MowryJournal.com   Life's Passions

The Board Chronicles is an ongoing series of articles about the adventures of Mrs M’s Handmade as a vendor at community festivals & craft fairs. Mrs M’s subsidiary, Mr M’s Woodshop, has been approved to create this chronicle for the good of vendorkind.

This is our 3rd trek to the mountains of Tehachapi for their Mountain Festival.

How good is this event? Good enough that Mrs M will brave the heat of August to serve the fine people at Mountain Fest. And neither she nor her lotions have melted yet….

This strong community event (that’s still in search of a logo!) is centered at a city park. There’s free entertainment on the stage that’s surrounded by vendors. Other events happen in surrounding areas, from a 5k to a rodeo to a car show … well, you get the idea. This is a fun community event, and it’s been very good to us. In 2015, it was our best event ever, though we’ve broken that record many times since. We did better in 2016, as well.

Tehachapi has been good for us. After a shaky beginning this year, our legacy events are now on a growth streak. Will we continue doing better this year than last?

New Ideas

• After 5 weeks with no events, everything seems new.
• For years, this event had the vendors on the streets on 2 sides of the Phillip J Marx Central Park, and had the food vendors on the park grass on the other 2 sides. Due to a food vendor illegally dumping their cooking oil on the grass last year, the positions were reversed, with the food vendors out on the hot asphalt streets, and the merchandise vendors on the cool grass.
• We are back to using our new Trimline 10×20 canopy, which hasn’t been out to play since Memorial Day. Hope I remember how to put it up!

Observations

• I did not remember how to put the Trimline up. Definitely took longer to figure out which pole went where. Unfortunately.
• It’s no fun loading in when the temperature is above 90*. I had to push every cart up hill, and then over soft turf that had been over-watered in anticipation of a high traffic weekend.
• For the first time ever, clipboards were my # 1 selling item. And for almost the first time ever, Velda said she was wrong and I was right … to make clipboards.
• A guy in the booth commented, after seeing Mrs M’s offerings, that he could no longer use the phrase “uglier than homemade soap.” Never having heard that phrase, I inquired and found out that he grew up in Florida. Apparently, Floridian soap-makers don’t know what they’re doing.
• Later, Mrs M was asked if she offers classes. And the answer was no, so there appears to be no hope for Florida.
• Requests were for card table repair, a walking stick, a job and an RV cabinet. Tehachapi is an eclectic bunch that doesn’t play chess, apparently.
• In our 3rd year at this event, we definitely felt the power of legacy. Lots of return purchasers for both of us. Foot traffic was high throughout the event … and I believe putting the food vendors on the streets surrounding the park was a good thing for crowd flow.
• Velda premiered Luscious Lemon Grass soap at the event, and sold more than half of the batch. She also brought out a new batch of Olive Branch soap, and sold more than 3/4 of that batch. She’s got work to do to prepare for our next event!
• I do love helping people, explaining what makes a good cutting board. I just wish they would come to the booth before we’re trying to load out. Velda & I both lost at least 30 minutes during load out because we were helping late customers. The event closed at 5 … but we were not loaded and on the road until 7:30.
• We came in with moderate expectations for this event. We knew the crowd, we had good inventory. We were ready.
• We killed it.
• We started the year being down in sales at every event we were repeating from 2016. Now, it appears the tide has turned. This is the 3rd repeated event in a row that we’re up in 2017.
• And thanks to some custom orders from a couple of the volunteers that help to run this event, we were way up. That’s good … Papa needs a new CNC. It’s now on order, and it will fundamentally change what I can do, and how I can to it. The Woodshop is going to be humming this fall. Stay tuned.

The Food

Saturday Breakfast: Best Western. It was “free.” Thank goodness.

Saturday Lunch: Cheese & Crackers, when we had time. We waited until too late to eat … and then got rushed. You just never know….

Saturday Snack: Nope.

Saturday Dinner: A burger with friends. The best way to do events!

Sunday Breakfast: Still worth every penny of free.

Sunday Lunch: Did it again, but earlier.

Sunday Snack: A chocolate soft serve ice cream cone from the booth right in front of us. Yum.

Sunday Dinner: A Big Carl from Carl’s Jr in Mojave. Late night sustenance, nothing more.

The Facts

• Total miles driven: 183
• Booth cost: $300
• Food cost: $165
• Travel cost: $459.17
• Total sales: $3,929
• Net Revenue (does not include product cost): $3,005
• # of people we met during the event from the producer: several
• Visits in our booth by a promoter’s representative: several
• Saturday alarm: 5:45a
• Sunday alarm: Nope
• # transactions: 112
• # soap & lotion vendors: just Mrs M. There was a doTerra rep as well.
• # woodworking vendors: there was a turner … couple? Co-op? In any event, they were there as well
• Edge grain vs. end grain: 18:3
• Returning next year? Yup.

Boards sold: 21

Clipboards: 5

Cheese Boards: 3

Custom Orders: 3

Small Boards: 2

Cutting Boards: 2

Magic Bottle Openers: 2

Small Surfboards: 2

Large Cutting Board: 1

Lazy Susan: 1

Cheese Board 17 – 327. This chaos board has the most disappointing photograph of the bunch; this pic just doesn’t do justice to the dark blend of 9 woods featured. 8″ x 11″ x 3/4″.

Clipboard 16 – 026. Hard Maple, Canarywood, Purpleheart & Jatoba. Legal size. 1″ clip.

Clipboard 16 – 002. Black Walnut, White Oak & Cherry. Legal size. 1″ capacity clip.

Magic Bottle Opener 17 – 902. Purpleheart, Hard Maple, Cherry & Yellowheart. Single Magic.

Small Surfboard 17 – 502. Jatoba & Hard Maple. 7″ x 16″ x 3/4″.

Magic Bottle Opener 17 – 620. Purpleheart, Bubinga & Caribbean Rosewood. Double Magic.

Lazy Susan 17 – 14. Canarywood, Jarrah & Bloodwood. 17″ diameter.

Cutting Board 17 – 118. Purpleheart, Hard Maple, Padauk, Yellowheart & Black Walnut. Edge Grain. 11″ x 15″ x 1-1/8″.

Clipboard 17 – 003. Hard Maple, Yellowheart & Purpleheart. Chaos design. Letter size. Polyurethane finish.

Cheese Board 16 – 062. Black Walnut, Hard Maple, Yellowheart, Cherry & Padauk. 8″ x 11″ x 3/4″.

Cheese Board 17 – 325. Chaos board, with a dark blend. 8″ x 11″ x 5/8″.

Small Board 17 – 215. Hard Maple, Purpleheart, Padauk & Jatoba. 10-1/2″ x 11-1/4″ x 3/4″.

Small Surfboard 16 – 19. Jatoba & Birdseye Maple. 7″ x 16″ x 3/4″.

Cutting Board 17 – 424. Bubinga, Cherry, Purpleheart & Hard Maple. End grain, juice groove. 17″ x 21-1/2″ x 1-1/2″.

Small Board 17 – 228. Chaos Board. End grain. 7″ x 11″ x 1″.

Clipboard 17 – 013. Chaos board. Notepad size. 1/2″ clip.

Clipboard 17 – 008. Red Oak, Black Walnut & Hickory. Letter size. Polyurethane finish.

Cutting Board 16 – End 016. Hard Maple. End Grain. 11″ x 17″ x 1-1/8″.