.
I had a very good day as well, over $800 in sales. I keep expecting some sort of crash, and it keeps not happening. Good thing I'm firing a kiln before my next Market.
It's our first full week since the new CDC masking guidelines dropped. All but three or four of the vendors I saw were still masked, and a good 80% of the public, including all the of customers in my booth. Of course, there's also the usual naked-nosers, and an older woman who keeps pulling her mask down to talk to me. I'm fully vaccinated, so a little more blasé about it; no longer wiping down pots with hand sanitizer after customers handle them. Keeping my mask, though.
A little girl comes in with a white mask with pink tongue painted on. I point to my teddy-bear mask and say, Look, our masks are twinses! She agrees, and laughs even harder when I show her my teddy bear with her mask. Kids are the best sometimes.
I sold a lot of Denise's greeting cards, nine in all, I think. They're actually a collaborative effort, copies from my watercolor sketchbooks mounted on her handmade paper. My favorite sale is to a college girl. She wants two, and one has to be the barn owl pic; the other is one of five different floral patterns, and she just can't decide. Her friend is no help, she goes 'round and 'round, and finally, I get a quarter out of my pocket, and start flipping it. Heads, this one, tails, that--ope, that one goes back in the box. Now these two, then these--four flips later, she's down to the apple blossoms card with the honeybee, and happy with it.
And because nothing ever just happens once: There's a young married couple who just got their first house, and have been telling me since Market opened that they plan to replace all of their commercial dishes with handmade ones. From me. Today's the day they start; they want to pick out two dinner plates. In coming weeks, they'll get more, one or two at a time.
Of course, no sooner do they tell me this, but they get distracted by crab and octopus stew mugs--octo is her favorite pattern, crab his. Maybe they should get these? But they planned on plates. Well, they could get two plates and the crab mug--but they'd initially planned on one plate, talked themselves up to two, this would blow their budget.
I tell you, it was more entertaining than the Eurovision finals.
Meanwhile, I'm digging through the plate stack to find the octopus plate, opening the restock box to get out a few more, including a crab. She immediately latches on to the octopus, he's less committed to the crab (I think he likes the stew mug better). They're also looking at a saw-whet owl plate that came from under the counter, and she's not sure and he won't choose.
You guessed it. The quarter came out again. She called heads, and took home the owl and octopus plates. I'm gonna hold on to this quarter. Think it might be magic...