Whatnot Whirlwind

The Whatnot jewelry seller decided to take a week off from her weekly New Mexico sourcing trip and source at my home on Wednesday instead. I was thinking about cancelling my physical therapy appointment on Tuesday to stay in Prescott and work on organizing for the pop-up sale but decided to keep the appointment and come back to Scottsdale so I was there for the seller as well. I traveled back on Labor Day Monday but traffic was not too bad. Since I was by myself, I decided to stop at a HomeGoods on the far north side of Phoenix. I was able to find Tommy Bahama pillows (the sheets I purchased were Tommy Bahama so they match) and some plastic storage containers for the pantry and for cleaning supplies. I found a narrow container for under the kitchen sink that spray bottle cleaners can be lined up in. There are two little wheels in the back so it should be easy to bring it forward and roll it in place again. I currently have a lazy Susan there but we cannot turn it because there are some sort of flexible pipes under the sink interfering with the taller bottles. The sign on the highway just says HomeGoods but it is actually a HomeGoods/TJ Maxx combination. The store was SO crowded, just like Christmas! I am not sure that I would make a point to stop there again but glad it is out of my system.

I went in to physical therapy on Tuesday not realizing that it would end up being my last appointment. It was bittersweet because it has really been a great experience with Cody my physical therapist but it will help cut down on the traveling back and forth, time and expense. My knee has been acting up due to lack of consistent exercise but once Kuochun and I are back in the same place again and Margot is out of the woods we will get back to it. I had to take one final walking test, which consists of walking as quickly as possible for six minutes inside the physical therapy area, where there are lots of other therapists and patients trying to do their thing, and the area is not that long so there is a lot of slowing down and turning around to go back in the other direction. I do not feel it can be very accurate. I ended up with 50 fewer steps than last time so I am still technically behind for someone my age. I do feel I have the tools now to continue on my own. Kuochun is encouraging me to switch primary doctors (I am not thrilled with the one who was assigned to me) and get another opinion but I have to see if his doctor is in my network. In the end I guess I am suffering from a nerve problem and it is something that cannot be fixed but that I will need to manage. I will never know why I was fine one day and in horrible pain the next.

Wednesday's jewelry appointment was great, lots of new goodies went on their way to be part of Saturday's Whatnot show. I had the remaining jewelry from our recent Geneva estate sale shipped to AZ and the seller and I went through each piece to confirm that they were truly Native, as there were many non-Native pieces as part of this estate. The show was a huge success! There were only ten unsold pieces from the estate and they will be offered up for sale once again next week. There were also a couple of pieces which needed repair, so once they are ready they will go on Whatnot as well. One piece was a belt buckle which was converted into a barrette, but instead of placing the barrette hardware in the center, it was placed at the top. I am having it converted back, which makes a lot more sense. I purchased a beautiful bracelet from the show by James McCabe, a Navajo artist who is very well-known for making beads from vintage Mercury dimes. I love the way one piece of turquoise was added in for interest. I normally do not go for dangling charms but this one is very pretty. There were two of these bracelets available and one was spoken for so I asked the seller to place it in the "buy it now" so I could use my other Brie's Estate Sales Whatnot account to pay for it. I receive a $5 Whatnot credit for every new customer that signs up through my referral link and makes a purchase, even if it is not with us. I had racked up $190 in credits and received a bunch of recent referrals, but my total was only $200. That led me to believe that the credits must have expiration dates so I was sure not going to let that happen anymore. It definitely helped with the cost of the bracelet!

The seller was able to find homes for five of Mother's pieces, and fourteen for me including some high-end necklaces so the day was a great success for everyone! Plus the estate results came just in time to include them in the sale package. There will be consignments going forward but at least as much as possible was included up front. The seller has been placing some of my pieces on her website as well and several have sold from there already! It really has been a wonderful arrangement which has helped both of us greatly. I will be able to commit to the Prescott swale project which will hopefully further protect the home against water damage. Next time I go to Prescott, I will take photos of the mini split units which had to be raised several feet in the air per city/FEMA requirements. "Mountain living" as Kuochun calls it has definitely been a different experience!

