
My daughter and I set up shop at the Cottonwood Farmer's Market yesterday. It was fun but HOT. By the time I finished carrying everything and setting up the canopy and tables, I was pretty spent. My husband and oldest son stopped by a bit later (with chairs--so...I'm a little forgetful!). He said my face was bright red and began cooling me down.It was fun but I am not a "hawker", meaning I don't reach out to folks to sell my wares. If they want to look they are welcome. I will smile and that's about it. My husband is very engaging. Folks stop by to meet him because he has such a handsome smiling face and he has one of those personalities that pulls folks in. I was laying on the grass relaxing and he and my daughter smiled and engaged folks toward the booth. A lot of compliments but not alot of buying. Then a friend stopped by. Dominic Standing Bear. He played his flute and is not shy about asking folks to take a look. He was saying, "C'mon! You look like a gal that needs a medicine bag!" "You have the spirit about you! Come take a look at these beautiful bags!" Etc., etc. He got even more people in.
He's a pretty special guy. He has been a Sundancer and Singer for, I believe, over 16 years. Look that up and you'll see it's a pretty intense ceremony by American Indians.
In the end, we sold only two medicine bags but both of them were by my daughter. She's a quiet gal but is learning to step outside her comfort zone a little and doing well at it when she does! I was not too discouraged because a lot of vendors there did poorly. It all depends on what band is playing. If they are not well known, and this one was not, there is a smaller turnout. I did get a REALLY neat opportunity though. One gal came buy, complimented the bags then asked if I ever sold in stores. I said, not really. I just started working on these about a month ago. She gave me her name AND her store front and said "call me". She said she'd be interested in carrying my medicine bags and her shop is in Sedona! Whoo hoo! If you don't know Sedona, it is a unique community based on tourism, etc. It would be wonderful if I could sell the bags in bulk once a month or so to this gal instead of trying to hit up shows, etc. I'll be contacting her next week to see how it goes. It would be terrific! We'll be doing it again next Thursday.





















