Tales of a 'Steamy' Festival (part 1)

If you know anything about me, you know I'm not much on the great outdoors - especially when the weather is - well - anything except perfect.  So having a 3-day craft show in 95-100+ degree weather - not my most favorite activity.

I was accepted this year to the St Johns Medical Center Festival of the Arts in Westlake Ohio (more about this later).  It's a Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday show.  I'm usually not even a fan of the 2-day format, but a lot of them I set up Friday anyway, so I figured it wasn't that much more time involved.

You know we've been having a heat wave here in Ohio (and much of the rest of the US) - so boy, it was a fun weekend. (are you sensing the sarcasm?!?)

Luckily, my helper for the weekend was my husband - I'm pretty sure I would have given up about 5 minutes into unloading.

We were in a lovely park-like setting at the hospital - my booth was at the top of the hill, by the main road - and there was a little slope and some really uneven ground.  So the booth setup had to change to accommodate.

Believe it or not (it's true!) while I went to check in at the hotel, Jamie put all the product out and arranged it.  Really, he did a great job!

Stay tuned for some additional tales of the weekend!

Happy Sewing!
Susan

Happy New Year! 2012

Happy New Year, everyone!  Here we are at the beginning of a new year and I'm one of those obsessed people who likes to (pretend to) make goals and objectives for the upcoming year. 

I'm going to admit that I didn't stay up last night to ring in the new year - I was sound asleep before then - although I did stir briefly for the neighborhood fireworks that went off at midnight.

As you may now, I'm cutting back my day job work hours to 20/week, so I have some big plans for Sew Darn Simple this year. 

To start out, I'm going to get back to organizing this room.  I started this project last year - and I did get some new storage and am using it, although not as effectively as I'd like to!  If you follw me on twitter, then you know I started doing some of the organization this weekend - on Friday, I finally got my box of zippers put away.  And yesterday, I cleaned off my cutting table.  Today I'm going to work on my filing - my new shelving has a filing drawer, and I'm going to finally use it!

I'm going to write down sales and financial goals for this year - since I will be working less hours, I plan to use those to increase my advertising and therefore (hopefully) my sales. 

I'm working on identifying potentially new art/craft shows that I want to apply to this year.  I've already applied to one new show, and I have at least two more new ones that I plan to apply to, and hope to get in!

I plan to work on some new products and expand my inventory on some of my best sellers, and I'm in the process of working on patterns that will soon be available in my etsy shop.

Also, I want to expand my blogging - and I'd love some suggestions on what you might like to hear about this year.  I may do some tutorials, always write about my latest projects, maybe some guests??!?!!

Here's to a successful 2012!

Susan