It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I participated in my first festival as a vendor.
Remember my table at this event last year?
Here’s this year’s set up; I think I’ve come a long way since then!
The festival was wonderful, yet again this year. There were a lot more vendors, and attendance seemed to be the same, if not up, from last year.
My favorite parts of the festival:
I really enjoyed seeing customers from the first festival again. A lot of those who came to my table last year not only remembered me, but said how much they loved what they bought last year.
Repeat customers from other shows!
This little cutie helping with set up on Friday night. He told me later that I really work hard!
Someone I had never met coming into my booth and getting excited to find the Boathouse Mouse book that they had heard all about! They heard about it from someone at my kid’s school, and had to buy a copy.
Almost selling out of my gift tags and Nativity prints
A classmate of my eldest son getting her copy of Boathouse Mouse, and not being able to wait until she gets home to read it so she sat at a table and dug right in! She can’t wait until the next adventure 🙂
MY NOTE CARDS COOPERATED!!!! Every single festival I’ve sold at, something has gone wrong with my note cards. Either I’ve had the printer be the wrong kind of printer, the printer not have ink, work or print straight, or I haven’t been able to find the blank cards I had bought. This time, I had cards and ink, and as long as I only printed a few cards at a time, the printer cooperated!
Being under a light! The hall can be a little dark, so I brought Christmas lights to help brighten up my spot. Between the two light sources, it was easy to see all my items.
Problems for the show:
I wasn’t sure how it was going to go this year. I was sick earlier in the week, and then scrambled towards the end to make sure everything was ready. Set up was Friday night, and I’ve never set up the night before. It cramped my time a bit for preparing, but it ended up working out.
It was a very rough Saturday. I overslept, was misplacing things, forgetting things, and just frazzled. However, when I dropped my daughter off at the monthly women’s prayer breakfast on my way to the festival, the ladies who were there prayed over me and sent me off with some quiche for breakfast. That really helped me feel more at peace in all the craziness of the morning, and then having the ladies check in with me this morning at church just made me feel loved and cared for.
Changes for this festival:
I tried something new at this festival. I’ve noticed that there are really busy times, but there are also really slow times when selling. I brought one of my Christmas gift commissions to work on in those lulls, and it really helped to pass the time. Customers also liked seeing a drawing in progress, and I had a lot of interest in custom pieces.
I also had a new display system! The slat boards are actually from a rotating display, but it was missing the top part so it was rickety. It was able to be put together as a wall as long as it was between a wall and tables, and it worked beautifully for some vertical height for my displays. I can also make it into an accordion type display or a corner display, so expect to see that again this upcoming year!
I usually have a portfolio on display of past works, but honestly, I hadn’t updated it since I made it for this show last year. The pictures weren’t the best quality, and I just haven’t made the time to update or correct it. With my new computer, I decided to make up a slide show of drawings, paintings, and murals to automatically scroll through for customers to check out if they wanted. It worked out wonderfully, and I think I’ll be doing that from now on.
New display signs and pen/newsletter sign up cups! They’re from my last trip to IKEA. The frames for the signs were less than $1 a piece, and they’ll hold up to the weather and wind better than just the plain paper ones I’d been using. The cups are actually candle holders, and they look better than a glass mixing bowl for slips and the pens just laying on the table.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by to say hi yesterday! It was a great day, and I hope to see you all again soon!
Have you been to any craft fairs or holiday festivals this year?
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