I’d like to introduce you to my latest true love: a weathered and wonderful garden gate door that I found at a local antique store for $30. I’ve been needing a special something to add height and display space to my art tables. She had her coming out party at Savvy in the City, a day-long event for women in Minneapolis staged by the publishers of a local magazine called SavvyMN. I was their cover girl in January – way fun!
I spoke twice during the day about my journey to healing and happiness, met a wide range of wonderful women, and then had an art booth set up for their marketplace event all evening. In between all the running around, I looked up and saw…me. Please tell me you would have done this. It’s not often you come across a giant YOU, so I had to take a picture with it, right? {I was also slightly mortified, realizing I was wearing the SAME sweater. Sheesh.} 
It was a crazy day and I thank my lucky stars for Jordan, whom I call my Vice President of Fun and Sanity. She does it all – unloading stuff, arranging stuff, selling stuff, thinking of stuff I never would have. When she’s not helping me with Choosing Beauty stuff, she’s expertly taking care of my kids. And could she be more adorable? I would like to clone her.
It took us a while to get everything set up. Someone didn’t show, so we had two tables {score!} and my new garden gate to work into the display. I know it sounds like a simple task, but we’ve had enough misfires to know that the way things are displayed make a huge difference. We used to have a vase filled with tall branches to hold my necklaces in the center of the table. My friend Colleen stopped by that art show, which was a total bomb up to that point, and moved the vase to the side of the table. “There. Now I can actually see you standing back there.” I kid you not – we had two sales within 10 minutes of moving that vase. One of Jordan’s little tricks is displaying my cards in a customer-friendly way. She makes sure the ones in the back of the baskets don’t get lost in the shuffle. By adding padding underneath, those cards in back are lifted a little higher – not to be missed! It’s an age-old trick done by many retailers…but it would have never crossed my mind.
Okay, so back to my darling garden gate. I hammered nails across the top for hanging my necklaces. Though you can’t see it, I also put in nails at different heights so I have the option to not just hang the necklaces straight across at future shows. Below that, I turned an old grilling thingymabob into a magnet display {ahem…I’m hoping the hubby doesn’t go looking for it this summer when cooking out!}. Below that, we taped clothes pins to hang three of my prints. And I added lettering stickers from Michaels to finish the look. Tah-dah!
It was a really fun day and I met tons of cool women. Thanks to the team at SavvyMN for putting on a great event. Have a magnificent day, all!
