Friday, July 29, 2011

First day of sales

The first day of my sales event here in Portland was yesterday, and I'm pleased to report sales were awesome!!

This eternally surprises me. In this economy, I always question how or why someone would spend money on something like a wooden tankard... but God bless 'em, they do. We sold 25 pieces yesterday, which was terrific!

When the gates opened at 11:30 am, we ("we" means my friend Wendy's husband Tim, who is helping me at this event) saw these people with hammer heads. Well why not? This is Portland, after all, whose informal city motto is "Keep Portland Weird." Don't thank them, they're just doing their job.


Here's my booth, with Tim sitting in the only real shady spot. The shade is much better in the afternoon, when we truly need it. But this weekend's weather is infinitely better (low 80's) than last year, when we had 105F heat.


I can display about 130 pieces at a time on our shelving units.


I will try to photograph interesting people as I see them. Last year I was fascinated by the plethora of tattoos sported by Portlanders. Here was a very attractive young woman who had one entire leg entirely tattooed.


But this year I'm going to concentrate on T-shirts. This event seems to bring out peoples' most hilarious T-shirts, so I'll chronicle them as I see them.


The crowds yesterday were wonderful. That's one thing I really enjoy about Portland -- it is such a durned friendly city.

Just after posting this from the internet cafe, I'm off to buy a bag of ice (to keep our drinks cold) then pick up Tim and get ready for the day's work. I'll try to take some more interesting photos today -- stand by!

7 comments:

  1. :-) I have that "beating" t-shirt. The front identifies the wearer as "Captain Punishment." My children (three young boys) LOVE it when I wear that. The beatings part doesn't register with them - all they care about is that their mom is a pirate, at least temporarily ;-) I indulged them by adding a jolly-roger adorned bandana to cover my head LOL

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  2. That is one city that really has a rainbow of people, lol. They take creativity very seriously!! Glad things are going well!

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  3. Tshirts are great ways to put a little humor into the day. My favorite is still a shirt I saw many years ago with the slogan, "Spellers of the world, untie!!"

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  4. Good to hear sales are brisk. Good good good.

    Thanks for taking us with!!

    A.McSp

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  5. taking my homemade wares to the bodock festival of pontotoc mississippi on the 4th and 5th of august while hubby is doing the watermelon festival on the same days in water valley mississippi. wish we were expecting cooler temps but no such luck....instead we will take coolers of ice, and electric fans. (i just might smuggle my washtub too for sticking my hot feet into. glad to hear that sales have been good.

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  6. Love the shirts! Hope tomorrow's sales are even better.

    Amanda

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  7. Where we used to live, a pharmacist had a bat with that "The beatings will continue..." bit on it perched atop one of his medicine cabinets. I thought it was hilarious!

    I've got to admit... I love those hammer heads!

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