I wanted to get my post up last night, but my Internet was down for a few hours. It was probably a good thing, though. It forced me to go to bed early instead of cruising other blogs, Craig's List and my inbox. Now that I'm refreshed a bit, I'm ready to write about the people I met at Lucketts.
My mom, dad and I arrived to Lucketts in the wee hours of the morning to get my space set up on Saturday. It had all been tightly packed under the tents and tarps, so we had a lot of work to do. I set my dad to the odd jobs...unwrapping furniture, hanging a chandelier and an oil painting and folding up the tarps. My mom unwrapped all of my small pieces and accessories, so I could arrange them and set up vignettes. We finished with about 30 minutes to spare before the gates opened. We were donned in our matching custom t-shirts and aprons loaded with change and sales books.
Shortly before 10:00 am, I snapped a picture of the line that had formed at the gate. These people were some serious shoppers.
The next few hours were a total whirlwind. My space was filled with people and I was trying to keep up with sales and chatting with blog readers who wanted to meet me. I wrote up a lot of sales tickets...
...and said a lot of "excuse me's" and "just a minute's" and "I'm sorry for the wait's." It was so crazy in the beginning that my mom and I sold the same thing to two different people. I felt so terrible, because there was only one settee and it had to go to the person who was there first. Anyway, we learned a lot from this experience and will have a better system in place for next year.
I also gave out all of my frog tape and cupcakes within a couple of hours.
Through all of the craziness, I did get to meet some really cool ladies (and their husbands and friends in some cases.)
(Hillary from Chick Picks in the orange)
The ladies who flew in all the way from Chicago to shop the fair. They were all so sweet.
Barb Blair from Knack, who drove up with her friend, so we could finally meet in person.
Kelly from Chester County Cottage Girl.
Kelli from Restore Interiors.
Eddie, a photographer from DC.
Sharon from Elizabeth and Company.
Jami from Freckled Laundry.
...and Lisa (on the right) and her friend drove all the way from Ohio to pick up her grain sack chair (which was on the cover of a local newspaper recently.) These ladies were a riot. Lisa might be my biggest fan. She was my very last sale on Sunday (a grain sack pillow to match her chair) and she asked if she could have my vendor badge for her scrapbook. So funny! And, yes, I did give it to her.
Nutbird asked what the first piece I sold was. It was the pair of oval aqua end tables shown in the picture below. Someone walked by just before the gates opened and bought them.
It was such a wonderful time! I wish I had more time to sit down and chat with all of the awesome people who came to my space. Next year we'll have a checkout counter and more people to help, so I'll be freed up to chat.
I know a lot of people took pictures with me and I would love copies. Please send them along to my e-mail address (marian@missmustardseed.com) along with a little information about yourself.
If you missed Lucketts this time, the fair is every year in May (generally the third weekend) and I will definitely be vending again next year. Start saving your pennies for the trip!
