West Music Update

West Music, a music supply store based in Iowa, has changed its status from a vendor with tables to supplying catalogs in the giveaway bags. Three Sisters encourages shoppers to patronize Iowa businesses. You might be able to see some neat stuff that West Music had in eastern Iowa tucked in the background of the photo here.

Books are being pulled from Well Read Books this week. You'll want to send your title requests in the next day or two. Well Read Books will be the only vendor carrying used trade books.

Bag stuffers and door prizes are also being collected this week. Even if you have no shopping to do, you will want to come just for the bags and door prizes!

HAIL in Des Moines

In the past, Three Sisters has focused on vendors providing retail product and and teaching services. This year, we will have a first -- an organization seeking memberships. HAIL, short for Homeschool Alliance for Iowa Learners, will have a table at Home Learning Resources. Three Sisters likes to have vendors succeed at our events. We feel that groups that serve only certain portions of the home school community would not successfully meet their goals at our events. HAIL, however, is targeting ALL of the community, not a certain portion of it. Three Sisters produces its event to help the whole home school community and not leave people out. We do not charge admission for shoppers. HAIL seems to have the same goal -- to help the whole community and not leave people out. Click on their link to learn more about the group here.

Stirring the Gift

We're very glad to have the support of small Iowa businesses.

We just got a message from Melody of Stirring the Gift, asking for space at our Des Moines event. Her main product is aimed at preschool and elementary children.

We look forward shopping at all our vendors' booths and cannot wait to meet you all.

Well Read Books request

Because Three Sisters has a special arrangement with Well Read Books, shoppers can request books to browse and purchase at Home Learning Resources. Requests can be sent with the subject "Well Read Books" to private address "jcammcguire at yahoo.com."

Some of the titles that could be requested and brought to Home Learning Resources include: Tom Swift, Box Car Children, Ginny Gordon, Cherry Adams, Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys and others.

Children's encyclopedias, an All About series, poetry, non-fiction subjects, and many other subjects are available.

Some classic authors that could be requested include Chaucer, Cather, James, Alcott, Montgomery, Shakespeare, and Austen.

Some vintage textbooks are also available.

Pictures from Eastern Iowa

Click here to see some great snapshots from our last event. Over 100 people passed through the doors. Our hosts gave us a great open and sunny space.

You may notice that our "prospect" list has grown in the sidebar to the right ("We may also see...."). We've gotten a lot of oral commitments in this last month. Once paperwork is received, these businesses will move to the hyperlinked, firmly committed vendor area in the sidebar ("Coming to Home Learning Resources -- Des Moines").

Shoppers, do not worry! Three Sisters will bring a kickin' sales floor. Our vendors typically commit in this fashion -- half of them are early birds, half of them are not. And some businesses do not get connected to Three Sisters with much advance notice.

Everyone will have a great time shopping. You'll probably even have fun demos to do with Mad Science of Central Iowa or silly games to play with Simply Fun. Click on the hyperlinks and do some window shopping.

More hyperlinks

Three Sisters lists all of its vendors in the sidebar to the right. The list is growing. Simply Fun will be at Home Learning Resources in Des Moines, and has a corrected hyperlink. Apologies to anyone trying to connect with the incorrect link.

Some vendors have chosen to use an email address instead of a website, thus allowing direct contact between shoppers and vendors. Vendors love to hear from shoppers, some even hold material for you to pick up at the event!

Updating on 4/13/08: Discovery Toys has opted to use an email address instead of the corporate home website. Click and tell her that you look forward to seeing her on June 7!

Hyperlinks for Eastern Iowa

All hyperlinks for the vendors at Home Learning Resources in Eastern Iowa are going down as of now. Cathy has Eastern Iowa links down on the website; they're going down here, too. Barefoot Books, Simply Fun, Usborne Books, and West Music displayed at Eastern Iowa and will appear in Des Moines, too. If you are interested in one of these businesses that showed in Eastern Iowa, you can always find the same inventory in Des Moines. The independent representative may not be the same, but the product should be.

Home Learning Resources -- DM

Work is being finalized on the floor plan for HLR -- Des Moines. We've traditionally sent everyone through the door with a bag of give-away items -- this year's bag looks great! Many home school sales events have bags full of catalogs. Our bags have offers and coupons that you can use right away! And our door prizes rock. Here is a list:

1 dozen large gift wrap sheets from Barefoot Books
a book or gift certificate from Julia's Attic
make and takes from Mad Science of Central Iowa
2 titles from Usborne Books
greeting cards from Handstamped by Love
$20 in product from Discovery Toys
five $10 gift cards from The Learning Post (Ankeny and Urbandale lcoations)
books from Borders Books

You just have to walk through the door and enter your name in our fishbowl to be eligible for a door prize. This will also get you on our email list so you can have news about Three Sisters events delivered right to your email inbox. No purchase is necessary for door prizes. Admission to Home Learning Resources is free.

Well Read Books will have a booth this year. Located in Des Moines' Sherman Hill area, Well Read Books carries used books for pleasure (or academic) reading. You name it, they probably have it -- classics, children's, college texts, biographies, history, antique and rare, religious titles, and a lot more. We'll see what they bring on June 7.

Hyperlinks in the sidebar from the eastern Iowa show will stay up for one more week.