Easel & Blue B Clothing Launch Is Complete

This week I finished up the launch of the Blue B collection with the addition of two very cute Western-style sweatshirts to the online store. This sweatshirt is covered with real embroidery in a great color combination of taupe, chocolate brown and taupe.

This sweatshirt has great textured embroidery, just like a vintage letterman's jacket but with Western motifs including horseshoes, stars and cacti.

I also posted the final piece from the Easel collection which recently arrived and I started on the last vendor which is Zenana. This piece is totally different than the others I ordered from Zenana but I thought it was really cute. Zenana clothing is really nice quality and very reasonably priced - this top is only $20.00 and there are more great basics to come in the following weeks. Click on any of these individual photos for more details.

Our estate sale setup schedule was not as heavy as usual so it was a good time for Mike to come over and help organize the garage and jewelry. He came on Monday and Wednesday. It has been such a whirlwind since we have come back from Arizona with Mother's house sale and her being in the hospital twice and currently in a skilled nursing facility. I have not had the chance to spend any time out there. I also have the addition of Mother's remaining personal items and items I did not want to go to the garbage after her sale to deal with.

I do not know what I am going to do with the large photograph of my great-grandparents on Dad's side. The photo is in bad shape with a big tear in it. There are also all of the handcrafted signs for Apple Annie Awnings, I remember going with Dad to the artist's home in Long Grove to pick them up. Mother contacted the man who Dad sold the business to see if he wanted them but he does not own the business anymore. There is also a bear-shaped plaque from Dad's fraternity days in the mid-'60s. The one thing I would have wanted was a framed architectural sketch of our Park Ridge home - Dad had one done for our previous home in Skokie as well and he had them both hanging in his office. But Rachel decided to bring it to the people who live in our home now. Hopefully they liked it.

I worked hard pricing jewelry and I was able to finish retagging the costume jewelry from the old handwritten silver tags to the P-touch labels and thermal printed tags. I also went through the the sterling silver jewelry and separated the pieces into three categories - keep at 50% off, reduce to 75% off and post online. I came up with enough 75% off pieces for Mike to fill an entire large case. I then separated the 50% off jewelry by price and we now have two budget-friendly cases to take to the estate sales. Everything in these cases is $45.00 or less per piece except for some of the rings, I decided not to segregate them by price.

I also cleared the jewelry out of the breezeway - there was a lot of costume jewelry in there as well as the entire Czech rhinestone jewelry collection. I separated the Czech pieces by plated and unplated. All of the Czech jewelry came direct from the factories there and some of the pieces were never completed. The unplated pieces will be 75% off and the plated pieces 50% off. As far as the costume jewelry, I went through and pulled pieces I would like to post online and the rest will be a final clearance of 75% off. There are signed and unsigned pieces to choose from.

I checked the dresser drawers in the breezeway and found a bunch of new Native American earrings and a whole shoebox filled with vintage Mexican silver pieces among other jewelry. I still need to go through everything but I imagine the shoebox will have some 75% off pieces in it.

I had sent the remaining pieces of Tibetan jewelry back home from AZ, unfortunately I cannot get this jewelry anymore because the vendor has not been back to the Tucson Gem Show since the pandemic. Same goes for the Thai silver pieces. I just have so many categories of jewelry and would like to narrow things down. I think these will be all be 75% off as well.

I found some more Bali silver in the dresser drawers and as of now I have it in my to-do pile to post online. This jewelry is sterling silver and so cute with animal and floral themes. I have not purchased from them for a couple of years but I do love their jewelry and working with them. The final decision will be how to price the amber jewelry, there was enough to fill a large case. I am leaning towards letting it go at 75% off because I found amber does not photograph well.

Mike set up the tables in the garage as if I will be having a sale so it looks like that is what I will do. I will just keep the sale in the garage, things will be neat and organized without elaborate displays. I normally have this sale the first full weekend of October and will keep to those dates so the sale will be October 3-6. I will take photos of what is organized so far and launch the online ads next week. Our estate sales are not close by that weekend (Elmhurst, Libertyville and Schaumburg.) I prefer to have my sale along with our estate sales in the area but this will be a sale like I have never done before. I have never let go of this much jewelry at 75% off. Silver prices have gone up a lot since I purchased these pieces and my prices have not been raised accordingly. This will be an opportunity for some real deals!

