Buffalo Dancer Week

I only sold one item this week - this pair of cross earrings on eBay, but I understand that summer is typically the slowest time of year for online sales because people like to get out and do things and are not on their computers as much. Typically, summer is the time to gear up for the holiday season. I am still doing my best to post new items every day but my schedule sometimes makes that challenging. The box of "to-do" items that I keep next to my photo light box was full so this week I decided to pull from that box. I had selected 14 pieces from Buffalo Dancer and was actually able to post 12 of them along with 3 additional pieces for a total of 15 for the week.

I have been a big fan of Buffalo Dancer from my very first year attending the Tucson Gem Show. They are a must stop on my annual tour. Their work is both beautifully executed and charming at the same time. They also choose the most fabulous stones, including unique turquoise from uncommon mines. Buffalo Dancer is most known for their work with vintage silver coins. Here is a unique example of their coin jewelry. At first glance, the conchos do not look like coins but when the pieces are turned on their side, the ribbed edges from the original coins are evident. I have posted and sold some pieces online over the years and also sold a bunch of earrings on Facebook but it is about time that I attack the backlog. I probably have about 150 Buffalo Dancer pieces that I need to sell including necklaces, pendants, earrings, rings, barrettes and keychains. They have had to raise their prices due to the cost of silver which has made some of the statement pieces out of my budget but I love to support what they do. They are just the nicest people and I really enjoy visiting with them every year. Many of the pieces I have are "old silver" prices and I will not increase their prices just because the cost of silver has gone up since I purchased them. It will be a great opportunity to own these pieces at great prices. They have a few tried and true favorites but are always coming up with new designs. I should make the barrettes a priority as I did with vintage belt buckles because they are just as easy to photograph. But next week I probably will switch back to vintage and alternate to keep growing a variety of items on the website.

Here is one of the three non-Buffalo Dancer pieces I posted last week. This piece was sitting in a "to-do" pile for years. I thought it was supposed to be a barrette but when I took it to the repair shop I was told it was originally a belt buckle. I had the belt buckle hardware added to the back and now it is ready to go! I estimate that this piece was from the 1940s.

The second item I posted (and I think the last vintage silver belt buckle I have) is this piece. The stone is not genuine but block turquoise which is made of resin. I estimate that the belt buckle was made in the 1960s and possibly the original stone was damaged beyond repair at some point so probably in the 1980s it was replaced with this block piece. If it were me I would replace the block with a genuine turquoise cabochon. The design is so charming, definitely pre-1970s in style!

Finally, I posted this amazing men's ring by Navajo artist Floyd Parkhurst which had just come in. The ring will make a very special gift for someone and I could not let it go to my death pile when who knows when I will get to it. The stone is birdseye turquoise which can come from several mines but my educated guess would be it came from the Kingman mine in Arizona.

I had physical therapy on Tuesday and Friday this week and unfortunately had to give up my appointment for next Tuesday as Kuochun scheduled his first cataract surgery for that day. My therapist is taking a week off to get married so it will be a test to see how I can keep up with the homework on my own for a week and a half. After next Tuesday, Kuochun will not be able to exercise for a month because he must take two weeks off after each surgery. I will have to motivate myself to go to the community college on my own which I will know will be a challenge. We are now in triple digits for a high every day and it is definitely much easier to stay home in the cool air conditioning and work. In southern Arizona, people hibernate in the summer instead of the winter!

I have been driving the van to my appointments and the plan is to take it for the emissions test and then for registration and license plate renewal next Monday. I went back and forth about whether to keep my BRIGID plate, which I have had in Illinois since Dad gave it to me for my 16th birthday. I looked it up and it is only an extra $25 per year for a vanity plate in Arizona so if it is available I will get it. In Arizona, license plates are only required on the back. My Hyundai Kona does not even have a front license plate holder. I will probably get the standard plate design as well, which I think is very pretty. It is a desert scene in shades of turquoise, gold and purple with dark green lettering. It is important that I not only renew the plate soon as I am driving on an expired sticker (the van was not used since the sticker expired) but I also want to blend in when we head to Prescott. It is kind of like Illinois people going to Wisconsin - some of the people treat "outsiders" differently, especially when they come from a blue state. As long as he had the lake house, Dad had to always register his vehicles in Wisconsin because it was likely that people would not want to buy awnings from him there if he pulled up with an Illinois plate on his car.

We (the Brie's team) had been taking a several week break from Whatnot shows because there were not any solid candidates but I officially made the decision this week to step away from it for a while. Once the pop-up shop in Prescott is complete (which is supposed to be next month) I am going to try hosting Whatnot shows there on my own and see if I can get our seller metrics to improve. I would like to downsize a lot of the jewelry-making supplies and liquidate all of the costume jewelry. I still have quite a bit of costume jewelry to go through so I think I need to try and devote a day to preparing it to sell once a week. I received an email from Whatnot Trust & Safety giving me a warning because we were not meeting the shipping standards. The standards are very strict, everything must be shipped in only two days so sometimes keeping up with it is challenging. Even if we were given three days to ship it would be so helpful but we are not able to control that on Whatnot like we are on eBay and Etsy. I totally understand buyers wanting to receive their items as quickly as possible but packing and shipping vintage items properly does take time.

