Let's Go To The Other Booth Now

I don't think I have ever shared any photos of the booth that Lara and I share.  It is located about one block from the University of Arkansas campus.  It's on the bike trail and a new brewery opened up in the same parking lot this last week.  The building itself is very old and historic.  It is located on the railroad tracks.  I don't mean near the tracks or close to the tracks.  I mean, like when a train comes through, you better hold on to something.  Thatclose.  It must have been a warehouse that loaded or unloaded on the tracks umpteen years ago.  There are two cats that live in the building - Faye and Funky.  They are very used to human contact, so much in fact, I have seen Lara stare at them trying to make sure they are still alive.  They just plop on a table and conk out and you can rub on them and they do not wake up.  Apparently the customers pet them all day long and they are over it.  

The store offers a range of booths from one that is stocked to the rafters with....socks.  Nothing but socks.  And they sell those socks like crazy.  There's an incense booth.  There's a booth that has big jars of pickled pig fetuses and sheep entrails.  There's a record album booth.  Jewelry booths, candle booths, frisbee disc gold booth and on and on.  There are the junky kind of yard sale type of booths - kids clothes, toys, kitchen things, etc. where they are selling stuff cheap and making some money instead of just sending it to Goodwill.  Then there are the booths like ours - a mix of vintage and handmade.  Set up so it's attractive and appealing to the eye.  We only have a set of shelves - five feet wide, I think and only three shelves plus the floor space.  The shelves are wide set, so when you place a bunch of smalls on them, they have a lot of empty air space.  So we are working on finding crates or shelves to use within the set wooden shelves to fill up the blank space and make more room for more stuff.  

Bless Lara's heart - her other booth is all white and sweet with her cute signs and prints and vintage wares.  Then she hooked up with me - 'Miss Fill 'er Up With Junk'.  I try to show restraint - I pull things before I put more out. I try to bring in an assortment of things because we really are just starting to get the hang of our clientele.  I sell a lot of barware, beer glasses, mid-century and Razorback things - stuff I never really buy or sell.  But, we've both started picking it up.

Lara has started making more quirky hip prints for the college crowd.  Her Star Wars and Super Heroes are quick sellers.  

She carries her sweet thoughtful prints too.  

We both mix in some vintage around them.  

I took my Cookie jar and Cracker Barrel to this booth.  Somehow I think this is a good place for them.  The cards are for The Junk Ranch.  Because we like to have junk spread out in as many locations as possible.  :D

I took this cart in today to hold small, unbreakable things.  I don't know if it will stay, but I think it works for now.  The back part of the floor has thins weird drop off so we can't really put much back in there.

There used to be a yellow brick road in the whole store, but these weird squares in front of our booth are the only pieces of it that I have noticed. 

Our booth is in the middle of a long line of shelves and there is a chicken wire divider in front of it which the seller has clothes hanging on it - so the visibility for our booth is really low.  A lot of people come to the end of the aisle then just peek around the corner and then turn back around.  There is actually another row of big booths back behind our shelves.  It's set up in a very back tracky roundabout way in there.  Today a lady walked passed me with big eyes and said, "I think I came through here?" like a question, not an statement.  She was totally lost.  

Even though our section is kind of hard to see, we still do pretty well.  We split our rent which makes it affordable then we add up our individual tickets minus commission.  It takes very little time to do this booth, so I figure anything I make is just gravy.  I drive passed it several times a week just out running errands.  I have to make a special trip to the big booth in a different town.  

Lara goes in once a week and puts in new things and straightens and rearranges everything.  

Then I go in a few days later and do the same.  I think it keeps it fresh since we are always moving and rearranging things.  We are on the list to get a booth whenever just the right one opens up.  We had an offer to take one in the upstairs section, but I couldn't imagine either one of us schlepping furniture up a huge flight of stairs.  Heck, I've never even been upstairs!  I have a bum knee and I prefer to not wreck it just to look around up there.  Besides, that's where the pig fetuses are!  Aiiieee! 

Well, you've been to both booths this week!  Thanks for coming along again.   You've been a total pleasure!  :)