Another week has flown by without any new items posted. I really need to at least post one item per day to keep my online stores active. However, in spite of it I was able to sell three items on Poshmark and one on eBay. I accepted a Poshmark offer on a vintage turquoise cuff bracelet that I have had for a long time, I sold the last of Apache artist Rosella Paxton's heart rings on eBay, I sold a classic sterling beaded necklace of Mother's on Poshmark and accepted an offer on this beautiful flower pendant by Leander Tahe. I have had a request for another pendant like this, and I do have one because I was going to keep it. There was not much profit margin involved because pieces from this artist are expensive to buy. I think I will offer it to her. Unfortunately Poshmark shows the offer price so I think this is why she is now interested. The two rose rings sold during the Whatnot show Saturday so if this second pendant sells I will only have the matching ring remaining. I am not giving up my rose pendant because I am not sure if I can replace it!

Margot is not 100% just yet but is improving. She continues to do well wearing her cone. The hope is that she will be able to have it removed next Tuesday, the two week mark after her surgery. The plan is for all of us to go up to Prescott next Thursday, after my dental appointment Tuesday and haircut Wednesday. The plumber is scheduled to come back Thursday afternoon to install the garbage disposer and complete the yearly maintenance. I am also hoping that the tile for the Arizona room and pop-up shop will be able to be installed in the next two weeks. That will really help me get things moving to prepare for the pop-up sale.

While in Scottsdale this week, I have been going through my jewelry inventory to make sure everything has a price and the smaller items are carded and priced. I have made headway on the new Native American jewelry and went through three shoeboxes of Mexican jewelry, which are currently sorted by price point. Less than $100, $100-$199 and $200-$299 are all complete. I will start migrating the jewelry up to Prescott so it can be displayed in the pop-up shop. I think I will save the higher-end pieces for the display cases and keep the more budget-friendly pieces in their bags and place them in baskets that customers can sort through. There is not going to be room to display everything, even with the Whatnot help I have been receiving! But this will be so much better than the pieces being stored in shoeboxes in a cabinet.

ChatGPT has helped me to not just put out a fire, but to take the time to see how I can improve a process. As an example, I worked through my label printer situation with it. I have only one label printer that I use to print jewelry dumbbell tags and 4x6 shipping labels. As a result, I have to switch out the labels quite often. When switching from shipping labels to dumbbells, I found that the labels would not feed into position so I could print. ChatGPT helped me troubleshoot and I was able to solve the problem. I decided to continue the conversation and talk about how I am always having to switch out the labels and also unplug the USB cable from my computer and plug in the thumb drive all the time as well. I mentioned getting a second printer for Scottsdale so at least I would not have to switch labels all the time there and moving my old printer to Prescott because it does not take up as much space and I have a lot of labels for it. ChatGPT tracked down the best price on the new label printer for me which was a whopping $110 off on sale at OfficeMax/Office Depot! I have received it in the mail, I just need to set it up. After that, the next step will be to tackle the thumb drive issue. The last time my computer went kaput Geek Squad suggested I use a thumb drive for my important files instead of storing them on the computer. But ChatGPT pointed out that things can go wrong with thumb drives too. I am going to just keep my files on my cloud storage. It will be a change but I will get used to it.

I did not ask ChatGPT about this but I decided to check and see if Brother P-Touch labels came in sizes smaller than 12mm. Both Mother and Dad only used 12mm labels which are perfect for carded jewelry. I have 18mm and 24mm now to label bins, jewelry cases or anything else where I want a larger label. But I had never looked into labels smaller than 12mm to more neatly price items like stacking cuff bracelets. It turns out Amazon had both 6mm and 9mm labels for sale! It is a game-changer for the cuff bracelets, they look so much better now. And if the cuff is narrower than 6mm, I can just use a dumbbell tag without it looking silly.

I have not posted ads for the pop-up sale yet because I am just getting started pulling individual jewelry photos from my inventory, and I am not ready to take photos of anything else yet. There is a possibility that I postpone the sale for a week. I should know for sure by the end of next week.

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