Federico 2026 Part Two

by Brigid McAlpin July 5, 2026

This will be a short entry because it has been such a busy time! I saved my estate sale paperwork for Sunday because I "only" had two packages to complete. Little did I know that other than taking some time out to go to the fitness center to do my physical therapy homework that it would take me from first thing in the morning until nearly 4:00 AM overnight Monday to get them completed. First off, unbeknownst to me, Clover totally changed the way I access the order data online as part of my processes to calculate credit card fees for the jewelry I sell from the caravan (those are my expenses so they do not go on the client's expense list) and to double-check sold items with furniture cards that were rung up under one of our Clover categories instead of with a custom item description like they are supposed to. After much searching only to not quite find what I needed, Kuochun pointed out that I can use the detailed query he creates every week so I will just need to retrieve the information I need in a different way. In addition, lots of items for one of the sales were entered through Clover Go on a smart phone as opposed to the Clover Flex device so I had to manually add each item to its respective report category. Also, I did not receive the cash totals for the day with all of the Clover Go sales so I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I was reporting everything correctly without having anything to balance to. Then on each sale, I was off by exactly $60.00. After a lot of backtracking, I was able to resolve the discrepancies.

I had been adding jewelry items to a bin for Robin's estate sale but I accelerated the process once I found out the dates for the sale have been set for next week. The home is located in Goodyear and looks very nice! Melinda needs to go to Scottsdale for an appointment next Tuesday so I am going to meet her nearby to hand off the jewelry. They are going to use their own display so all I need to provide is jewelry and bags. I am also going to let Melinda borrow a tray so she can keep my jewelry in one place. I believe they are going to use tabletop glass cases with shelves so although there will not be room to display a lot of pieces, the jewelry that is out should be very visible. I encouraged Melinda to pull pieces from backstock if customers are looking for particular items. I have the bulk of the items set aside now and early next week I will price a selection of the budget-friendly necklaces and bracelets I recently received and hopefully get to polishing and pricing some rings.

This is our first time to be in Arizona in July. I was working at my desk Friday evening and I was surprised to see a nice fireworks show! I had a great view without leaving my chair. Kuochun was eating dinner at the time and I could not get him to turn around and look at it. He is not into fireworks, which is odd since they were invented in China!

Although it is officially hot here, overall we are doing fine. The most challenging thing for Kuochun is walking the girls. I worry about their little paws on the streets and sidewalks but he does his very best to walk them when temperatures are at their lowest - their main walks are early in the morning, sometimes even before 6:00 AM and after the sun sets, at about 8:00 PM and 12:00 AM. Margot actually loves the hot weather and when I let the girls into the backyard, she promptly relaxes on the patio. Most of the time she is not in the full sun but I noticed she goes under the part of the overhang which has slats, so it is half sun and half shade. Vivi always likes to participate in whatever Margot is doing but hot weather is not for her. Within two minutes she wants to come back inside. Margot does not want to be out there alone so she comes inside too. They are both learning not to be such stubborn little Schnauzers and do their business more quickly in this weather!

On Friday we took the girls for grooming so they are looking very cute in their Fourth Of July kerchiefs. I have been wanting to take photos with them wearing jewelry for years but never took the time to do it. After grooming is the perfect time and I thought I would warm them up a bit by trying a couple of turquoise necklaces on them. They did not like it so I may just have to take their photos without jewelry and see if I can get ChatGPT to superimpose the jewelry on them. It was a busy and tiring day as it was also cleaning day so we needed to clear out of the house. Little by little, it is becoming easier for Irma to clean my office area as I get jewelry priced and moved out. I started a medium flat rate box with costume jewelry to go to Mount Prospect as I found more to be sorted. I am curating costume jewelry pieces for Prescott and the rest will all go to the jewelry caravan. Unfortunately the Whatnot show on Wednesday did not go well so next week I will have Mike come over to reorganize everything into cases. I am confident that we can get a lot of it sold, as long as there is room to leave it at some of our sales. I will take back whatever does not sell shortly before my Prescott garage sale and give it a try there.

I should be able to catch up with pricing the rest of the costume jewelry which is out and about in my area by the end of July. The longer-term goal would be to start tackling everything that is in shoeboxes in the pantry. It is a combination of sterling and costume, pieces that need pricing and pieces that need repair. There are necklaces and keychains that Mother strung that I need to finish up, and a lot of her vintage doodads that she used to use to make pincushions. I also need to decide what to do with all of the expensive rubber stamps I bought her. The pantry has two sections of cabinets - I hope by the end of winter I can get one side cleared out so we can put actual food in there!

This week I continued on the Federico 2026 pieces, posting nine in total. A pair of mother of pearl earrings, a smaller scale mother of pearl cuff bracelet and abalone cuff bracelets in three different stone sizes are all up, as well as four more pairs of statement earrings without stones. I have some beautiful abalone statement earrings that I purchased from Federico last year, they were new designs at the time and he encouraged me to buy them. I will make them a priority when I get to the 2025 pieces.

I also relisted this turquoise ring after five months that I had originally posted as Native American but someone complained to me through eBay that it was not so I changed the description to Southwest Style. It still looks Native made, pre 1970s to me but there is a small open back on the silver setting which is not characteristic of their work.

These gorgeous earrings by Federico are always a winner! Every time I have found them, they sell quickly and these were no exception. I actually met the husband of the woman who wanted them at the dog groomer as they were going to catch a flight two hours later. I have met such nice people through Facebook Marketplace.

As far as other sales went this week, I accepted a Poshmark offer on this amazing ring by Navajo artist Floyd Parkhurst. It ended up not being much of a profit margin due to Poshmark's fees, but I decided to take it because it is a size 13 which is not a common men's size. Due to the design all the way around the band it cannot be resized. I also sold a pair of cute Navajo-made stamped earrings on Etsy which I had posted way back in April, 2023. One by one, the items which have been online the longest are finding homes!

On July 4, I accepted an offer on a pair of Mother's shoes I had posted last year. They are L'Artiste by Spring Step brand, she absolutely loved this brand but sadly never had the chance to wear this pair. Most of what she wore were very colorful sandals and she received compliments on them everywhere we went. We discovered them on one of our two visits to Carefree, where they used to have a store.

Well it is very late so I am going to wrap things up for the week. See you next time!