Back To Jewelry

Well, it turns out there was a 3-week gap between blog posts. It has been an overwhelming year and things are catching up with me a bit. Even though we ended up donating so much due to our move, I still filled four U-Haul U-Boxes with most all of the unsold furniture plus many of the items we wanted to keep. I have been paralyzed once by all the minutia of the decision-making. I am a person who likes everything in its place and I am still surrounded by all these extra items while we wait for Prescott to be ready. The estate sale work has to come first and it has left little time for anything else. I started to load items in the living room as I originally planned but then it was time for house cleaning. I did my best to get the clutter under control - I did a lot of good work in the kitchen and my bedroom for example but was not able to get to the living room. Irma our house cleaner is a really good sport and these past two visits has done her best to clean the areas she can. I hope I can be ready to have the movers come to put all of the Prescott items in the garage before the next cleaning day in a month. It has been consistently warm every day with highs in the mid-80s. This means it has still been too hot to work in the garage. The average high has been 9 degrees above normal. But we are supposed to get several days with rain and then a cool off is coming. I am looking forward to it because I really want to get organized around here, it will give me great peace.

While the house was being cleaned, we all took a ride out to Best Buy Arrowhead which is closer to Melinda, but she is currently in Illinois so we did not see her. Tina my designer asked me to order the new appliances which include the washer and dryer, mini fridge and microwave oven. Unfortunately none of these particular models were on display at the store but they do look good in the photos. Kuochun thought it was a little weird that Best Buy is the best place to buy appliances but I said they do not have Abt Electronics here! I did order the Scottsdale kitchen appliances from Abt and had them shipped but I did not see any reason to order from them again in this case. They go to Scottsdale all the time but I am not sure about Prescott. Since we had the girls with us, we headed for home after placing the order and after a short wait the cleaning was complete.

My touch of OCD kicked in again when Tina said the new dryer was going to stick out past the pony wall which separates the kitchen from the laundry area. I am having custom cabinets installed in the laundry area because there is currently no storage. I was honest with her and said it was going to bug me if the appliances were going to stick out past the wall. I asked if the wall could be made a little longer and luckily it can! The contractor will wait until the appliances are delivered before extending the wall, I imagine to be sure he makes the wall the right size. Over the next two weeks, the drywallers and then the painters will be in. There was a setback and half the electrical in the home needs to be rewired, the joys of buying a home from an investor. Also, the insulation was very old and basically useless and there was construction worker garbage like pop cans in the attic. I went with the best insulation option as Prescott does have a four-season climate and I think it will pay off as far as making the home as comfortable as it can be and save on utility bills. Hopefully it will be time for the fun stuff after that! I have owned this home since July and we have not seen it since the spring when we came up for the home inspection.

I received my new smile (4 new crowns at the upper front) on November 5. The assistant had some difficulty removing the temporaries and the metal instrument hit my lip really hard. I was glad it hit my lip and not my teeth, as I still have all my natural teeth on the bottom! However soon enough that will change. When I was at the dentist for the final time in Park Ridge he suggested that I have the molar at the bottom left at the end replaced with a crown as the metal fillings have caused cracks in the tooth over time. I made an appointment but ended up canceling it because I wanted to wait until I got to Arizona so all the crowns will be from the same dentist. I think I have a little touch of OCD and once in a while it comes out. I am not experiencing any problems with the tooth but know it will need to be replaced eventually. My plan is to wait a while and recover from my recent procedures, physically and financially. I had the same issue with my molar in the opposite corner, at the upper right last year and it took a long time to recover from it. I am really happy with the way everything turned out and for the first time in my life my teeth look the way they are supposed to. They feel so much better than the veneers as well. My left front tooth is still sensitive but in time I am sure that will dissipate. All I need to do is continue to avoid biting right into crunchy foods which I was doing anyway ever since my first crowns at age 15.

I was able to host my first Whatnot show on C'est La Brie's for new Native American jewelry on November 2. The first show is supposed to be boosted by Whatnot but I did not notice an effect. I am not sure that I had more than 7-8 people in the room at any given time and most of the time it was only 3-4 people. This includes me! The display looked great but I ended up only selling one ring to someone who popped in looking for a size 10 and I just happened to have one handy. Unlike the other jewelry sellers I follow on Whatnot, I do not have 10,000 Instagram followers and I am not TikTok famous or a Facebook jewelry group administrator. Right off the bat, they have been averaging 50-100 people in their room and it has allowed them to run some or all $1 starting bid auctions. It will take time to build a following but with time and consistency I know I will get there.

One piece of advice given to new sellers is to go into other people's shows and interact so people notice you and start following you. I am always multi-tasking when I have other Whatnot shows on but I have started to interact a lot more with one seller I particularly enjoy and have purchased a lot of sterling silver for the jewelry caravan from. I know a lot of people do it but I would never purchase from Whatnot to turn around and sell on Whatnot. I have plenty of items from other sources to offer on Whatnot.

I decided to give the vintage Native American pieces a try on Sunday, November 9. As much as I would like to build up the jewelry following on C'est La Brie's, I decided to host this show on Brie's Estate Sales where we have more traction. It did make a difference as we were able to make 11 orders over a period of about 3 hours. I put together a nice display once again but a lot of the higher-end pieces were still in their bags which made them hard to see. I mostly showed more budget-friendly items which were off camera and also took requests on the pieces the viewers could see. I was encouraged by the results and Kuochun saw the potential as well. For a while at least, I may stick to selling vintage jewelry on Brie's Estate Sales and maybe try another show of new jewelry on C'est La Brie's before coming up with a regular schedule after the first of the year. I know Federico jewelry is popular so I could try to run a sale of just his pieces. Plus I loved Kuochun's idea of doing Whatnot shows from Tucson. Doing some jewelry selling will help us with our metrics on Brie's Estate Sales as well. I can ship jewelry orders out in less than a day and so far, no defects have been reported. When we first started on Whatnot, I was trying to ship all of the orders myself and it was too much to keep up with to meet Whatnot's requirement of 2-day shipping.

