Posted by It hit 98 degrees fahrenheit yesterday, which where I live is not common. Many of us do not have air conditioning but manage fairly well shutting the windows and shades in the morning and using fans. I made sure the bird bath stayed full and kept an eye out for wilting plants.
And though I mostly stayed inside, I felt lethargic and aimless early on. I did manage to get a chicken stew put together and simmering for lunch. Not that stew is the ideal meal for a hot day, but I had all the ingredients (chicken thighs, carrots, onions, mushrooms, white beans and rosemary from our yard) and it’s easy and tasty.
I tried to do some Etsy store stuff but struggled with motivation. After five months of steady sales and strong revenue, June’s been sluggish so far. Not dead. Just slowwwww. And it’s zapping my mojo! It’s so much easier to keep listing and researching items and doing all manner of “store things” when items are selling. The cha-ching is a great motivator.
I was going to put some free stuff out to the street, but with the heat I decided to wait a day or two. I did offer a variety of free beads to folks in my church community and they were snapped up within minutes. The selection included a lot of stone beads, pretty glass beads and some metal.
I’m not even sure where I had acquired all of these and at one point I tried to sell them on Etsy and that didn’t work. I am happy to give them away at this point.
I did pull one strand of beads from the lot–a 15″ metal strand that weighed 92 grams. I decided to test them and they showed up as sterling silver. Hmmm. Was this true?!! So I did the scratch/acid test on the same bead, in the same place, five times and it showed up as silver each time. So not silver plated.
Wow. Okay. Melt value is currently around $170 for 92 grams and some jewelry companies sell an individual bead like this, same size, for $14 to $28, which seems a bit much, but there it is. But I decided to list the full 15″ strand of 75 beads for $248, which should be a very enticing price for a jewelry maker. We’ll see. If nothing else I will scrap it.
I will be going to our local flea market on Saturday, which is the second to last one before it ends. That’s going to leave quite a hole for some of us! Am rather hoping some other school or organization takes it on, but it’s doubtful.
Time will tell how the rest of June and summer unfolds sales wise. Last year May and June were horrendous, but July and August were good. Honestly you can never predict how a month will go. You can make assumptions based on previous experience, but you’ll never really know.
But I’m realizing I need to stop thinking about it so much. Stop fretting and enjoy summer! The free summer concerts have started and tonight we’re heading to one. Good plan!
Wishing you happy hunting,
Karen
Hunting for Vintage 