Sunday, March 27, 2011

Great show and I am exhausted.

Well my three day show is over.  Sold lots of stuff and made some money.  Yea for me because in 3 shows over the last 6 weeks this is the first one that made money. 

 The first show was an antique and collectible show with lots and lots of people coming through and the sales for most of us were dismal.  The second show no customers showed up.  There just wasn't any advertising and as a first show this was a big mistake.  The show this weekend had good advertising and the sales for almost all the vendors were good.  People were buying.  I sold things I have been carrying around for 2 or 3 years.  I couldn't believe it.  It sure helped me get rid of stuff I just don't make or what to sell anymore. 

I talked to lots of people about dolls and may have a lead on a bunch of old dolls.  I will see if that pans out.  Hope so.  Then people are always asking me what I thought a certain doll is worth.  Some I could tell them my opinion and others I had no idea.  I told these people they would have to research it on the internet and always check Ebay as to what they are selling for on there.  They could even list on Ebay themselves and see if it would sell.  I don't buy dolls from people when they want full retail for them or I would never make any money. 

The price of dolls goes up and down so fast that there is no way of saying what sells at a good price today would sell at that price in two weeks.  It is all what customers or collectors are looking for at the time and there is just no predicting that. 

Now I have to find someone who will make me some more doll furniture cheap.  I am always being asked if I will sell the chairs that I have now.  Doll furniture at a good price is hard to find.  I do sell the chairs I have collected over the last few years and I am getting very low on chairs.  I wish I was able to make them but I just don't do that kind of work or have the work space to do them if I could.

Well I am exhausted tonight and just wanted to tell everyone that there are good shows out there. It took me a while to hit one but it did happen this weekend.  I usually don't do spring shows because my stuff has always sold better in the fall but I will continue to do this show every year. 

Now because I sold all my "Emma" soft dolls I have to make a bunch of them again.  I never thought they would go over as big as they have but they are unique with their four faces and they have been one of my best sellers in any show that I do.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Grrrrrrr Computer Problems

This has been a horrid two weeks of computer problems.  First my computer total stopped and I have to send it in for upgrades and repairs.  Then my husband's had a virus and because it hadn't been connected to the net his needed major updating.  So we thought we had everything taken care of and guess what.  After two days home from repairs, I got hit major time by hackers on my computer and it hit microsoft's operating system which shut it down.  They had added all kinds of junk to the system and it took another hour of special software by the repair guy to fix it.  Well we thought it was all fixed.  Little faith...because it still isn't right and now we wait for the repair guy to call tomorrow and with multi-fingers crossed.... hope he will be able to fix the rest of the problems.

Okay that is enough complaining about computers.  Can't live with them and can't live without them.

Now onto the good part of the week.  We picked up 4 dolls at Goodwill on Wednesday.  Good price on all of them and was not really sure what I had picked up but I am getting really good at spotting sellers.  I ended up with a 23.5 inch Corolle doll.  No picture of her here (will add picture to side bar of her)  because after I cleaned her up and made some new clothes for her, I put her on Ebay and she sold within three hours of the listing and will be traveling to France tomorrow.  Next I got a Ballini baby doll that I made clothing for, plus a Zapf Baby Born, which still has the original clothing and a Precious Moments doll completely dressed with tag still attached.  These are now on Ebay and seeing I didn't put a "buy it now" on them, I have to wait to see if they sell.

 The above is the Ballini baby doll.  She is 18 inch tall, with cloth jointed body and vinyl limbs and head.  She has the most electric blue eyes.
Then we went on to dolls that arrived in the mail, these I had picked up at a good price on Ebay.  The above is a Horsman, 14 inch all vinyl doll.  She had a long dress on but was not in good shape.  I had bought this doll because I had had several people bug me to make a bride doll.  I haven't made bride dresses since I was making them for my daughter's Barbie dolls back in the last 60's.  I really didn't want to make one but I thought just one.  I have a hard time working with white on white and all that bride fabric.  Eyes just don't see as well anymore.....That is another whole story and we WON'T go into that one.

I also got a 12 inch cloth and vinyl baby doll that is a Horsman too.  I did get the clothes done for her today but no pictures yet.  Maybe tomorrow after I have the computer fixed again.  Right now it is hard to get the pictures loaded on my computer.  I have to use a backdoor and them move them around a couple of times to get them where I can crop and fix them.  No fun.

Well that has been my last couple of weeks and I have a 3 day show this next weekend, so don't know when I will get back to post on here again.  I really need to do a better job of keeping up with my blog. 

Everyone enjoy your first week of spring and I hope your weather is warm.

Friday, March 4, 2011

What I have been up to this last week

I got this doll from a friend in a box of lots of dolls that she didn't want to deal with any more.  All I hade to do with fix her hair, wash her and her clothes and she was all ready for showing.  This is a Panosh Place doll from 1985.  She even has little purple earrings permanently on her ears.   She is called Honeycomb which is written on her hair clip.  She is completely original and the only thing that is missing is a comb that she carried in her purse.  I call her my Dolly Parton doll because of the hair.

I also have several other dolls that I have worked on this past week and as soon as I can figure out how to add more pictures I will show them to you.

I did my first Antique and Collectible show last week and it didn't go so well.  I talked to lots of people and answered lots of questions on dolls and heard lots of stories about their collections or what they had as children but the sales were bad.  Everyone admired the dolls and said what a great job I did on them and their clothes but that doesn't put money in my pocket.

I have two show this month and we will see how they go.  Both are art and craft shows and I can show anything that I want to show.   So seeing that is the case, I will take a few of my bears and soft dolls that I made and add some of the dolls I have refurbished and see how that goes.