Shop one closes

This is to be the quiet week so Zack does not have to go in until Friday.(tomorrow)
He and Brie want me to go with them and see the clinic and cancer center.
They want me to be included a little bit in all the drama I heard about by email or phone. I am delighted to go with them.

I will stay overnight as the next morning is the big clean up of shop numero uno.
I started that shop Feb 1 2011 , the idea was to just get rid of more of my shopstock stashed away in boxes every where around me. Then a new idea crept into my busy head and I started to design jewelry. I buy beads and put them together, that simple.

I had no idea over a year ago I was going to go in another direction, the antiques are not that popular as when I started in the 1960's . Young people want to put it all in the dishwasher and polishing silver is truly not in their time schedule. Maids are long out of the pictures in most households too.

When I started here in NC in 1976 I still had regulars who collected pressed glass, diamond cut crystal glass, complete sets of Limoges, sets of sterling flat ware.
I shipped more complete sets of China to Texas and Alabama. Alabama also was the mecca for nice old pieces of Sheffield, antique silverplate. I guess they still had help then in the South.

Today you go to ant thrift store and there are stacks of silverplated bowls, candleholders, etc...most from the 1930 time slot. They do not sell, people do not want them. It has to be 18th and early 19th century or forget it.

So my glassware, linens, laces, just kept gathering dust in the little space and what I put together in jewelry sold. I bought more and more supplies for beading...now I have tons of that to add to my "rest of the shop", I guess I am
a retailer hoarder. There is a difference between a hoarder and a retail hoarder.
Since I was 16 I was selling something. Even before that, GI's would give us chewing gum and I hated the stuff , I made a big talk about it in school and the girls bought the gums like it was a beauty product. I was bitten by the selling bug.
So I always bought antiques with the idea to make a few bucks and keep going in a household which went from feast to famine. (artist life).

So the place where I rent opened up another wing and I immediately got the best corner and started shop II. 95 percent of that is jewelry. I have a continued following. After the slow winter months I decided that only one shop would be the best bargain right now. Rents are not cheap.

I decided to give most of my boot to the best kept charity shop in town.
I will just relax a bit more and have more time to devote to my new love "the beads" Now if I stop buying them we truly would be making money.....what did I say I was?
a retail hoarder......

Busy week end...........