Pearls and Me

I was busy with a new project this past weekend. I'm selling pearls! I know...I expect you all to run and hide your checkbooks, but I'm not selling at the moment. I am, however, still thinking about the fun I had and what I saw.

Quick background to how I got into My Princess Pearls is 1) Wendy Bird started the foundation. 2) I became friends with her. 3) She moved out of California. 4) I met her at her store this summer in Utah and asked if I could do anything with her pearls in California since she left. Wendy set me up as a distributor and told me of an upcoming opportunity to sell her pearls at a Republican Women's convention in Palm Springs. I set it up, and here we are now. Fortunately, Wendy sent a fine person, Gail, to "help" me. Of course, Gail was the expert...I held onto her every word...regarding pearls, or about life. Gail is an amazing, beautiful woman I wish you all to meet. I wish I took a camera to record our adventures!

Funny thing about what we learned about our product and this particular convention. It's a finer jewelry than the partying, patriotic, Republican women wanted. Who could blame them? Of the nearly 45-ish booths at the convention, about 40 of us had "jewelry". Most of that jewelry was geared toward ladies with a flashier taste for sequined, red-white and blue, elephant anything! I saw humongous elephant belt buckles, sequined hat pins, sequined HATS with elephants, even a gold-painted elephant head (wine bottle holder). The Texas Republican booth was loaded with grand, sterling silver stars of every proportion. Go Texas! Although we were assigned a booth on the back row of vendors, we were slightly cheered to know the Ladies Room was nearby. We knew we would at least get exposure from women with weak bladders. A few ladies expressed their appreciation for our quality of ....everything. Hee hee.
Some popular sellers below...the Woven Button Bracelet (1/2 price was $10),
the Hand-woven Silk Wrap skirt (1/2 price to $20), and the Signature pearls in the top picture. I liked to dress up each day and drape myself with pearls to model. I even wrapped a skirt around me, sold it, and put on another. Was this a flea market in some tourist town? The skirt was popular not only because of the iridescent silk fabric, but because of the elephants in the pattern. I had my own pearls, like this cable bracelet, but I dared not wear the more expensive Slider Pearl necklace.
And I also found out this weekend that Wendy doesn't keep any of the money for herself. Any commission that would go to her is immediately put back into the foundation for things such as shipping more 'relief' boxes to the Philippines, buying more product from the Filipino women, rent on the tiny store she has in Lehi, etc. For Wendy, its all about supporting those families who are almost totally dependent on her efforts. Wow.