A Busy April for SFE and Beads in a Box

New beaded jewelry from Guatemala.

This weekend is our "Signs of Spring" Craft Show at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds (Kearney, NE) and it is more than a craft show. We will have special items including hand-designed jewelry, purses including faith, western and fashion. There are booths with delicious food items, Mexican ironworks, handcrafted candles, and much more. If you are in the area stop by and spend time checking out our vendors.

Kyla and her family take on the major work load for the "Signs of Spring" show. Ryan spends the night providing security for the booths already set up and letting in vendors who arrive in the middle of the night to set up their booths. Sydney painted the new craft show signs, that we locate announcing the show and date. Sadie, Sydney, and Sage help their mom run the show. Tim, Kyla's guy, is there to help when we need him. We are blessed having the whole Martin family a part of our development endeavors.

After the clean-up Saturday night we will have a few hours to rest and recuperate than we unpack from the show and repack for the Nebraska Realtor Annual Conference (over 500 attendees) held in Omaha. It is a three day event beginning early Monday and ending late Wednesday. We will drive in Sunday afternoon and back home Thursday morning. Kyla, Misti, and I will handle our jewelry booth for this conference. While I was thinking about the long hours I realized that our team has an age span of 38 years. Misti being the youngest, Kyla in the middle, and myself being the most seasoned of the trio. *grin* This will be the first large conference for Misti; we know she will bring a new and unique style to meeting and greeting potential customers. Her energy and enthusiasm is a welcomed addition to our team. Conferences are incredible opportunities to tell our story and sell our handcrafted and hand chosen jewelry. I will take photos to share so you can see what it takes to set up our jewelry booth within the space/booth size we can afford to purchase. Many events provide a non-profit rate or make special accommodations because of our mission of ending poverty one bead at a time!

More later~have a creative day, Karen

Friday in Tucson

Can't believe today is our last day scoping out bargains. Karen started early around 4:00 a.m. and she thinks I started around 7:00. That's a normal time to get up isn't it? We did a lot of organizing this morning and packed our treasures in postal boxes. It took an hour at the post office to get everything off.

We returned to the Kino Sports Complex by 11:30ish and started the insanity all over again. We quickly stopped in the first tent to grab a few things from vendors we visited on Thursday, grabbed a bar and water and started in the second tent. We were disappointed in the second tent. It didn't seem to have the vendors that it did last year. The two vendors we planned on patronizing were a disappointment.

Today our focus was to tie up loose ends and concentrate on the Untapped Potential stones. With the UP line, we've picked certain stones that we know their mystical properties. We plan on working with rose quartz, tiger eye, aventurine, onyx, lapis, sodalite, coral, and jade to name a few. These all have the mystical/healing properties that we want represented in the UP line. So on our adventure, we searched for the size, colors, and prices we needed to create this new wholesale business. We found some beautiful dyed coral, shell and glass pearls that will make gorgeous summer wear for the cash/carry sales.

We've had three things to focus on throughout this trip. We've been looking for new stones for the one-of-a-kind, heirloom pieces we create for the Beads in a Box line. Since the Something For Everyone line is a purchased line of fashion jewelry, we kept a close eye out for good deals on pre-made custom jewelry. We found some amazing gemstone and crystal bracelets within our price range. Then, of course, the third project, Untapped Potential, is the new wholesale line.

Our brains have been cluttered with plans, ideas and strategies to make the UP line fly. It might take several years to get it going and have a presence - we are ready to get started! We will be hiring our help as soon as possible. They will start by helping us organize the gemstones that we do have, price the new jewelry, and make the kits for the wholesale line. It is unbelievable how many steps there are to get to the selling point. All this inventory will arrive at the office at the beginning of the week. Karen will be in Lincoln and Janice will be out all week. I plan to organize it and hopefully get it arranged somewhere in the office to prepare for volunteers and new hired help. Our space is an issue so it always seems like we are working in clutter. I'm always working in mass chaos due to lack of space. The main thing to remember is our ending goal, stay focused so we can help people and change lives. . . and we will.

Tootles for now, Kyla