To those of you planning to do a Market/Craft Fair for the first time, a word: there is such a thing as having too much going on.
Unbelievably, up until a couple of days before the event, I still wasn't sure that I had enough things to sell and was concerned that my table was going to look empty.
Oh. Dear.
'Empty' is certainly not a word which could have been used to describe my stall. I actually had so much stuff that I couldn't display it properly. Better to have fewer things and display them well than look like a jumble sale.
However, I only had one table. So I crammed it on. It looked a mess. But it looked a really cool mess. I had a lot of Oooos and Aaaahs and a few, "You do this regularly?". I enjoyed the look of surprise when I said that this was my first. I even got an invite to a craft fair in the Spring! Woop woop indeed.
My bunting kits looked super cool. Disappointingly, the printers who photocopied my little instruction booklets didn't bother to change their ink, so all of the booklets are faded. I couldn't very well ask full price with faded booklets, so I had to reduce them. An actual printing shop?! I was so angry when I got home. Well, angry is a little strong actually. I was in far too much of an exhausted daze to be angry. Mildly irritated would capture it better.
My bags (photographed at home because I forgot on the day). Mr Pippa did a sterling job on cutting out the sticky labels for the bags.
My business cards all pegged onto the branches. (Thank you to my helpers for pegging these.)
Inside those shelves at the back were pots of paint and ceramics for the 'Paint You Own' kits, which went down really well. Someone actually told me off for pricing them too low! How sweet! So, of course, I'll be hiking the prices up for the next fair. Well, we'll see.
Finally, I got to use my mini easle somewhere. More business cards!
The sock cakes, for the sock monkey kits. I had quite a few people asking if they could just buy some socks. Others said, "Ooo now I need cake". They made me want cake.
The sock creatures got a lot of attention. Some had never heard of a sock monkey before (which, in my world, is like saying you've never heard of a microwave). One crying baby was brought to my stall and stopped crying. Oh yes. My creations have the power to stop babies crying. When the mother took the baby away, he cried again. She brought him back and he stopped, staring at everything. Impressive, eh?
People loved the bunting but I don't think they realised it was for sale (because I had too much stuff).
This post has inspired me to do a Craft Fair: dos and don'ts post.
In summary: it was great and I made connections and had fun and it was so encouraging to look at the table and see a load of things that I had made (for someone who is ill, that's a big deal). The feedback from people was wonderful. However, I didn't actually make much money.
(Deleted paragraph about illness and money and Christmas. Just insert your own boring rant here and it'll save me the trouble.)
Even without it being financially worthwhile, it was great to be able to try it out before embarking on anything too large-scale. Maybe I'll do a craft fair in the Spring. Maybe I'll put these things on Folksy (although it's too late in the year for the Christmas sock buddies! I doubt anyone would buy them this close to Christmas).
I would like to find out about craft fairs in my area though. How does one go about doing such a thing? I bet there's a weekly one in my city but I just don't know about it because I never leave the house.
More pictures to be uploaded to Flickr soon...