In addition to the four new clothing pieces, I posted 9 more jewelry pieces this week. I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel in the shoebox with vintage Native American jewelry but I priced the two new lots I just received and now the shoebox is nearly full again. I think I am going to just post as much as I can and launch the Native American jewelry sale the same weekend as the pop-up sale. That way it would be easy for any locals to see pieces in person.

This week's sales brought about another interesting story - I have had this amazing cuff bracelet by Navajo artist Marie Silver for a few months. It did not sell on the Facebook purge so I listed it online. I was contacted by the grandchild of the artist who asked me if I had any more pieces by their grandmother. Unfortunately I did not but they let me know that their dad was going to purchase the bracelet. He did and I sent it to Phoenix. Sadly the artist passed from COVID but I am happy this piece is back in their family.

I have literally had this Northwest Coast pin for years and finally got it posted online. It sold within two days after posting and is headed to Delaware.

I sold this wonderful Wild Horse pendant by Chimney Butte to a repeat customer in Las Vegas. I originally purchased this for myself but another Wild Horse pendant by the same artist which I liked even more presented itself shortly after so I am keeping that one.

I was thrilled to make my second sale on Whatnot - this kokopelli watch. I accepted an offer because I wanted this piece to find a new home and it is not for everyone. I also took the time to link my bank account so I could receive the funds for my first Whatnot sale as well as future sales.

I accepted a reasonable offer on this carinated cuff bracelet which has a different design on each side. I have collected about a dozen of this style of bracelet the last several years and they are very cool but are not for everyone. This purchase was from a repeat customer and I am so glad she has liked her bracelets so far!

I was working in Vendoo Friday evening and I received a pop-up message asking me to consider listing on Depop. Depop is a social e-commerce company based in London. I never looked into it because I figured it was focused on low-priced items for Gen Z. However, when I did a search on Native jewelry on Depop I found quite a few pieces out there, up to $800 in price. I set up my Depop account and started with my oldest in age pieces (1940s) and ended up posting the '40s and '50s pieces that evening. I never thought I would sell anything on Whatnot but it takes so little time to post there so I did and I now have two sales. Posting to Depop is a little more work than Whatnot but does not take long. Even though international shipping is easier with the major online selling sites now, I do have lot of experience with doing it myself and Depop may open my store up to a new audience.

It is that time of year when it is my turn to take care of medical appointments. The first appointment was Wednesday at Derick Dermatology in Arlington Heights for my annual check-up. I had a different doctor this time and he was great about my requests to remove two little bumps from my arm which used to be freckles. He also approved a second appointment next month to have the last larger lipoma I have removed which really bothers me because it is right on my ribs as well as a bump on the back of my leg he said is harmless but I want to have removed. I was not sure if they would be able to fit me in before it was time to go back to AZ but thankfully they were. I have a dentist appointment the Friday of the pop-up sale weekend but it is at 7:00 AM so it will not conflict. The rest of the appointments will be the third and fourth week in October. My insurance does not cover doctors in AZ unless something bad happens so it is important to have my maintenance appointments done while we are here.

We are probably going to drive to AZ this time - the last airport experience really took a lot out of us and the girls. The cons to driving are that it takes longer and is tiring but the pros are that Kuochun's car will be out of the way at home and I will not need to ship my online store back to AZ or lug part of it on the airplane. This will be helpful especially since I have clothing now. I can also bring items along like jewelry props, supplements and toiletries and not have to buy duplicates there which will save money. We might power through to Oklahoma City the first day and then spend a couple of nights in Albuquerque. I have never gotten to see anything there, it has only been a place to sleep and it would be great to visit Santa Fe as well for a day. I follow the Santa Fe antique mall on Facebook and it looks like the most amazing place. I felt Gallup was scary when we were getting gas but they have amazing shops as well. I am sure one full day is not enough time to do it justice. Santa Fe is about an hour out of the way but Gallup is right on the way to Scottsdale. We will see what happens, Kuochun suggested that we try the drive one more time which surprised me but I am on board with it. It has got to be more comfortable driving in his Honda CR-V than my old van!

No dining news to report, I hit a small milestone this week with 10 pounds lost the old fashioned way! The small wins with weight loss and the online store are keeping me encouraged. I gained 15 pounds in AZ so the first step is to get back to where I was and then go down from there.

Until next time!