July 1st 2016 Canada Day in Southside Park, Woodstock... & More Gem Expo News...

Lianne Johnson (the Vintage Lady at the Woodstock Farmers Market) and I had a great day in Southside Park where we shared a booth. Lianne's grandson Darien helped out. Thanks, Darien, for standing in line for us at the chip wagon. All the food there was so great (and the Latin American guys from London -- oh, wow, fabulous, fantastic barbeque -- if anyone knows who they are please tell me their business name). Good food, good music, lots of entertainment and rides and games for kids. It was a low-key and fun day, even if I was freezing in that infernal wind. Guess it was better than rain, eh? Great fireworks to end it all courtesy of Toyota. I just found out that fireworks displays like that cost $1,000 per minute. Yikes.

From a vendor standpoint, it was very well organised with dedicated vendor parking, electricity -- and as you can hear on the video, all the tents between us and the stage meant we could hear ourselves think. Both of our sales were very good.

For those jewellery-makers and crafters who are considering doing or are yet to do their first outdoor shows this summer, I'll be writing a more detailed blog post of do's and don'ts.

Reminder to everyone: I will be at The Gem Expo in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on King St. West next weekend (15, 16, 17 July). Please go to the Gem Expo website, sign up for the newsletter and get $2 off your admission.

As of this writing I have ELEVEN people already signed up to take my Totally Addicting Stretch/Mala Bracelet Course. Bonus with any of the courses offered is free admission all three days of the show. It's perhaps a small show compared to some, but it's packed with gorgeous beads, rocks, crystals, jewellery... and just today I got lots and lots of semi-precious skull beads! I'm also busy sorting and pricing some beautiful vintage hand-carved fetish animal beads, as well. Come and see us next weekend!

Meanwhile, back here in Woodstock, I'll be at the Farmers Market this Saturday, July 9th, back again on July 23rd. Thanks for stopping by!

Grand River Bead Society Annual Show, 15-16 October 2011, typing & berries

Yesterday I was inundated with typing. Of course, the universe doesn't like imbalance: regular weekly files that I'd rearranged my life to be available to transcribe on Thursdays and Fridays have all of a sudden been cancelled "until further notice". There goes my rent every month. Crap. If it hadn't been for this client, some months in the past year I'd have been lucky to make $100. On the other hand, it means I can maybe start doing the Thursday farmer's market in Woodstock again... but not this week, which of course is going to be a perfect sunny day. This TON of typing has to be done before Friday, which is the holiday day this year. Speaking of which, here it is, the runup to the July 1st long weekend, and there's rain in the forecast for the entire four days. There's the universe in action again, giving with one hand, taking with the other.

I've committed literally every cent I can scrounge at the moment to paying for a table at the 2-day Grand River Bead Society bead show in Guelph in mid-October. This year three critical things have changed: it's not on the same weekend(s) as two major gem and bead shows in Ancaster and Toronto; it's in a larger venue closer to Highway 401; and most importantly they/we are/I am going to advertise, advertise, advertise -- which I am doing here:

I picked about 30 berries last night at 7:30 when I got back from the library that weren't ripe when I'd gone out with Max at 11. By the weekend I'll be able to fill a container each day with enough for four jars of jam, they ripen so quickly once they start. This year, for funzies, I need to record how many jars I get -- I'll need to drag out my cane to pull the berry branches (stems? canes?) down to where I can reach -- they must go up 10 feet now. Certainly they're taller than the eavestroughing. And they're prickly suckers.

My next question is ............... I wonder if I can coat them in PMC silver???