Iguanadon

Bat and Dragon I thought the Bat was cute. The Dragon should sell quite well. Will display both this Saturday at Farmers Market

Ha! Yep, that's been our evacuation plan the past week as I've been tracking this annoying storm.

Just start calling me Lucky Iggy... If Irma tracks as predicted, 24 hours of wind and rain here... 50-60mph wind which will be a bit exciting...

Based on the latest track and predictions, what I'll experience Monday and Monday night are tropical storm force winds of 50-60mph and 2-3 inches of rain. Nothing major and hopefully won't lose power. So far, just tracking and planning (filling gas cans, buying bottled water, etc) has eaten a bit into my time, but I'm still plugging away at the day job and cutting a puzzle or two. Just finished 2 new animals I'll share pictures of soon.

And we're even, I fail to understand why anyone would want to live in a deep freeze for several months a year, every year. :-D Hurricanes come and go, just like tornado's. They hit one particular spot once every 50 years. Or never. You just don't know. We love the beach enough to say "If a storm comes, so be it, we'll play the odds."

I order 10 rolls at a time from Walmart online. Free shipping.

"Holy cow, 48 stores are out of clear shelf liner??? What's going on???"

Ha! Thanks for letting me know RJ, I wasn't aware of the new video. Steve mentioned to me in an email that he had tried it and really liked it.

Things are looking better for us here. Latest tracks have her coming inland at the SC/GA border. Still several days of potential track changes to come so I'm filling the gas cans tomorrow for the generator if needed.

How many folks are watching Irma closely because they live somewhere in the projected path? She's driving me crazy as the computer models keep shifting her west, then east, then west, then east... We're going to have to decide whether to evacuate and head due west or stay and stick it out.

Hi, Good question. I imagine setting up as I did the 2nd day, in the center of the 2 booths space (20' across). I don't want to have to transport and set up 2 tents and I wouldn't think setting up the tables outside the one tent space would be very attractive, but it's something for me to think about and test.

In all of my puzzle cutting, I've never had a tab break. I've had thin areas around some letters and tails and legs snap, but never puzzle tabs.

SAVED!!!! By who else, but Harvey Byler himself! I left him a voicemail last night asking him if he kept track of when I called in custom orders. Hoping that he maybe kept a log or record and could tell me what day I placed the order for the mysterious Iguana named Buddy. Well, today he called me and left me a voicemail as I didn't hear my phone ring while out on the beach and he told me he didn't know the exact date but that I had mentioned in my message to him that I was at a friends house... and DING DING DING I remembered... the friends I was staying with during my big event in Cary... it was her! She asked for it and that's why I didn't have an order sheet. I had simply called Harvey as soon as she asked for it and then over the course of the 2 day mega event and then my business trip, I completely forgot about it. Good ol' Harvey... saved me! Too funny.

Ha! I didn't know that was you who bought those patterns. Nicely done!

Nice cutting and you got me curious about the non-puzzles so I'll cut a couple myself and maybe offer them at the farmers market to see if folks like them.

If anyone know someone with an Iguana named BUDDY, let me know, I'll sell it at a discount.

I take orders for custom names in animals at events and I have a form that I have the customer fill out with all of their contact info, the animal, the name, etc, etc. I generally try to take a snapshot of it with my phone "just in case"... well, apparently at Lazy Daze I failed to do that and now I can't find the order form. Harvey sent me the pattern and I received it today. I generally will call and leave him a voicemail as soon as I receive an order so that I don't forget to do it... and it appears that's what I did and then misplaced the order form without taking a picture... now I'll have a custom animal but have no idea where to ship it. Hopefully the customer contacts me since they already paid for it. Wow, I feel horrible... I'm a stickler for details and being on top of stuff and I really blew it this time. Lesson learned, snap a picture as soon as they fill it out. I even suggest they do the same thing as sort of a "receipt" showing payment has been made.

Thanks everyone, And as a reminder, I average selling 27 puzzles at my weekly Farmers Market and 40-50 at arts and crafts full day events... This mega event was definitely not typical, but I hope viewers of the video are able to use various tidbits of information and apply them as needed to your specific needs and events. It ended up being a great test of my theories as to table setup and now I know what path I need to go down in the future.

