Aftermath

It was one HELL of an experience.

I think I was overly prepared, which is good I guess, but I spent more than I should have. I made about a third back of what I put into it, but the networking and experience made it totally worth it.  I had a great time talking face to face to customers! It was so nice to be able to do that again.  And if it wasn't for kids, I would truly feel prepared to do a convention now.

But everything I DIDN'T sell now has to go in the shop.  I only sold a few hairsticks, mostly satin kanzashi with feathers, and one set of bobby pins.  But NOW I know my market, and purple is the color to work with.  I had several requests for purple, but all I had was black, red, gold and blue varieties.  I didn't get to work into the pinks and purples and oranges.  I should have.  But photos will be up soon, and it will be lots of editing since each stick must be labeled in the pictures with a letter system so that I can put multiple sticks in one listing.  May be a while, but I will get started on it next week now that things will have slowed down.  That and I want to finish all my photography before kids get out of school soon.  Then I will have NO time.

Also, next time I will have tophats!!!! I am lining up a new tophat designer so that I don't have to make them from scratch.  Hopefully those will be back in stock soon.  She makes hers with an elastic chin strap rather than a headband, and frankly I like the change, it will be more comfortable for the customer to wear. 

Now I have to re-inventory and label my pieces since everything went askew when packing up for the night.  Not to mention I have one heck of a mess to clean up on my workstation, and I have to find a place to put all my new supplies.  I am glad I got into the satin for this, it was a BIG portion of my sales, almost half. 

Definitely want to do this again though.  But not this month.  Ha.  Too much stress.