First Craft Show of the Season

I was invited to do a craft show last weekend. It was a last minute choice, and I worked my butt off to get enough product, fearing that I wouldn't even be able to fill the table.....I had a box of product that I was not able to show, I didn't have the room!

I guess I was prepping for a larger space!

I learned several things from this show... first, don't freak out, asses your space requirements, and duplicate your set up. If I had taken my product up to the studio, and laid it all out on my table, I would have seen that I had plenty of product.

This was the left side of my booth, I had a record bowl full of candy, a second record bowel full of page corner bookmarks. These were a product of great confusion, even though I had a book displaying how they worked, they seemed to confound my customers.

I also had several headband ear warmers, a twig tree full of key fobs, and 2 record stands holding my giant paperclip bookmarks.

I taught my husband how to sew, and he made up 20 3-6 in rice and lavender heat packs, in 5 different fabrics.

I also had some small candy tubes, made from crystal Light containers. I will take photos of each of these projects with a short written tutorial over the course of the next week or so.

This is the right side of the booth. The shelf was a super find at my mom's 2nd hand shop, she was going to throw it away, and I snagged it up. the paint is rough, but it adds character. the top 2 shelves are filled with handmade holiday cards, I will show these individually in the blog posts from the next few days. I filled the bottom shelf with coaster sets, made from recycled flooring tiles and scrapbook paper! These make great hostess gifts, and are water resistant.

I also had a couple of hats, the pattern for 1 of the three hats here is listed in the blog as the Tundra. The other two I need to write up patterns for. On the side of the shelf is a couple of Pom Pom scarves made with Pomp-a-doodle, and the hats on top are some basic beanies, with some decorative stitch experimentation.

The stand on the second shelf is made from a water goblet glued between 2 melted records, it is full of flower hair clips, and hair pins. These work great for accenting headbands.

The top of the first shelf has a couple of wristie-earwarmer sets, you can find the pattern for those here.

The second lesson I learned was straight from the pages of my marketing texts... people in the US shop from right to left, they go in the direction they drive, and they have to cross less traffic if they start at the right. I was int he left corner of the room in the show... people would circle the the right, and move around, hitting some of the corporate consultant style businesses before they got to me, therefore, they'd see the mass produced "cute" winter-wear, buy it, and have already spent their money by the time they found my booth, with handcrafted, higher quality, but less expensive headbands and hats.

Also, because the previous booth had their god mass produced, they were ALL EXACTLY THE SAME... no variance in design or pattern, only color. Guess I need to work on my consistency, and my color choices. Most people apparently prefer solid colors to mixed or gradient colors.

I did get some great networking done though. Get set up for another show on Dec 9, and got asked to consign some of my things at Roller Doll Skates, a store that caters to roller derby girls.