Steve Good had hinted towards wanting to see a video of my setup so I took several short videos both Saturday and Sunday and put them together into a single video of 10 minutes. I just emailed the link to him. We'll see if he likes it enough to post it on his site as he did the others. https://youtu.be/VJyeaYMO0XM Iggy

Thanks All. Well, my boss lucked out... we had perfect weather here in Austin the 3 days we were here. I'm at the airport early waiting on my flight back home to Mayberry Beach. It's been a very hectic and busy 6 days and I'm ready to crash in my own bed. Labor Day weekend is upon us... where did the summer go. My farmers market Saturday is looking pretty iffy due to rain forecast.

Hey folks, just walked in the door back home after day 2 and what a day it was. Day 1 was wonderful, 9 hours in duration tons of people, great weather but due to vendors close to me on both sides, I had to go with an "inside" setup, see picture 1. I dislike this type of setup because a lot of people do not like having to walk into a booth. I did well, selling 93 puzzles at an average cost of $22 per puzzle ($25 for 68 and about $12.50 for 25 of them... I'm going to make you work to figure out how much I made :-) Day 2 beat my expectations, maybe 1/4 the sized crowd, only 4 1/2 hours in duration but I was able to setup in my preferred "U" shape around the perimeter since my next door neighbor sold out of his goods and didn't come back today. I sold 60, beating my expectation of 40. ($25 for 47 and about $12.50 for 13 of them) Total sold = 153 puzzles. Very happy even though I didn't achieve my goal of 200-250... but now I have plenty of stock for probably most of the rest of the year. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the perimeter "U" shape boosts sales by 50% or more. I get so many more people walking up to the booth and browsing the entire selection around all 3 sides. Lesson learned and confirmed... for all events in which I know I will be squeezed between other vendors with no space between I will rent 2 booths and setup the way I prefer. It's absolutely worth the extra cost by increasing sales by 25-50% or more. I know some events offer "corner" spaces and if they do, I'll go that route, otherwise I'll rent 2 spaces and setup in the center of the spaces allowing plenty of room all around. I also had the pleasure of meeting Orangeman (Brian) as he was nearby where my booth was setup. He had a great location on the main strip. He did very well Saturday and when I stopped by to see how he was doing today he said it was somewhat light, but he still beat me in overall sales. ;-) I also had 3 people stop by and tell me they'd seen my videos and read about me on Steve Good's site... that was wild. I did make a series of small videos during my setup both days. I need to piece them together into a single video and will share with everyone next week. Well, I need to get to bed... I have to get up at 5:30am to catch a flight... to Austin, TX... my boss is a complete idiot not calling off this meeting... hopefully I don't end up stuck in Charlotte for hours... or more. I want to be sure to say THANK YOU all for your support and interest in my little goofy puzzle world. Talk with you soon. Iggy

Hey Gang, Just a quick update for ya if you're interested. I arrived at the mega event at precisely 5am this morning to setup. Twas a long day. The weather was perfect, the crowd was large, people were happy to have a nice day to roam around. Remember the question in my mind was a larger crowd or a huge number of vendors going to impact my sales compared to a similar event in the same town I did back in April. The answer turns out to be that having 350 vendors compared to 170 vendors means that the pool of spending money being spread out to more vendors is what matters. In April, at the similar event, I sold 96 puzzles. Today, I sold almost the exact same, 93 puzzles. No complaints at all, but I had a target of 150 for today. Tomorrow will be weak, the 2nd day of 2 day events always is, and it's only 4 1/2 hours in duration tomorrow compared to 9 hours today. If I sell 40 tomorrow I'll be happy. The good news is the folks next to me that were selling really cheap yard art items, sold out and they won't be there tomorrow, so I can set my booth up like I do at the farmers market with my tables around the perimeter of the tent so people don't have to step inside. I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Talk with ya soon. Iggy

I will... I'm not holding my breath. If I wasn't already heading to Raleigh anyway, I wouldn't even bother driving the 150 miles to do this. That's the closest service center to me.

Hey Brian, congrats on the new Hawk order. Funny, I have my newest Dewalt in my car to take with me today to Raleigh to the service center to get it looked at under warranty. We'll see how that goes. I'm glad you still decided to go with the Hawk even after following my buying process. The saw, so far, runs great now that all has been figured out. The customer service at Bushton Manufacturing is solid and they'll do whatever it takes to make things right. I hope you get to simply plug yours in and start using it when it arrives.

Man, I wish I could cut and sell puzzles full time, believe me I've crunched the numbers and it just isn't possible. My current employer is foolish enough to pay me way too much money to even consider walking away. If they boot me out the door though, then I might give it a try. :-)