such a busy time of year!

Wow! It has been way too long since my last update...

I think I figured out that my last actual day off was Oct 24th and my two days off together was in September. Needless to say I'm getting a little tired at this point. But there is no slowing down just yet. This weekend we don't have a show but we do have to go out of town - so I'll leave work tomorrow and drive about 11 hours and then do it in reverse on Sunday. Then the first weekend of December we have the show at Oakville High School. We will be in the Cafeteria so come on by and say "Hi"!

The last three weekends have been fun - we were at Fox high school in Arnold the first weekend of Nov. It was a blast - I graduated from Fox in 1985 so I got to see some old friends that weekend. We had a great space and a lot of fun - oh boy has it changed since I went to school there! The new addition with the gym and commons area is just wonderful. My picture ended up being in the Arnold Leader - I didn't know that was the paper there - used to be the Arnold Rocket - or maybe this is a new local paper - I don't know. Anyhow, my Dad was very excited and happy to see my picture in the paper.

The second weekend of November was the Afton high school show and it was a blast as usual. The folks that put together this show are just a whole lot of fun. We always have a good time at afton and so far it has been our best high school craft show for sales - both spring and fall. They told us that they are worried we will get too famous and not want to come back to their show. I don't see that happening anytime soon - besides, we have fun there and that is important.

Last weekend we were at Parkway South and my goodness we were in for a shock. We knew this would be a big show with a lot of vendors so we decided to set up Friday night - they actually had Friday night set up hours that were possible for people that work day jobs as well! The Friday night setup was from 7pm - 10pm. So we got there about 8pm and they people out directing traffic. They had us pull up to the door and there had to be more than 20 students and parents grabbing our stuff and putting it on these big carts. They then took the carts to our booth location and offloaded it all while we moved the cars. Needless to say - set up and tear down were faster and easier than ever. They even had a hospitality suite with coffee and lemonade open all weekend for the vendors. It was definately run more like an art show than a carft show. I heard from other vendors that the other parkway shows are run about the same way.

As far as the show itself - there was a pretty fair amount of traffic - we did okay but not near like at Afton. But it was our first time being there so that usually means less sales. It was such a huge show that I think a lot of people didn't go through the whole thing. Still, all things considered, it was a good show and we will plan to do it again. The students and parents really made this show a joy to do.

So that is my update for now - I think your pretty well caught up on what we have been up to. Oakville will be our last public show of the year - at least so far. We have a few hour show at Baxter Crossings, which is a huge apartment complex, on December 11th and we might consider trying to find a small craft show on December 12th that is close to home - preferable in Ferguson or Florrissant. Anyone that knows of any such show - let me know at sales@zzboom.com.

Have a great Thanksgiving and be safe!

Carol

another month nearly gone

Well here we are at the end of October... time flies when your too busy to take a deep breath.

This month featured lot's of trade show type venues for us and I decided I really don't care for them. They cost more money to do and we did drastically less sales - in fact each and every show lost money and not just a little bit either. OUCH! We had never had that happen before so that was a major shock.

But starting with this weekend we have a nice full month of arts and craft shows so I am really hoping things get back on track - and I think they will. We start this weekend with the apple butter festival in Kimmswick and next weekend the arts and crafts show at Fox High school - my alma mater.

Welcome to Carol Trammel's Blog!

I keep hearing about how cool blogs are - so now I have my own. I plan to use this to allow folks a glimpse into what kind of things go on with a new artist trying to get started.

There has been quite a learning curve trying to get going. My first show was a craft show at Oakville High School in St Louis County, Mo. That seems like a whole different lifetime ago but reality is that it was just 6 months ago.

For those of you who don't know me, I am a 37 year old Unix sys admin living in Ferguson, Mo with my 2 Chihuahua's, 2 cats, 2 roommates and their assorted animals. I do all my shows along with fellow encaustic wax artist Alexah Strongheart of Spanish Lake, Mo. We have two very different styles so we compliment each other a lot more than we compete with each other.

Our first show was major trial and error. We didn't have a very good setup at all. We made some changes, figured out a few things and our second show - one week later was much better.
We had almost a month off after our first two shows and used that time to really improve our display. With a professional grid system and an EZ-up tent from Sams Club we were ready to go.

Starting this September we have expanded our setup to use two spaces - we just have way too much stuff now to fit into just a single space. We are also getting very close to being booked through the end of the year. Keep an eye on our schedule page to see when we are going to be near you.

More updates soon!