Some Annoyances from Sundays Flea Market

Sunday was not a good flea market day for me. The wind was crazy, it was kind of chilly, and sales were terrible. These were the two worst points for me. 

First off, it's obvious to any normal person that my bead magnets are potentially fragile. At the very least, they shouldn't be bent. They're made of melted plastic and plastic breaks. I had a woman stop by, and at first seemed alright. She wanted to order keychains and told me what kind and how many she'd like. Then, things started to get weird as she kept picking up and putting down my magnets, until I realized she was actually bending them each to see how far they'd bend before snapping! Fortunately, she only broke one before choosing which designs she wanted to order. She kept messing with them a few more minutes before finally leaving. I don't know if she's actually going to show Wednesday to pick them up, but if she doesn't, someone will buy the designs. This was a grown adult, too. All the kids that pick up my magnets know better than to be rough with them, so it was insane that an adult would do what would obviously break them. The other fortunate thing is that the beads easily remelt together, so the broken one is fixable and can be returned to stock. 

The other thing that made me really mad was discovering someone that may have contributed to my poor sales. At one point I went to the bathroom, and the woman behind me was carrying a large crocheted afghan. Someone behind her asked about it, and it turned out, she'd bought it early in the morning from a woman for five dollars. This wouldn't have been so bad for me, except the seller was telling people she was crocheting them herself and they took five months each to make! There is absolutely no way she was making them over that time period and selling them so cheaply. That five dollars wouldn't cover the cost of yarn, let alone her time. She is clearly one of those resellers who get their goods cheap from another country and resell them as handmade. However, this does nothing but hurt those of us who actually make our own products and have to charge accordingly to pay for our supplies and time! I have no problem with her selling afghans that cheap, but she really needs to stop lying and hurting the handmade industry. I thought about finding her and giving her a piece of my mind, but I decided to be the bigger person, have a small rant here, and let it go.

That's all for now. More bead magnets and keychains to come tonight. I need to get my stock up before my craft show in Shartlesville, PA at Haag's Hotel on Sunday. It's for a great cause, so if you're in Berks County, stop on by!