Before the Sale

      I try to have everything finished for a live sale ahead of time. It makes me super twitchy to think I might be late (I don't like to be late for things) or that I won't be ready, have something done, etc. After a live sale I usually take it fairly easy for a month. I don't stop working (don't be silly!) but I work less. I read a lot more. Then the panic slowly starts to build. I worry about not having enough stuff for everyone that wants it. About not having a good enough variety. All the things. Silly Anne, it doesn't really matter if you have just some things or tons of things. Less might even be better. I might have to try that. I have some ideas. 

      Anyway, with one thing and another I ran out of time to make the cool little gift bags I did last time for mystery bags. People seem to be into mystery bags, so I wanted to make sure to have them. So when I was at Walmart I picked up some cool neon envelopes and yesterday morning I was sorting money and stuffing envelopes. Not really how I pictured my morning going, but that's what happened. 

      I got that taken care of, washed my hair and took note that the sample sized shampoo and conditioner I got as a birthday gift from Sephora is AMAZING and makes my hair insanely soft. I may need to buy real sized bottles. I am super scared of knowing how much it costs. But I do love my hair, and this stuff seems worth it. 

     Anyway, I had some lunch, read a couple of pages in my book and got to setting up for the sale. Several sales ago I figured out the best way to not grab specific prizes for people (which I always tried not to do anyway) was to sort out the sale and stick the prizes in between the groups of items. This is how I visually plan out my sales as well. This time I knew that I was starting with the stablemates (the box of them ended up stacked on the dolls before I turned the camera on) and the first offerings that I made were some chaps and boots left from the last sale. Then a variety of different smaller items, the dolls, sorted by type, and then I moved into the new items. It still ran kind of long. People say they enjoy the sales but they average about 2 and a half hours most of the time. I am not totally convinced having a helper would make it any better. Maybe, but I am not really sure of it. 

     I had my clipboard with the printed out names on them. These are people that have attended my sales, expressed interest, and so on. I feel like I found an old list because I had to write on a lot of bags. 

     I also had my unicorn backdrop (a gift from Lynn Isenbarger) set up, and my ring light (a gift from Gail Berg). I was pretty much set. I even had time for a nap. If I had any room on the bed that is. 

      So the projects were all finished, the sale space was set up, I was ready and then I had an hour to wait. I was glad I was not down to the last minute with things, but boy was that last hour hard to wait through. The nerves just kept on building and building. Because as much fun as I have holding the live sales, they are super scary at the beginning. I don't know that that will ever go away. 

     Invoicing is happening today. Now THAT is something I could use a helper for.