With my positive pants on and everything!
So it's not been a great week, yes in an ideal world it would be all sunshine and daisies every day, but lets face its, that's not life. It's how I deal with this weekend that will define my progress.
What happened this weekend?
Well possibly every indie business owners worst nightmare, I started off the week so excited, ready to vend at the beautiful Haddon Hall, with a plethora of other artisans. Weather was set to be perfect and I was excited to be out on the stall again after the success at Weston Park a couple of weeks ago.
Day one was a great drive there, set up in plenty of time, ready to go before 10am (which was a massive improvement on Weston Parks set up!) I sat in that "nervited" state as the gates opened with a few people trickling in. A couple of browsers. No sales in the first hour, but that's ok, I told myself. It has never happened before, but its Friday, the schools have just gone back and people are back at work. I knew today would be the worst day.
The second, fourth and fifth hours past.
No sales.
By 4pm I was heartbroken. I had so much hope for this weekend and this was an awful feeling. Never in my 6 years of Hodgepodge have I ever had a day in an event where I have had no sales.
I remained positive and thought to myself the next two days will be better.
The following day started off in a similar style. No sales in the first hour, but thankfully it picked up in the afternoon. However not to the extent I had hoped. Day three, Sunday. Now I had done my research visit to Haddon Hall on a Sunday so I knew that Sunday would be so much busier and sales would be great and I would at least have a chance at making my money for the stall back.
I was wrong.
On Sunday, I took the grand total of £3.50.
It has been a hard weekend, but as I said at the start, I have my positive pants firmly on. It would be so easy to throw the towel in (and yes I did question my work over the weekend) but you know what? I'm putting it down to a bad weekend in that Covid is still uncertain, a lot of people don't know where they stand with guidelines, and I'm putting this down to experience. Yes a very expensive lesson, but an experience all the same.
Yes I may have made a loss but focusing on the positives this weekend, I got to have a bit of time to myself ( a rarity since Covid) I managed to not only finish a commission, but started a new design for a new product, and most importantly I got to build relationships with other artisans.
My neighbours, The three little leaves company, are a brand new shiny business and they are amazing! I am so pleased that their first event went well for them, and they ignited that passion that I had when I first started Hodgepodge. So much so that after a quick look on their Instagram at some of their beautiful plants, I was inspired to start paining some of their gorgeous plants (which hopefully I will share soon!) as well as treating Tom (aka Mr HP) to a beautiful specimen from their stall. (Find out more about them on Instagram www.instagram.com/threelittleleavesco )
So yes! Its been a pretty pants weekend but I get to change it for the positives for you guys!
This week I will be introducing a new weekly shop update for you bargain hunters!
Whoopsie Wednesdays!
I will update my website with products that have either not passed my very strict quality control measures ( Those who know me, know I am a very harsh critic of my own products, so those that don't meet my satisfaction but still look awesome will be up for grabs) It could be prints that are slightly off centre for example, or an engraving not to my normal standards ( any imperfections will be listed in the descriptions) or it could be stock that I am discontinuing. Because they will be in the Whoopsie Wednesday section of the website, they will be at a reduced rate so perfect for bargain hunters!
So be sure to check the website every Wednesday for bargain purchases up for grabs!
So that was my weekly round up for Hodgepodge, so until next time, as the Japanese proverb says, "nana korobi, ya oki" "Fall down seven times, stand up eight"