Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Bird Day

About last Friday's party.
It was awesome.
Totally exceeded my expectations as far as traffic and enthusiasm goes.

I mean the Christmas party is a no-brainer. Everyone needs something for Christmas.
But Spring? Maybe you could use a doormat or a new wreath for your front door, but it kind of ends there in terms of what I thought people might be looking to purchase.
Not so!
We sold a little bit of everything here on Friday.
Also, we know how to throw a party.

We had live music courtesy of some kids from Notre Dame high school in Carleton Place.
They were awesome. I need to hunt them down again so I can ask if they want to perform at the craft sale in November.
Honestly. They were so good.
Exactly what I was looking for. (thanks to Tony for hooking me up!)


Tony's lovely wife (and one of my Mill Street merchant friends) Cynthia, of Appleton Gift & Basket supplied yummy truffles.


Charlene Santry of The Santry Pantry provided loads of catered goodies that were to die for.
My only complaint was that there weren't more leftovers.

And, of course, the cupcakes.
Get a load of the cupcakes.


I mean seriously. Could they BE any more amazing?
The big ones were actually filled with buttercream icing.
I bought the polka dot liners online to match our polka dot tissue paper (because it's all in the details you know).

Speaking of details, I was trying to think of an interesting way for customers to draw for their discount.
Originally I went trolling for lollypops that I could colour code the stems of, but when that proved to be more difficult than I imagined, I went to the dollar store for inspiration...and came up with this:


My little discount garden.
I glued scrapbooking flowers to the ends of sticks and painted the bottoms in different colours that translated into discounts of 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35% and 40% off.
Total hit.
And yes, someone did get the 40% flower. So that was fun.
Well for them it was fun.
For me? Not so much. :)

I thought it might be fun to add a little healthy sales competition into the mix and Colleen, Emily and I all decided we'd pick an item that hasn't sold in a while.
The deal being that if they sold it, I'd fork over a cool $25 to the person who's name was attached to it.

I chose a wooden candle pillar that was once part of a set of 3.
Colleen chose a cushion that simply no longer fits in with any of our colour stories (for the record it's still a perfectly adorable pillow).
And Emily chose what I thought would be the most difficult to sell of all - a bachelorette party game with the word "Sex" emblazoned on it.

Why I even bought this game in the first place I don't actually know.
I'm sure it's loads of laughs to play (okay so I have played it with my girlfriends before, and it is pretty funny), but it doesn't quite fit with what we've got going on here at Blackbird you know?

So you can just imagine the smug look on Em's face when a customer brought her precious little item to the counter.
Actually, you don't have to imagine.
Shawn took a picture.

Could you just smack that $25 grin off her cute little face or what?

I really enjoyed myself and, as usual, was totally overwhelmed by the amount of support that I get from this little town of mine.
Not only did my customers come out to shop, but many Almonte shop owners did too.

Tammy in this picture owns Nordic Star across the street.

Brad and Clemmie even took time out of their busy bath time schedule to come give me a hug.
How nice is that?

Thanks to everyone who came to fill up my tank with love.
I need it sometimes.
And I certainly appreciate all of you.

On a totally different note, my friend Melissa has recently taken up photography and has taken some amazing shots around my old (her current) stomping ground Kensington Market.
I am having a few of her bicycle shots printed and framed to sell in the shop for Bicycle Month.

I would highly recommend checking out her Etsy shop if you've got a few minutes to spare.
She's a talented girl.
She designed our reusable Blackbird bag and is currently working on a logo for our upcoming craft sale - Handmade Harvest.
That's right kids.
If you're going to be my friend, you're going to have to be prepared for me to take full advantage of your talents.

Until we meet again,
Em

ps. Sock Monkey Workshop is 100% sold out!

1 comment:

  1. Congrats Em! This is so awesome. You are simply on fire. I wish I was there for this. And for the cupcakes. You're bringing some this weekend right?

    Love you.

    ReplyDelete