Day four in New Orleans and I've been told that the temps are getting warmer! Didn't see daylight today outside our hotel.
Karen and I enjoyed a tour of Louisiana Association of Community Action Partnership's new weatherization training center in Baton Rouge yesterday. I didn't take anything along for the trip because silly me was planning on taking in all the beautiful scenery. WRONG! There wasn't anything but water and trees to see in the traffic back-up that we were in and boy was I wishing I had something to do or read. I dozed! I did get a wonderful bowl of seafood gumbo in the evening to make up for the trip!
Today was an early start setting up at 7:00 a.m. Yes, that's early for a lot of people but I'm normally at work at that time so it wasn't too hard. The challenge is getting out of these wonderful beds! Karen and I got set up fairly quickly and the crowds started coming. "Yeah! Beads in a Box is here!" is so warming and reassuring to hear. It's good to see a lot of familiar faces from all over the United States that have become regular customers.
Karen went into the opening session and I stayed at the booth. Three ladies were a little late to start with and after discovering our table probably didn't make it in at all. They were shoppers and didn't take their assignment lightly! One lady asked me to read the words on a bracelet for her. Even though my eyes are only 44, I struggle sometimes with the fine print. "SIN, SIN, SIN JOYFULLY" I replied. "Yes, sin joyfully." The roar of cackling hens started. "You mean Sing Joyfully?" Holy cow, I'm a spiritual person, how could I screw that up? Now our saying is sin joyfully and buy more jewelry. We cackled so loud not realizing that the doors to the banquet hall were open. Karen came out later and said she heard us. "Yep, that's one of mine," she commented to a collegue.
People from all over the U.S. flocked our booth with our first two sales being over $400. It was then that we realized we might not have brought enough inventory. We'll make due and know to bring more next year when we are in Miami.
At one time during the morning we were surrounded by three CAP directors wanting to get their agencies in on the Beads in a Box action. How exciting! This will take us to another level. All three had slightly different ideas how to make things work at their agencies. One has a craft store and would like us to put our jewelry in it. Another has youth running a store in their school and would like our line in it. The other would like the proceeds of the consigned sales to go to her youth program. The excitement made us giddy and my brain might just explode with all the possibilities.
Our evening reception filled us up with the flavor of New Orleans. I tasted leg of lamb, duck, gouda cheese and grits for the first time. No hurry to have those again but the shrimp, tomato bisque soup and bread pudding were out of this world.
The day went fast and I'm working on a new project that will take BIAB to the next level besides those mentioned above. I'm so excited and nervous more to succeed than to fail. The potential is huge.
More to come on that later....
Tootles for now, Kyla
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