Let me begin by saying "shame on me" for not being a diligent and dedicated blogger, though I am convinced only 2 people actually read the blog portion... one of those people being my mother. (Hi mom and thanks!) Let's move on. In December and November I had the opportunity to share booth space with my friend Katie from Leather N Lace - a cowgirl boutique entrepreneurial gal pal - at "Cowgirl Christmas" in San Luis Obispo. For those of you that don't know me I recently moved from San Luis Obispo to Bakersfield, Ca so the very thought of spending a weekend back at "home" felt amazing. It was a two day show immediately after Thanksgiving in preparation for the Christmas season and promised cowgirl-types out in droves hunting for the perfect Christmas present for family and friends...as well as some well-deserved self-love prezzie's. To be honest the traffic was a little slow, but all in all people were fun and friendly. I ended up selling "Silvia" at the show as well as some other smaller items. In the process I learned a lot - mainly, that I don't particularly like traveling with my wares to trade shows. I know, I know, it sounds terrible, but inevitably I will chip a very tiny piece of paint or even damage one of my pieces lugging them all over the place. In my mind they are art pieces, not furniture and they just don't want to be moved all over hell and gone on a regular basis.
Through the experience at "Cowgirl Christmas", Katie was able to hook me up with a gal that was shortly on her way to the Wrangler NFR Rodeo, the mac-daddy of all rodeo's in the U.S. that takes place annually over 10 days in Las Vegas, NV. Where blinged out cowgirls and cowboys go to spectate, compete and shop til they drop. After careful consideration I (painstakingly and very carefully) packed up my "Miss America" skull since I figured bling and patriotism would surely be appealing at the mac-daddy of all rodeo's(I promise I wont say "mac-daddy" ever again). I was taking a chance on having someone I'd never met, but who came with very good and trusted references, take my biggest and baddest skull to date to another state and rep her for me. Scary, but again, I had references I trusted vouching for the whole situation and it meant I didn't have to sit in a trade show booth. Truthfully it's not the long hours of working a booth that I dislike, I've done that before for multiple companies. I've found the difference is when it's your own work. It's one thing to hear people down-play a product of a company you work for and have the ammo in your back pocket to educate someone on why that product is actually awesome and they should buy it - or not and everyone moves on. This is the first time I've ever had to hear people openly criticize something I not only made, but spent a ton of time on. Frankly, it wears on a girl. Needless to say I was ecstatic about not having to go to NFR myself, to send only one skull and cross my fingers that she sold and if not, I would only have one to ship back. Well, I'm glad Katie talked me into this scenario because my skull sold in 3 hours!! Not only that the gal Carrie from Just Peachy was amazing to communicate with and so bubbly and personable - she really made the whole experience fun. I would love to be able to send another skull or two with her next year since it was a great way to get my style out there to a bigger market of people that are inclined to like what I've got going on. All in all two enthusiastic thumbs up!...and I've already been dreaming up some ideas for next year.
