Psalm 33:21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name.
We have had an incredibly busy couple of weeks but especially the last 7 days. We always attend the annual homeschool conference put on by Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC). We look forward to this 3 day event in June every single year and this year marked our 7th year in a row attending. Truly it is more then a homeschool conference as they have sessions on everything from homeschooling to math is a language to the father’s role in the leading his family to family discipleship. It truly is like a weekend getaway for us…. except we come home every evening!
The conference is also host to an extremely large vendor hall with dozens upon dozens of companies set up to demonstrate, ask questions and sell every curriculum you could think of . I could spend hours in the vendor hall alone! They also have a youth vendor section and this year our two oldest girls really wanted to have a booth. After Phil and I prayed and discussed we decided to let them have a booth. So, we had to come up with a product. After much discussion and research we settled on homemade lotions, soaps. bath bombs and lip balm. For weeks we’ve been making (after lots of experimenting) lots of fun stuff to sell. Not being an entrepreneur type I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing but I truly did not want to squash their desire to run their own booth.
We settled on a business name of Busy Bee’s Creations, created a logo and started printing labels, business cards (the girls wanted the verse at the top of the post on their business cards) and product tags. It was a TON of work but I have learned so much in the process! The girls are already planning for next year’s booth! We did better then I expected we would and it was such a wonderful opportunity for us. CHEC requires their youth vendors to submit a business plan and take 2 hours of training during the conference. At the end, they award the top 3 business plans with gifts. The first place winner won a tablet and the 2nd and 3rd place winners won what they call vendor bucks. Money that can be spent on any vendor in the hall. The girls were really hoping to win but they did not…. considering I’m the one that submitted the business plan late (really late!) one night I figured it wasn’t going to be good enough to win!
On Friday, as we were setting up our booth I noticed that we did not have a table cloth or something to cover the table. I assumed they would be provided and as I looked around the room I realized we were the ONLY youth vendor table to not have it beautifully decorated. However, my dear husband, after reading my slightly stressed text, left work and bought us a cheap tablecloth from the store and brought it to us! What an amazing blessing and our table looked much better with a cover. We sold out of all of our bath bombs on Friday so when we got home from the conference that evening we set to work to make 30 more thinking Saturday would be much busier. Saturday was not as busy as we expected but we still did well. With an hour left of the conference we decided to do a half price sale to reduce our inventory. We still brought home product but now I have some really great lotion and soaps to use! I’ve made the lip balm before and I use it all the time. I love it!
Overall, the conference was a blessing (have any of you heard Todd Friel speak? Oh my goodness… you must!) and the booth experience was enjoyable and an amazing learning experience. I too have plans of what can we do better next year!
The girls at their booth.
One of our homemade soaps.
mymommentary 