Vendor Market on Sunday

It was a good day!  It started out a bit slow but things eventually picked up in the early afternoon. I met some

interesting vendors and bought some really great items!

First purchase:  Carved hair picks
I am a collector of West African hair picks. I also collect Egyptian cats and symbols of Sekhmet while my husband loves West African drums.  Anywho when I saw these at another vendor's table (she was selling many items similar to my own) I was feigning to get them.  In the end we left with the picks, a shell drum necklace and some African tarot cards and she obtained my Sunshine Gold Bamboo Wool crochet hat.



Another vendor was selling these bent wire cuffs that I absolutely had to have.   Now these were a bit on the expensive side but luckily we had a good enough day I could invest in this beautiful cuff!  It was the main one that caught my attention  when I had passed his table earlier in the day and when I came back to get it another lady was trying it on..I thought she was going to buy it!  In the end she didn't and I obtained it.  He has no two alike.  These are actually bronze and thankfully I do not have any sensitivities.  It is now one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.


My mom came out briefly (she's visiting) but I guess it was too hot for her.  Gotta love that Carolina heat and humidity!  My littlest one went to sleep.


 My little entrepreneurs commandeered an empty table that was next to us (with our permission) and did their own setup with their crochet bracelets and some of my "mistakes"! 

 I got a chuckle...they were so pleased with themselves it was pretty funny.  I'm a firm believer in children learning the value of money.  I worked for most of what I got when I was in their age range.  I would do things like rake my neighbor's yard and get a dollar that I would then go down to Mrs. Chris store to spend.  I knew that doing little odd things like that even without being asked to would result in monetary compensation.  I was praised by the adults.  Anywho that entrepreneurship spirit never dies when planted early.  I had a monthly paycheck by the time I was ten playing the piano for my church and was selling my drawings by the time I was fifteen.  If I knew how to crochet back then it would have been on!

My pretty girls!  They both have beads now.  I just start on the little one's head first because she has so much.  I loved beads as a child even though I never wore them.  No one ever did them for me and I could remember feeling pretty down about that.  This is the first time I beaded their hair but it won't be the last...beads are fun and I can always hear them when they are coming!

"Look after your baby sisters."  I tell them that all the time to the point they do it automatically.  My boy loves his sisters.  When he was a little guy about two he did something that my sister and I still laugh about.  My daughter Lanie started crying in her car seat.  He dropped all of his toy cars to try and pick her up and calm her down.  It was funny and of course I stepped in.  I have pictures of her following him around with this look of adoration on her face and him helping her and they are still close to this day.

 Their first (and only) sale!  He was sooooooo happy about it.  He's a super saver.  He hoards his money for real.  There was a lost library book I was griping about paying the fees for last year (there's no excuse for losing a book).  Now he has a thing about buying goodies from the school store so I had discounted any contribution he may have as a lost one.  I was preparing to send it to the school but  to my surprise I came home from work one day and he gave me a slip of paper.  It was a receipt for the cost of the book.  He had paid it!  "I tricked you, Mama," he said, obviously pleased with my surprise and consequently hugs and kisses.  I was just tickled and I paid him the cost back also which really got him going.

Lanie loves to read.  This was the only time I went to the market and didn't visit the book vendor.  We were a bit further down this time and I try to stay close to our booth.  My husband says I have a natural presence for selling things more than he does especially since I made a lot of the things so he doesn't want me to venture too far.  The Egyptian items are his domain and we sold an Isis statue also.  Amazingly enough one of our large masks sold and the thumb piano.  Don't let the name "thumb piano" fool you. It has nothing to do with a real piano.  I have an ear for music so I figured out small tunes by the sound of the notes which do not have the same orientation as the piano.  I want to obtain a kora (a real one not a tourist one!) and learn to play it.

It was an overall good day all around.