The events just keep coming!

Last Saturday, I talked my friends into joining me for the GINORMOUS Indoor "Garage" Sale at the Ocean Palms Retirement Community in Stuart, Florida.

This sale was touted to me to be a busy, huge VENDOR sales event!

WRONG!!!  This was basically a garage sale.  There were very few (mainly us) with new items and ONLY us with handcrafted items.  Needless to say, this was a LEARNING experience to really research the venue before handing over our $$$.  The woman next to us had some nice decorative stuff, BUT she was giving it away - literally!  How can you compete with that!!!

I did, however, come away with two future contacts.  Will update later if they come to fruition.

Last night, I booked a table at my first quarters auction.  It was held at our local Son's of Italy and the charity for the night was ST. JUDE'S CHILDRENS HOSPITAL!

Here are the items that I brought with me to the auction at PSL Son's of Italy.  I auctioned off both of my custom wine bottle serving trays for 2 quarters each.  ALL the paddles were in the air!  People definitely LOVE my trays.  My table raffle was the cat lamp and my door prize was a pair of simple earrings.

I also donated a basket for the charity.  The basket contained one of my custom divided wine bottle serving trays, hard cheese, pepperoni, stuffed olives and crackers!  Since 100% of this was for the charity, I asked for three quarters.  I don't know what the final $$$ was for this item, but EVERY paddle was up - people had more than one paddle and they were bidding with them all!!!  Hopefully, the charity made a few dollars from my item.

Here is my table setup!  

People are starting to arrive and get their seats for the auction.  They were a VERY rowdy crowd.  TONS OF FUN!!!

I was very happy and surprised with how many quarters my items brought in!  This venue isn't a high volume selling outlet, but just a way to get my name out there.  I made two connections at the auction.  One was referred to me earlier in the day - God decided I should meet him the same day!  He hosts a MEETUP group that puts all of our local events in one place and helps network with other small businesses in the area.  My other contact hosts a HUGE quarter auction in Sebastian, Florida.  It will be a drive to attend this event, but I was told by several people that not only was it a much larger venue, but that area was into handcrafted items!  

All in all, I really enjoyed my night and 2 close friends and 1 non-friend, now a new friend, from Facebook (who brought 2 friends) came to support me.  Thank you, Melody Floyd, Karen Pollard and Johnette Beaudry!  Our table definitely had a great time!!!

Please be sure to visit my WEBSITE CALENDAR often to see where you can join me next!  Looking forward to seeing you soon!!!

I am also working to get my 8th Annual BEAD SOUP BLOG PARTY pieces completed for the May 10th reveal (extended from April 30th)!  One piece completed, one almost completed and my final piece in the works!  That will be a MAJOR blog post, so prepare to visit TONS of blogs and see everyone's creations!

So all my kilns will be in service every day, my torch will be lit and my cabbing machines will be forming stones.  I have a lot of events planned and need to start making some jewelry and custom wine bottle serving trays!  I will be adding pieces back onto my DEBORAH APODACA DESIGNS website for those who cannnot attend a local event.  My custom wine bottle serving trays make excellent housewarming gifts and DON'T FORGET, Christmas is just around the corner!!!