It has been a while since we have written, but we have not had a show in a while.  We had one scheduled in Fredericksburg last weekend and it was a total disaster.  Not only did Tessie get sick, but our brand new tent collapsed. (It was defective)  The rain didn't help either.  Then on Friday we had a pretty nice day, but it was windy.  We were afraid for our other tent, so almost as soon as we were set up we decided to tear down and give up for the weekend.  Then our new tent wouldn't fit in the van because one leg wouldn't fold up.  We had to leave it so we left it up against the shack behind us, called my husband to bring his truck on Saturday (the next day) and we left thinking that Saturday would be a better day.  (Now the people around us were all aware of what happened and what we were doing.  Well, as you can probably already surmise, our tent was stolen.  No only stolen, but picked clean.  They pulled off the canopy and stole every screw, nut and washer and left the skeleton in peices by the trash can.  Well I lost it.  (cried)  Poor Tessie was standing there trying to comfort me like I did her when we found the tent collapsed.  (That's when she lost it!)  We waited for Steve to get there, but checked out the rest of the show, which is a great show I have to say.  They are there every 3rd week of the month and are well worth going to.  I tell ya, I was shooting for bear the whole time though.  If I had found our canopy I think those people would have gotten a pretty good reaming out along with a call from the police.  Luckily I didn't find them and of course no one would tell us who took it. 

 

On a brighter note though we have been accepted to the Texas Peddler Show and are trying to get in in Fredericksburg at the end of November.  We also have a show the first weekend of November at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church here in San Antonio.  If you haven't been to that show, it is one well worth going to for Christmas Gifts.   You can find jewelry, glass crosses, quilts, olive wood nativities, aprons, fruit cake, etc.  Now I have to say I don't like fruit cake, but this fruit cake is to die for.  It is soooo good.  He gives out samples and my two girls will circle around to try to get more samples just so they can eat more cake.  Hope to see ya'll there.  I will update you on the Fredericksburg show on when it is.  It will be at the Gillespie County Fairgrounds. 

 Well, as you can see we have added quite a few more bags to our picture album.  We will be adding several more next week once the camera has had time to charge back up.  It ran out of juice in the middle of taking pictures, so we did not get pictures of all of the bags.  The pictures just don't do them justice and I just can't get the handles in.  I don't know if everyone knows this, but the handles of the majority of our bags are made out of belts.  We try to find unusual belts and we also try to leave as much of the belt intact as we can including the buckle.  We feel that this is one of the things that sets us apart from other who are making bags and we are very proud of it.

 

 

Well, we have had a busy weekend and 4th of July.  We went to Llano and had a very good learning experience for our first trade show.  It is a lot of work setting up a booth with all of the display stands and merchandise, but we did it.  It was a lot of fun, but we were exhausted when the day was done.  It was pretty hot and humid and Beth ended up with a pretty bad sunburn.  Did I say learning experience?  #1.  TAKE SUNSCREEN when you are at an outside show.  The other vendors were very friendly and helpful, and were very willing to give info on other shows and websites available.  We found out that there was a 4th of July show in Comfort on Wednesday, so we scrambled to see if we could get in on that show.  WE DID!  For several hours on the 4th we had a booth in Comfort, Texas.  We had a great bit of fun and sold our bags.  We are ready for our next show with experience under our belts now.

That is the question.  It has been raining Cats and Dogs here in ole S.A. and in Llano, Texas it has been raining even more.  We still don't know if our trade show is going to be cancelled or not, but we are packed and ready to leave.  We just don't know whether we should go or not.  We will be staying overnight in Kingsland which is just a hop and skip from Marble Falls where the major flooding is and Llano is just beyond that.  Oh well, only time and the clouds will tell.

Today was ribbon day.  We use a lot.  The lady at the store was really surprised at how many rolls of ribbon that I bought, which was probably around 50 rolls.  Gotta have a lot of colors and designs, but it is a lot of fun choosing them.  Tessie doesn't get to do this part of it the business, but she also doesn't like doing it either.

 

We would like to encourage those of you who do view our blog to please make comments on how you find our handbags and how we could improve them.  Please be honest.  Negative and positive comments are welcomed.  Also please feel free to sign our guest book.  Thanks.