Local is the New Black

Spend your dollars wisely.  Skip the lines at Walmart and Best Buy, and shop at small businesses in your community instead.  Our family has never been big on Black Friday shopping, but this year, we decided to head to downtown Asheville for some serious shopping.  Asheville has its own campaign to promote local, independent businesses called

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Today on Asheville Grown's facebook page, I saw this breakdown of where your dollars go when you shop at a local business versus a chain.  I like the idea of thinking local first - I definitely shop at chain stores and with online retailers, but I try to shop locally when I can.

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With this spirit of local shopping in mind, we headed to downtown Asheville.  We ended up only making it up and down Lexington, and it took us about two and a half hours with a brief stop for some delicious Indian fare at Mela - recommended by the New York Times and voted best Indian restaurant in Western North Carolina 6 years running.


I picked up all sorts of things, including some new sunglasses at Hip Replacements.
...and how lovely is this coat (also from Hip Replacements) - she reminds me of a modernized Red Riding Hood.

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I picked up several goodies at Virtue, including a handknitted head wrap, knit leggings, a basic long sleeve shirt, and a hot pink flutter dress (also available in teal and black).  They had some great sales going on, and the store was packed.  

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warm knit leggings from Virtue $12.95

Knitted Flower Head Wrap from Virtue $10.36 (on sale)

I found this burgandy faux leather bag from a thrift store for $6 (on sale).  It's the perfect size for my MacBook.  It came from ReinVintage in the Biltmore Square Mall.  

Thrifted Faux Leather Bag $6

We also found a big barrel full of head scarves for $3 each at Instant Karma on Lexington.  Lovely!

In honor of Small Business Saturday,  we're offering a coupon code to our site, ajoeynamedroo.  Use code SMBIZDAYYAY for 15% off your entire order!  As you can see, the money will go right back into our community.  Happy shopping!

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Rachel

the BIG crafty...so big!

The big crafty was this past weekend, and as always we were a frantic mess.  Despite my blog entries about preparing for a craft fair we were not prepared.  When we got there almost everyone in our area were already finished setting up, although there were a few other "late screw-ups" too :P.  We are very used to being the late people, and we had plenty of time to set up!  This time I thought our table looked a lot better, and less cluttered than before.  See what you think.  We didn't make the mistake of putting out everything this time.  So all in all I think it looked a lot better.

We didn't have samples to give away this time.  Last craft fair I think it brought a lot of people to our table, but I'm not sure how much that translated into sales.  I think we just ended up giving a lot of our merchandise away.  The crowd was incredibly huge at the Big Crafty.  I wasn't prepared for how enormous it was.  They filled all of Pack Place and also blocked off the roads surrounding it.  It's amazing what a crafting presence there is in Asheville, and how interested its citizens are in the arts.

The other thing that Rachel and I have been talking about is that we have too much variety in our products.  In a craft fair that big, I think it's important to be recognizable.  We're still trying to figure out what that realization means for our business.  I'll certainly keep you posted!

All in all I think there were a lot of lessons to be learned at the Big Crafty, and I'm pretty sure we've only realized a few of them.  I think that both Rachel and I had too high of expectations.  We had done our first show, and we thought that we were ready for the big leagues.  I'll just say, I think that is still in our future.