buying frenzy...

Since my post about making the wreaths, I have had two different people purchase two wreaths from me on my Etsy shop...within a week of listing them!

I was so excited when the first one was purchased until I after I read that her feedback rating was at 92%.  I've never seen one that was under 100%.  Most of the bad comments were "never received payment", "don't buy unless you plan to pay" and "never responded to contact".  My heart dropped...and unfortunately, that first "buyer" fell through for me as well.

Then the next buyer wanted the large gold and white wreath.  This wreath is the one that I was most worried about because it was the most flexible and the one I've decided never to use that type of wreath form again because of the relatively unstructured soundness of it.

The person who bought it lives in North Carolina - to send it parcel post is the least expensive way to do it, only it takes up to 10 days to get there and according to the postal worker that I spoke to, it's handled quite a lot.  So, I'm just waiting to see if it arrives in one piece.  Fingers crossed!  It's been a week since I've sent it and I still haven't heard from her.  However, I did "Bing" her house and if the wreath survives, it's got a nice place to live.

I'm serious about putting a class together to show people how to make these.  And since I'm serious, I need to buy, buy, buy vintage ornaments!

I'm constantly looking on craigslist, going to Salvation Army and looking into Estate sales.  There's an Estate Sale website that I stumbled upon and it led me to a very nice Estate sale that was in my neighborhood(ish).

I made a list of 4 different Estate sales to go to on Friday.  I was armed with my clipboard.  Friday was the day to just write stuff down with the possibility of going back on their last day - be it Saturday or Sunday and hit them up for their 1/2 off sales.  Well, I'm not that controlled and I did purchase some ornaments that day, as long as they were reasonable.  The least I've paid per ornament has been 6 cents and the most I've paid was 20 cents.  But that is not exactly accurate either, since when you go to these Estate sales they don't always let you just have the ornaments - sometimes they want you to take the whole box.  So you end up with all kinds of other Christmas crap that you have to figure out what you're going to do with.  

On Friday, I ended up with 3 plastic storage boxes of differing sizes.  Only one of those boxes was only ornaments.  The other had other Christmassy items and the third had WWII articles...which I'm keeping for another project.

I have since put the whole box of Christmas crap up on craigslist for cheap - we'll see if anything comes of it.  If not, I will give it to charity.

 

I made Jerome come with me to one of the Estate sales, on its 1/2 off day.  The immaculately clean and neat condo was nearly empty compared to the Friday before, but there were still some items that I had written on my list that I would like to buy that were still there.  I bought a decorative birdhouse, a Ball mason jar, metal nutcrackers and picks, some ear muffs, a watering can,...and that's when I noticed this really cute "shabby chic" table.  

Small round vintage table with sides that close down.  I was able to get it for $35 (this table is a great place to display my parents and grandparents wedding photos.  I was actually thinking that I was going to buy it for my son and his fiance, but I think I like it too much - we'll see).  Jerome found himself down where the old cameras were and bought an old Cannon flash that is really in MINT condition, a self timer and a really nice tripod.  He's thinking we can sell these items for way more than what we bought them for.  We paid $18.50 for them.  I'll report later what we got for them.

Anyway, I have upwards of 800 ornaments now.  It takes nearly 100 of all different size ornaments to make a nice full wreath.  If I really want to have a class in my home, I will need to have enough ornaments to satisfy everyone.  I think I'll keep the class size low; 8 to 10 people...if I can get that many people interested in taking a class.

I have two more wreaths to make; one for my sister Terry (she wants a red, green and gold wreath) and one for my sister Deni (she wants a small silver wreath).  Also, I'll be having my daughter-in-law-to-be over on Monday to help her make a wreath for her mom.  That will be my first attempt at teaching.

A quick update: Apparently last night one of my 3M Command hooks failed and so, one of the wreaths fell to the ground and broke a bunch of bulbs and cracked the styrofoam wreath base.  I'm sad, but I think it's repairable, but unsellable.  I guess I'm going to have to write a little letter to 3M.