A Great Week!

When last I left you, I was headed out the door Saturday morning for my weekly Farmers Market. I had packed a cooler with wet, frozen towels to use to try and keep from passing out from heat prostration. Spending 5 hours in the Hazy, Hot & Humid (HH&H) that is DC in August is not the most comfortable way to spend a Saturday, so we try to come prepared. I have a rotating room fan that I plug in and set on High, and we bring lots of cold stuff to drink and otherwise keep from passing out.

Why do we do this? Because WE LOVE IT! Not the hot part, but the comraderie cannot be beat! (Or should that be 'beaten'?) Oh, and all the fresh produce you could possible want! We really do have a good time.

Anywho, I opened the front door fully expecting to be hit in the face with a wall of humidity, only to find it was a totally different situation. I almost said, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." It was sunny, and COOL, and NOT HUMID! Whazzup with that?!? There must have been a storm that I slept through that took away all the HH&H. YAY! When I got to the Market, everyone was smiling! (It's tough to smile when you are already wilted at 8:00 am!)

As far as selling stuff, the past month has been miserable for the crafters. The Farmers are moving those tomatoes like crazy, but no one wants our crafty stuff. It has been slow for all of us, so to our collective delight, it was also a good day sales-wise for us. Double-YAY!

I sold one of what I call my 'One of a Kind' cards - all those prototypes I make, or ideas I try out, or for some reason I only make one of them...they become 'One of a Kind' cards. I had made one with ribbon scraps as a Turkey's tail - got the idea on SCS - and someone loved it! I like it when people like my cards. ;-)

But the best part of the day was a special order I got. When Stampin' Up! first offered the Wonderful Words set, I instantly thought to use the then-available raised-edge note cards to make packs of Thank You notes. (I then had to stock up on those puppies when they retired! Can you say 'hoard'? I am embarassed to say I have a whole drawer full of the buggers.) The Thank You note packs sell great, but this customer was looking for something more appropriate for teenaged boys. I suggested monograms, and an order was placed.

Doing monograms was not such an outlandish idea, as I had recently purchased the JustRite monogram stamper at my LSS, and could not wait to use it for this project! It comes with a reversible pad - black on one side and dry on the other side. The dry side was just asking to be inked with Versamarker refill! Do you see where the brain was going? I was planning to stamp the monogram with Versamark and emboss it with 'manly' colors like Navy and Burgundy. My customer loved the idea!

When I got home from the Market I started to play. Twenty-six note cards later, I decided the JustRite stamper was not going to work for me. I admit I can be tool-challenged, but for a number of reasons, I chose to just use double-sided tape to stick the letters to an acrylic block and use it like a regular stamp. It worked like a champ! This is the result of my labors.

[I tried to crop the photo, but it turned out worse than this, so thanks for putting up with my photographic lack-of-skills...]

I also had a workshop scheduled for the following morning, and since I already had my kit material cut, all I had to do was package it and clean up from the monogram episode. I watched Part 2 of "Pride & Prejudice" and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour the night before a workshop! First time for everything!

Sunday's workshop went well, as did Tuesday evening's. A new customer attended Tuesday and we did not scare her off! She even plans to come back! And I knew she'd fit right in when mid-way through her first project she said, "Oh, I meant to do that!" LOL!

To top it off, Stampin' Up! is ON THE BALL this week! The order I placed from my Open House on the 5th arrived on the 14th, less than the usual 10 days it takes for stuff to find its way to the East Coast. The box usually arrives on my doorstep the day AFTER everyone is here. And then, (yes, there is more!), the order I placed Tuesday night after the workshop shipped the next day! I feel like I am living right this week!

Now if I just did not have to get up and go to work in the morning, it would be the perfect ending to the perfect week ... guess that's too much to ask, though.