My First Craft Show

Last Sunday my friend Karen and I did our first ever craft show.

Boy was that a learning experience!

I wish now we had taken a picture of our "booth" but sadly we did not :( I am, however, doing another craft show next Saturday w/my mom and I'll try to remember to take pictures to post.

I think the best way to summarize the craft show experience is with a list of personal pro's and con's.

But first, here's a list of items I took to the show: Aprons, Fabric Bookmarks, Hand Painted Signs, and Hair Bows

Pro's:

~I printed off really nice labels/price tags for all of my items on pastel colored card stock. I think that helped them look professional

~I had a nice long pink twin bedspread that I used to cover our table. It looked nice and we were able to stash our extra stuff under our table.

~I printed up business cards with my name, etsy shop and e-mail, on them and had them prominently displayed.

Con's

~No tent.

~I had my fabric bookmarks laying flat on the table and it seemed like people just didn't notice them - next time I'm going to put them in a basket and make a large "Bookmark's $2" sign to put on the basket.

~I also had my hair bows/flowers laying flat on the table. Next time I'm taking pegboard and hanging them from that so they are more visible.

~Most of my aprons are 1/2 aprons (no top piece) and several women commented on how much they liked them but how they needed a full apron. Luckily I can easily change them into full aprons. That's what I'll be doing next week. :)

~The Stands I had for my signs kept blowing over in the wind so my signs also ended up flat on the table - flat is NOT good. Next time those will also be hung on the peg board.

The biggest con of all?

~The only thing I sold was 2 set's of hair bows. :( Not cool. Not cool at all.

There's probably more but it's Saturday and my brain is foggy . . .

One thing I did was walk around the show and "check out the competition" I'm glad I did that I was able to get a good idea of what else is out there, how other's priced their products, etc...

For anyone that is thinking about jumping into the craft show circuit I definitely recommend doing your homework first.

www (dot) craftster (dot) com how a lot of good information on craft shows.

I went into my first show looking at it as a learning experience and a way to get my name out there. I didn't expect much, which was good - lol, but I did learn a lot.

And lastly,

If you can do a booth with someone else make sure their stuff is of the same caliber as yours, you don't want someone looking at your nice stuff and then looking at their stuff going, oh that's cute, and . . .oh . . . oh :(

I'm glad I did it with Karen, she is an excellent crocheter and her items added a nice contrast to my sewn things.

And of course,

sharing a booth cut's your fee in half ;)

I'm hoping that my second craft show will go better and will give me more tips, tricks, etc, to pass on to you!

- Wish me luck!-