This past Tuesday evening we hosted a combination Whatnot show for our Palatine estate sale along with the rest of the Annalee dolls from Naperville and my vintage Christmas jewelry and selections from the jewelry caravan for good measure. We ended up selling out the Annalees which will help clear some space in the office. We ran everything at full price the first time around and then I discounted the remaining dolls to be sure they would be too enticing to pass up. Some of them even bid up to their original prices which was a big plus. We even sold the faux Annalee Santa and Mrs. Claus slippers! There was not a ton of time left over for my items but we did manage to sell a few which was great.

This past Thursday evening I hosted the second of two Whatnot shows for my personal collection of vintage Christmas decor. I had moved the show day around a few times but in the end decided to take down the jewelry display and replace it with Christmas. Kuochun helped me when he did not need to attend to the girls. We started an hour later so he could walk them before the show started, but they ended up needing to go out again later. Even though hosting a Whatnot show is kind of like talking to yourself, it is still out of my comfort zone. I am getting more comfortable with each show I do. There was never a huge crowd in the show at any given time so there was not much bidding up but I thought it was a big success, we did sell more than 100 individual items. I did not sell too many glass ornaments the first time but this time sold them all except for seven. I have two high heel shoes, two merry-go-rounds, two with a bird theme and a Santa boot remaining. I also sold all of the felt and sequined ornaments except for five birds in white and yellow colors. There are four polymer clay Christmas trees as well. Nothing large really sold, including no takers on the two larger ceramic lighted Christmas trees I offered this time. But it was time-consuming to pack each and every tiny ornament to be sure they arrived safely. I am going to try selling the larger items on Facebook Marketplace. If they do not sell for a reasonable price there, I will pack them up and send them to Prescott for a holiday show in the boutique space next year. They are really beautiful items and even though they are more than 30 years old they still look like they are in new condition. I decided to keep my glitter Sputnik ornaments which had no interest the first time and combined with the most fabulous felt sequined birds and beaded ornaments along with some gold and silver shooting stars, my tree will look amazing and will not take too long to decorate. I put the tree up for the Whatnot show so I would just need to move it to the living room when the area is clear. Luckily there is still time! Even though it is just Kuochun and I now, it is up to me to keep holiday traditions going. Maybe I will even make some cookies!

Next week I am planning to schedule three Whatnot shows - two in Evanston which is an 80-year time capsule estate sale and one in Naperville which has lots of interesting items including historical collectibles. This is the best time of year for online selling so I feel it is important to keep the Whatnot momentum going! It is a lot of volunteer time on my part doing the behind the scenes work and moderating the shows but having a knowledgeable moderator is a huge plus. I do see the difference between shows I host with no moderator and shows I moderate.

I have been using the credenza in my office area to host the Whatnot shows and the space is quite cramped. Once the extra furniture is out of the house and our bedrooms are set up, I plan to set up a Whatnot show space in the spare bedroom as well so I will not need to keep changing out the display every time there is a new show. I can keep the vintage jewelry in the office space and do other shows upstairs. I keep postponing the Whatnot shows for our leftover items from the jewelry-making business but I have to locate it all first. Most of it is in the garage.

We are scheduling estate sales through the weekend of December 11-14 but I am actually looking forward to the holiday break and winter slowdown so I can work on some of these other selling projects. I literally have years worth of work to do between catching up with my jewelry that needs polishing and pricing, selling the rest of the items from Mother's estate and going through all of the pantry cabinets which are filled with jewelry which needs repair, beads and other doodads. One of my jewelry contacts who I had not heard from for three months reached out and I have another 24 pounds of vintage Native American jewelry on the way. I know, crazy but it is crucial to keep these contacts happy!

I took a very small step towards tackling the mountain of jewelry by posting my first jewelry item online since last spring. I selected this beautiful cuff bracelet, shot the photos, wrote it up and was on my way. There is something wrong with the connection between Vendoo and my website so I need to schedule some time with Vendoo customer support to see if they can help.

Up next is to keep plugging away at unpacking everything from Mount Prospect so I can have the movers come and put everything where I would like it to go. Then I am going to have the electricians come and hang my dining room light fixture from Mount Prospect in my office area. It is going to look amazing and provide so much more needed light. There are quite a few additional electrical projects to tackle which have been left undone for three years. Then I will feel comfortable listing the extra furniture and other decor pieces online and then potential buyers can come over to see and hopefully purchase the items for sale.

As of now we do not have any estate sales scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend so that means I will take a week off from the blog as well. I was thinking Kuochun and I can start our own Thanksgiving tradition and have Lou Malnati's. A carryout location is only 5 minutes away or we can go to the sit down restaurant which is about 15 minutes away. I will let Kuochun decide, that is if they are open! Kuochun is not a fan of the traditional Thanksgiving meal and is not keen on spending $80++ per person for one around here, as beautiful as they may be. I always ended up eating turkey, stuffing and rolls at Thanksgiving and I eat turkey sandwiches for lunch year-round so I am fine with it.

Until next time!