I do not want to give up on the idea of Whatnot because I can see that it is life-changing for so many but up until now it has been all been unpaid work for me as well as a lot of aggravation correcting mistakes and calming down unhappy customers. The part I have enjoyed most is being the moderator which is right up my alley. I have hosted Whatnot shows on my own with good results most of the time. I just need show up consistently but when I think about committing to a set schedule the little bit of Mother in me comes out and I do not want to be tied down. I was working in a cramped space in Scottsdale so I think having a whole room dedicated to Whatnot that I can keep set up will be a game-changer. I just need to get some guts and turn the camera around on myself. Many of the most successful sellers I follow do show themselves on camera all the time and in the case of jewelry, it is very helpful because they can try pieces on or hold them up to themselves for scale. I have purchased quite a few jewelry pieces on Whatnot in the past that ended up being way smaller in real life than they appeared on camera.

The Arizona room is almost finished but as the trend has been with the Prescott home, with every piece of good comes some bad. There have been permitting issues all along but the latest is that the home is in a major flood zone and 100-year floods are expected. I honestly thought the entire city was classified this way but in this neighborhood, it is just one strip that covers three homes is and mine is one of them. This was brought to our attention when the mini split compressor for the Arizona room was not approved. The landscaping work which is being done will help a lot as far as preventing future water damage to the home. I will have to hire a surveyor to analyze the locations where the three compressors were added and it is a possibility that they all will need to be raised up higher so the water does not reach them. The silver lining may be that once everything is up to snuff and I have gutters installed, I should be able to present this information to my insurance company and get a reduction in the flood insurance premium. Currently I am paying double - one regular policy and one flood insurance policy which are each the same cost.

There is still a ways to go but the hope is the design project will be completed by the end of September. I will have security cameras installed and this will serve a dual purpose - it will allow us to keep an eye on the water situation as well as the climate is different than the valley. Prescott has a mild four season climate. Kuochun has eye appointments through July 9 which coincidentally will be the one year anniversary of the Prescott closing date. The girls have appointments through July 3 and I do too through July 15 so it looks like we will be here in Scottsdale another month. I hope we will have the opportunity to go back and forth somewhat in between to escape the heat in the valley. This will depend on if my physical therapy continues past the four appointments I currently have scheduled.

I have not had pesto sauce for a long time as the local grocery stores just carry it with seed oils which I avoid like the plague when I am at home. I figure I cannot avoid them when dining out but because I eat at home most of the time, overall making smarter food swaps will be very beneficial. It has been very easy making these swaps and the good news is more restaurants are opening in the area which are seed oil-free and some are eliminating seed oils from their menus voluntarily which is a great trend. Anyway, the closest place to get the pesto I wanted is Whole Foods so on Sunday we ventured out in the heat to get some. One of the brands I was buying, Gotham Greens, was called Vegan Pesto but when I read the ingredients they seemed normal so I got it. Whole Foods also has pesto from Italy which comes in a squeeze bag and I got that one too. I was never conditioned to eat condiments, when I was a kid I received allergy tests and they came up that I was allergic to ketchup and mustard so I never ate them and still do not to this day. Yes, I eat plain hot dogs! I use pesto as a condiment on my turkey sandwich (it works with ham too) and with havarti or cheddar cheese it is a great compliment. I will use the one in the squeeze bottle for pasta. I looked up the difference between the vegan and classic pesto by Gotham Greens and it is non-dairy, so there is no Parmesan cheese. They use lemon juice to brighten the flavor. I will try it soon!

I continue to use the Organic Bread Of Heaven products and absolutely love them. I placed a second order including the sourdough bread which I missed last time. It has been perfect for sandwiches. I ordered the high-fiber sourdough fusilli pasta and I have not tried it yet but will use it with the pesto for sure. I also bought the oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and they are delicious as well. We got a pint of vanilla bean ice cream at Whole Foods to go with the mini blueberry pie I ordered. For their cost it is not worth the time and expense to make these items myself and I am so glad I found bakery products I can feel great about eating.

I did continue to do some jewelry pricing and organizing, but because it is not my full time job, it seems that when I focus on posting new items there is not much time for pricing for the jewelry caravan and vice versa. I decided not to schedule any estate sales for July 4 weekend because it falls on a Saturday and also it is America's 250th birthday which is a big deal. I do not think people will have time to attend estate sales that weekend and so far no one has asked for that weekend. I will not have the weekend off from paperwork but having no sales should hopefully free up enough time so I can go back to tackling the organization of the guest room. There is still a big box of family photos in the garage to go through and I need to figure out a good way to store them, plus the ones that are already in the guest room. It would be great to get that squared away so I do not have to do it in the fall.

That is all the news for now, see you next time!