Christmas Festival of Lights Salina KS

Well, I have most of my Christmas decorations out at the store. I should finish up today. My shop is in Salina, KS and Saturday is our Downtown Festival of lights. It starts at 8am and goes all day. I hope to have everything out and decorated for the crowds that will be here for this event. Here is a link to the calendar of events http://salinadowntown.com/index.php/events/christmas-festival-printable-form/. If you are near Salina you should try to come downtown that day. It will be well worth your time.

What should I collect? How about collecting some history.

Both

People often wonder what they should collect. There are a lot of options out there. I thought that I would share with you one of my interests. I collect items from towns that my family is from. Both of my Parent are from small towns where a lot of the places are no longer there. Finding Souvenir items from these towns is a challenge. Also, it is fun to find old advertising from businesses that used to be in these towns.

If you decide to collect this type of thing you have a lot of options. I like glass and pottery so I tend to buy souvenir glass or premiums that were given away by businesses. I have managed to collect several plates advertising old businesses and a piece of Watt pottery, also advertising, from my Dad's home town. I also have a few post cards from there. This is a town of about 300 people so there is not a lot of items available.

If you like advertising items you can find pencils, tins, clocks, thermometers and many more items. Farm implement companies put out a lot of advertising items.

Many of these items can be obtained for a reasonable price. They are fun and help you connect to history. I have pictured some items available in my store. The calendar is an advertising piece from Medicine Lodge, Ks. The bell is for a hockey team, The Wichita Wind. There are two glass souvenirs from Salina, KS and wooden shoe also from Salina.

Starting a new booth at an antique mall

I have had my store for almost 5 years now. Before I decided to that I had booths in Antique malls owned by other people. Business has been a little slow so far this year so I have decided to put a booth in at the Abilene Downtown Antique Mall in Abilene, KS. It is a lot of work but the owners of that mall are willing to let me advertise my store in the booth I am renting. This week my days off are being spent looking for shelves and packing items for my new booth. I hope that any of you that are in either Abilene, KS or Salina, KS will stop by and see what we have.