so this weekend i spoke with a company that was at the NSS this year as a seller. last year was their first year and from what they said, attendance- not companies showing, but companies BUYING- was down 50%. they also said hotel prices were up 3x what they were last year at the particular hotel they stayed at- no wonder some of these small shop owners couldn't afford it! it's a shame that the smaller boutique stores are going to have to rely on last year's contacts and/or blog reports to do their purchasing for the holiday season. i just hope that the newbies this year think to send out catalogs to every shop they can think of they didn't meet at the show or can somehow get some names together for a mailing list!
i also concluded that i want to go and look next year. not show, but look. i want to soak it in because by 2010 i want to show. i want to refine my ideas, pull together a cohesive line and show in a small booth- maybe even take up my fried, Corey, at Correspondence Ink on sharing a booth. i have a giant stack of random pieces of paper with ideas and thoughts and sketches that need to be flushed out but i know i can't pull it together for next year. i think if i aim for 2010, the nugget will be 2 and she can either come with us or stay with the grandparents or the grandparents can come with us and they can just play in central park all day- oh my god can you imagine how fun that would be? they could do the zoo, the carousel, the kids playhouse, the castle...
i'm getting to the point where i'm creating designs that i'm really happy with so what i really need to do is print out a contact sheet, have a mini crit within myself and possibly send it out to my old classmates, see it all as a whole and refine everything. i need to see the flow and i need to just see what i have- that was my problem last year. i jumped in fast because i panicked and i tried to push items i didn't like nor believe in. i was designing what i thought would sell and not what i was passionate about. i have some things started that i really like- i have some sets in the works that i think are going to be great and i'm so excited about the packaging for these sets that i'm itching to get started- but have hit a roadblock because i don't own one of the key components i would need to make it happen. i'm okay though- i've learned to be very patient lately with my ideas. and i'm taking the necessary steps to figure out costs of all the materials so that i don't buy things i don't need and that i don't spend too much.
i'm thinking i'm going to look into promotional items as well. i have one idea i'm looking into pretty deeply, but i haven't found exactly what would work- persistence! i will find it!
so i've left you with a lot of vague information- just as i planned, but even though the creative juice isn't flowing fast, it's trickling and i'm collecting all the droplets.
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