"Down Sizing" in the New Economy

Downsizing is occurring everywhere- people are being very careful where and how they spend their discretionary income - if, in fact, they even HAVE any discretionary income!!!

I know I have stayed home more, made less trips to the supermarket, used more coupons, combined errands to town with the hubby to save gas, and am trying to become more self sufficient. Growing our own food, bartering for other stuff, cooking from scratch, have become more commonplace in today's world.

Ten job slots in our county sheriff's dept were eliminated due to state, county and federal budget cuts. Unfortunately, one of those positions was my DH! Thank goodness he has a pension, but it will be tight for a while without that income.
We are becoming more creative in trying to make the best use of our income!!!

With people spending less, online shops like eBay and Etsy are finding business is very slow. Thrift stores are finding a rise in sales, altho donations may be down a tad. Antiques shoppes, unless they are in a very upscale neighborhood, have seen sales drop.

I have had to downsize in my little antiques booth. Sales have come to an almost screeching halt, and I reluctantly decided to rent a booth for half the price. I was not ready to totally throw in the towel yet! Afraid that I would not be able to fit all my inventory in a smaller space, I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case!!

With DH's assistance, we managed to get all the stock dusted, moved and set up in under 3 hours!We still have to go back and put up some small shelves and hang pictures on the wall- but done for now! I can continue rescue and refurbish fabulous finds and pass them on to others!!! Or, at least have a cheaper place to display them until people are able to spend again !!!So, if you see something you just HAVE to have, I do mail!!! You can click on each picture for a closer look.

The new location is at the other end of the shop in a back room,not in the main aisle like before- but the booth is well lit, in a finished area, that needs no extra TLC from me. The previous booth was raw wood, with an old window whose frame and torn roller shade had seen better days!!!

I'll give it another month or two, and see how business fares in this new location. Fingers crossed!!! We can only go up from here!!

Spreading Myself Thin.....

......is what it feels like when I am trying to manage 2 blogs, a Facebook page, Myspace, an Etsy shoppe, and actual shop, and an occasional eBay listing!!!! Yikes, what have I gotten myself into!!

But , I couldn't live if I couldn't get my words on 'paper', so I'll do my best to keep up!

My household is fighting bronchitis - I have an appointment later today to get some meds before I end up with walking pneumonia! Yesterday, I took it easy and managed to get a little sewing in- I have some cute little pincushions that will be in the Etsy store in the next day or so.
In my stash, I have a bunch of neat old flour /feed sack fabrics, that really needed to be recreated. They go perfectly with these old zinc canning jar lids.
It was too cold in the studio to sit at the sewing machine (w/o the woodstove lit- brrr!), so I plopped in front of the tv and handstitched them all. More would have been done, if I had used the machine, but oh, well!

The other picture is one of my fabulous thrift store finds- a 1930's-40's Dresden Plate quilt top. All the vintage fabrics, some feedsack, are pieced into Dresden Plates and then were appliqued on a whole piece of fabric. I'm looking for the perfect backing, then will send this quilt top out to be machine quilted. Can't wait!!!