Brucemore Garden Show – Year 2

Last year I participated in the Brucemore Garden show. They invited me back this year too. The entry fee went up from $15 to $50 but even then I thought it was an opportunity to make some money. Last year I sold five pieces during the show at about $100 each. As it turns out one customer took my card and called me around Christmas time to see if I still had any of the yard art she particularly liked. She wanted to buy it for her son for Christmas. I had three of those left and when she came over to look at them she saw that I had arranged them in a little cluster. She liked that affect and said she would take one for him for Christmas. If he liked it she would come back in the spring and get the rest. She did just that. When all was said and done I had four pieces left from last year’s show.

So starting with those four pieces I made 15 more. I did them in the week before the show. Five of them were the tall yard art pieces like last year. Five of them were the shorter ones with the circles on the top. And five of them were a new design, a plant table about 16 inches square and 2 feet tall. The taller yard art pieces were made from re-rod last year, but I found it only cost slightly more to make them with square bar stock so I went in that direction.

When I looked back at last year’s entry I noticed that I had decided to wear the same shirt as I did this year. I suppose I’ll have to wear that one from now on until it wears out. Here I am waiting for the customers to arrive at the nine o’clock starting time.

One of the pieces I made last year was called the Celtic Hare. It didn’t sell then so it’s been living its life in the shrubbery at the top of my driveway. We decided to give it a second shot and it finally sold in the early afternoon.

In keeping with the yard art theme I designed a plant table for Karen for her birthday last year. I thought it would be too big to offer as a standard item at the show, so I modified the design a little to be a smaller plant table. I made five of these new tables and furnished them with colorful slate tops. We also took Karen’s table along and said that they could order one if they liked it. I got one actual order and two possible orders that may or may not pan out. Here’s what Karen’s looked like.

And here’s a picture of the new ones along with some of the shorter pieces of yard art. The one with the Ghinko leaves disc is left over from last year.

Things got off to a pretty good start. Within the first hour I had sold two to one customer. And by the end of the second hour I had sold another one. That meant that all my out-of-pocket expenses and the entry fee to the show were completely covered. It only got better after that. Sometimes I would be answering a technical question for customer and Karen would be busy selling a piece to a different customer. As the day went on we ended up selling 12 pieces altogether. If you add in the orders for the tables that makes 15 pieces, and there were many others who said that they were interested in getting one but needed to take some measurements at home first. Karen calls the day a “Triumph”.