1st booth ever at Riverdale Craft Mall. All I had was this little corner space to work with. Packaging was a new concept for me.

Redecorated for the Christmas season. Too many items were getting stolen so I had to come up with packages that could have security tags attached.

To heck with the packaging. It became painfully obivious that jewelry sells better with out the packages. But then again, it's easier to steal if not packaged. What a dilema. Hard to make any money if half of whats made walks out the door. It's obivious to me that I have a product that people want, if they are willing to risk prosecution for it.

My first day at the River Market in Little Rock, AR. I was pretty proud of my display design. I watercolored poster boad and cut and notched it and folded in half and secured front to back by gluing an index card at the bottom.

I was the first one to selling jewelry at the river market. It was unheard of for some one to make a living selling hand made jewelry in 1997. Needless to say, jewely displays were not easy to find and purchase.

Hard to see, but I had 3 tables. All of this I had to pack down and load into a little 1992 Toyota Paseo and still have room to pick up my son after school got out. This is my first assigned spot. I kept this spot for around 7 years.

These displays worked really well. They folded down compactly and were light weight in the car, poor car. But when it came to wind, they were a nightmare. I tried weighting them down with rocks and various other items, no luck. And if there was any humidity or rain, they would almost melt, so to speak.

Hard to see from this view, but laying on the table are cloth covered foam boards that I have the jewelry pinned to. Once again, theft was proving to be a problem for me. The pins didn't prevent theft, but it slowed them down. I invested in some new displays. However, wind was still a big issue. This picture was taken during off season. Cold north wind and only one other vendor with me that day I was able to set up on the south side so I could stay a little warmer and was able to spread out and get comfy in the sun.

Finally, an idea that works! I remember playing with Tinker Toys and my brother's Erector Set (showing my age) and while in Home Depot it came to me, I could build a jewelry display with pvc pipe! Everyone else must have thought that it was a good idea, wasn't long till I saw them everywhere. This is actually my second pvc display. The first one didn't last too long. It was only 1 sided so it didn't stand up to the wind well at all. Thus the 2 side wrap around display was born.

This is the third side of the booth. This is where I put the stuff that I wanted to show off. I still have a few foam boards left but am trying to phase them out. The pins are proving to be a real problem. Little by little I am able to invest in new displays, like my bigger earring tree, which I learned the hard way, sprays earrings everywhere when the wind knocks it down and it rolls rapidly across the pavillion.

Summer Set was an arts and crafts festival held in Burn's Park in North Little Rock, AR.

This is my second and last year to do Summer Set. It was also Summer Set's last year.

This is early December 2000, the year of the dreaded ice storm that hit Arkansas so terribly. The 2 ice storms almost put me out of business. I was not able to sell the whole week before and the whole week after Christmas.