6 things to know before doing a craft fair...

Hey, so as you may have noticed, I have been slacking majorly on the whole blog thing. I have thought about it every day for almost 2 weeks. I know this does not count for much, but I was taken hostage by the craft fairs. IT TOOK OVER MY LIFE!!!!! I had a great time and made a pretty penny, but I have not done anything else for almost a month! I am so pooped, and ready to be done. I  might have one more this Friday and Saturday  and then I get to start crafting for Christmas!!

The last post I wrote was about the Halloween invites. Halloween was fantastic, and we had a great party. Here is us in our Halloween costumes on our "pumpkin steps" ( Notice the lovely pumpkins that we spent hours painting. THANK YOU to Georgia Brown for all of the help  in this:) I wanted everything to look perfect for the party, and was trying to be a perfect host. Everything did not happen, but we got lots done, and had a great night...

 We dressed up as tigerlilly, peter pan, and tinkerbell.... so fun. I made mine and Nick's costume by repurposing clothes from the thirft store. Total cost less then $10 for both of us.Wanna see more pics? here is the link to my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151311707244744.541710.727284743&type=1&l=510bf6039c

Ok.... moving on... The craft fairs. The first one took place here in our town. It was my first one ever. I joined in a booth with my friend and her sister. I was super fortunate to get to pair up with such talented people. We did pretty well overall. Georgia made some yummy caramel apples and cute wooden signs. Her sister, Tonie, did the hair bows, which are SSOOO cute. I snagged a few for Khloe. I made the lights and home decor stuff. Our booth was packed...

a chevron tray, bottle,  some yarn "wish poms" and burlap roses I made.

some of the lights I made.

a side view of the booth

a front view

Georgia's wonderful caramel apples were a big hit!!

Georgia with a quick pose:)

my baby looking at my cards:)

Georgia and her sister Tonie

We had a fun two days, and might do it again next year...

The second craft fair was just this last weekend. I got to do it with my sister. We met up and did it in Rigby Idaho. IT WAS AMAZING!! There were so many people there, it was impossible not to feel claustrophobic  and also SO EXCITED all at the same time.  My sister is super talented at typography  and really has a great eye for graphic design. She made all of the wooden vinyl blocks and did the designs herself. She did really well. I made more lights, including some from spoons,  wax paper ( tutorial coming soon:) , and coffee filters.I also painted a ton of frames, and did some of my wooden sign boards. Here is our booth!!

some of her stuff, and some of mine... I made the bird stuff, and canvas', she made all the typography signs

this glitter one is my fav.

our neighbors right next to us... they were so fun.

my sisters stuff... isn't it cute?

my little table of goodies

a outside the booth view

here is our whole booth!! There was so much stuff in the beg.!! I love our little booth sign:)

We got so excited when people actually wanted to come in and look at our stuff. We really love words of affirmation. We both were so excited that we asked our first customers if we could snag pictures with them to post here.

Here is my sister with her first sale!

and here is me with my first sale!

We had so much fun, and this is def. the craft fair to do. I think that the Idaho falls one might be good for next time too, I hear it is HUGE!.

So I am no expert or anything but here are a few tips that I have for anyone interested in joining a craft fair to make it successful!!

1.) start planning early:

I lost a lot of sleep staying up late trying to get everything done the few nights before.  ( I got 6 hours of sleep in 48 hours!! I know crazy...) Start at least a month in advance and make things here and there, to lessen the stress last minute. 

2.) re-arrange/ bring stock:

We noticed that after stuff would sell the booth would start to look a little bare, and well...horrible. We also noticed that a lot of the things at the back of the booth were getting lost, and not noticed. When something sold up front, we moved up something from the back and then replaced the back item with something we had in stock under the table. As soon as we did this the thing we moved up would sell first! It is a nice rotation of stuff, and lets everything get seen.

3.) Plan for trouble:

Moving so much stuff multiple times to get it there really took a toll on the stuff. We arrived with things un-glued, or crunched, even though we were SUPER careful. Bring stuff to fix things. We brought a hot glue gun, scissors, yarn, paint and a brush, glue stick etc. and we needed it. Lots of things came unglued because the cold air froze the glue, and even a vinyl letter got scraped off and my sister was able to fix it and sell it.

4.) Bring business cards:

Everyone who liked our stuff was asking for a business card, and we didn't have one. We ended up hand writing a bunch while sitting at our booth to hand out. So something even just printed out with your contact info would be super helpful. I have gotten a few custom orders this way.

5.) Practice:

Practice setting up your booth before you get there. We did this and it saved so much time in set up. We tried to make our booth look as appealing as possible, and brought in cute shelves and stands, electricity, and a booth sign. So many people commented on how they liked our booth. We did it for cheap too. Pieces of wood for $1 from the Ikea AS- IS  bin became shelves and backdrops. One thing I didn't practice though was doing a debit transaction through the device I got for my i- phone. ( You can find the device HERE.) I got there and had lots of people asking if I took debit and when I tried it didn't work because my phone was not updated correctly.:(

6.) Be optimistic:

Every craft fair is different. At my first one the beg, was slow and I sold everything the last two hours. The second one was opposite. Don't get discouraged if things are not selling right away. Most people who show interest in your stuff still want to see everything in the fair before purchasing, I had a lot of people walk around and come back! It is easy to get down at first, but things will usually pick up at some time.

well that is it! glad I could share. Have any more advice? I would love to hear it! I am opening an Etsy account soon, as I was advised to from some of my customers at the fair. Look for it in my blog soon.  

Happy Craft Fair Season!

-Amanda