The Odd Duck 2011 - post show wrap-up

It has only taken me 9 longs days to get around to writing this post.  There are so many things that I'd love to go on and on about.  Firstly, sales ROCKED!  Huge thank yous to everyone who went home with new Kitschy Aprons and soft creatures from my booth.  More than likely, I never got a chance to thank you personally because I spent very little time in my booth.  Thankfully my fantastic volunteer-friends (Especially Jenna!) and fellow Mafia Girls are great salespeople.  At one point I stopped in the booth to find Jenna standing in the back holding the curtain shut (we were set up on a stage) and when I asked what she was doing, then out popped this lovely young lady in the one-and-only dress that I had at the show for sale.  It was a perfect fit and she and her mom, or at least I assumed it was her mom, even though she really didn't look old enough to be her mom... oh well... not important, back to my story... where was I?
So anyway, she bought the dress and I was so happy to have gotten to this quick cell phone pic.

Later in the day when I was at the admissions booth I spotted a super sexy Captain America walking past

Again, so happy to have gotten the pic because I didn't get a chance to photograph this apron before the show.  I'd done this apron previously with cotton fabric, but this was a first with the baroque satin.  I just loved that she was wearing it around at the show because the shiny fabric in the sun was super eye-catching and she looked so cute.  I must admit, she is a friend of mine but I totally didn't ask her to do my advertising for me.  She really fell in love with the apron and even wore it to work that night as a bartender!

I love it!  This next picture is of another super hero apron that I didn't get a chance to photograph at home pre-show and it found a new home show-day too.  Also in the pic is the super-fabulous Alexis Colbert (in an apron I made for her for last year's Odd Duck).  She is a very talented artist so you should check out her work here.

There were so many amazing things that went on that day that I couldn't begin to get them all into a blog post but there was one thing that really touched my heart and really highlighted the good in people.  All the organizers and some of the volunteers had radios (this is key when hosting an event spread out in three large rooms) and at one point on the radio I hear "Attention, we have a missing child.  He is 6 years old, brown hair and goes by the name XXXXX.  He is wearing a blue shirt" and all things stopped.  I was working the admissions tent and there was a line of people who had been standing still in the blazing south Florida sun for at least 20 minutes and not one person said one word about us stopping letting people in to divert our attention to finding this child.  It was exactly the opposite, everyone stopped talking, stopped everything and starting looking.  The little boy, thankfully, was found right away.  He was in eye-sight of me and everyone in the line started pointing to a little boy holding on for dear life to a palm tree.  He was visibly scared and a woman walked slowly over to him and asked his name.  We got on the radios and announced that he was found.  Mom came rushing over and there was a huge collective sigh of relief.  And yet still, no one complained about things taking longer.  Everyone was just so happy that he was found and it just gives me chills.  Sometimes crowds bring out the worst in people, but not on Duck Day, it brought out the best.
-Shelley