Medusa's Day

I wish I could say that Medusa was my new best friend but unfortunately this was one gamble that didn't pay off so well. It was a perfectly pleasant day with some lovely booth neighbors but I sold a grand total of 4 scarflettes. The Medusa shot is of a big sign they had out which I posterized in Photoshop.

It was an unseasonably warm day which hurt my sales, and the event was a bit too spread out so I don't think we had as much traffic as we could have. They had booths in 3 different locations, some outside and some inside, and entertainment was all over the place . I don't think people were clear on where things were which caused some confusion. I think I pretty much broke even when you factor in the booth fee, food, gas, and a few other things I bought for the day.

I was happy with my booth display. I don't know why I didn't sell any scarves or wristcuffs but I guess it was just a scarflette crowd, what there was of it. I did sell a scarflette to a former Smashanista which I thought was cool. When they walked in I thought they looked familiar and then I heard someone talking about roller derby and I made the connection. I didn't think to take a picture of her in the scarflette which I am beating myself up about today.


I made a trade with the lovely Mandi from My Lovies. I chose a locket with a few beads but I came really close to choosing this beautiful pendant with old lace.

I had some good quality time with Kai, although he said he made 1000 texts during the day. I don't know how many different ways you can say I'm bored but I think he found a few hundred.

I'm looking forward to my last show of the year, the Rolla Holiday Bazaar on November 13. Hopefully there will be a good scarf buying crowd awaiting me there.

Strange Folk Wrap up!

I've mostly recovered from this weekend. I would have to say that this was my favorite Strange Folk Festival yet. I had a perfect spot in the covered pavilion right next to the stage so I could spread out more than those in the center aisles. I had the best booth neighbors, which I will talk about more tomorrow. Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day in the upper 70's with huge crowds most of the day. I had a perfectly acceptable number of sales but nothing spectacular. Sunday was a rainy, cold, and somewhat miserable day and guess what. I had my best day ever at Strange Folk!

On day one I didn't sell a single hat. I sold mostly lower priced scarves and a whole lot of wristcuffs which I had marked down. On day 2 I sold over half of my hats, most of my higher priced scarves, and several of my higher priced scarf/hat sets. What a difference 15 degrees makes. I felt terrible for the vendors in the tents on Sunday as many people just weren't venturing out into the park with the rain and cold. People were taking their time in the covered pavilion and those who hadn't worn a scarf that day were buying them off the rack and wearing them around. A couple of nice folks said they were leaving the tags on them for free advertising for me.
I really had some of the sweetest customers this year. My absolute favorite was the girl in this shot (posted with her mother's permission.) She bought one of my favorite hats and she had her own quirky style which I loved. I actually made 3 in this style with the tufts of Ozark Mountain Handspun sticking out every 5 rows. I will probably end up keeping the one that I didn't sell for myself. This girl fell in love with the hat as soon as she tried it on and her face just lit up. . But her Mom told her she wanted to look around to make sure there wasn't one she liked more. An hour later the girl comes running up to the table and says "I tried every hat in this entire place on and this is the perfect one." I couldn't resist taking a picture since the hat really was made for her with her little curls poking out.

My second favorite customer was a little girl around 7 or 8 who came up with her sister. They tried on every one of my wrist cuffs. She picked out a wire wrist cuff, which is the most grown up item I sell, with Eiffel tower charms, probably the most grown up of my wire wrist cuffs. It fit her barely but she had made up her mind. She got her wallet out and handed me her $7 so grown up like. I was a little worried about what her mother would think. Around 15 minutes later the whole family comes up and the mom says I just wanted to tell you that she had been shopping all weekend long and your bracelet was what she chose to spend her money on. I told her how special that made me feel and we chatted for while. The mom had bought a scarf from me the year before and I think she was a vendor.

My last customer of the day was my biggest sale of the weekend, just like the first year I did Strange Folk. It was about 15 minutes before closing time and a family came up in a flurry. Her daughter picked out one of my most expensive scarf/hat sets and the mom chose one of my $30 scarves for herself. If I had started to pack up like many of the other vendors, she probably would have passed me on by. Mike had come to help me pack up and he was sitting on the steps next to my booth. The sister sat down next to him and he was sharing his popcorn with her and they shared a moment. When the family was leaving the girl gave Mike a big hug which everyone thought was so cute.
I was pretty happy with the booth display. I sold way more items off the table this year than last year. The display items I talked about here were much more effective than the shelves I spent so much money on last year. I didn't change much from day 1 to day 2 except putting out only one head since I got tired of taking things on & off of the heads all day long Saturday. I also arranged the quilt racks by color on Sunday and not price. I ended up pricing things as $15, $20, and a few $30 scarves.

I'll share more about the weekend tomorrow, including the great trades and friends I made.

Strange Folk Wrap up: The Not-So Good

As I've said I had I was happy with how the weekend went for the most part but there were a few things I would have changed looking back. One thing that I had no control over was where I was located. When I first found out I was going to be in the Big Tent rather than the Pavilion I was disappointed. You roll with the punches and make the best out of what you are given, and honestly I'm really just glad that I made it into Strange Folk again with all of the entries that they are getting.

If I had been under the Pavilion as last year I would not have had to deal with all of the mud and I wouldn't have taken such a hit on Saturday with the rain. All the shoppers ran to the Pavilion when it started and a lot of business was going on under there while we were all huddled under our tents. The positive side was that I think I had more room to spread out where I was and I didn't get claustrophobic like I did last year when all the crowds were coming through the narrow lanes in the Pavilion.

I was never really happy with how my table looked all weekend long either. I went ahead and used both of the shelving displays and I think it looked too busy and crowded. I didn't sell that much off of the larger display and I wonder if it was because people were overwhelmed by all of the colors and prints going on. I'm going to have to do some experimenting before the next show and figure out what I'm going to use and what is not going to cut it. Mike thinks I need to shelve the shelving units entirely. He says I should get some sort of rack or wall bracket system to hang things from. The booth really is always a work in progress so we shall see.

The other negative came at the very end of the second day. I was absolutely exhausted and somewhat vulnerable. I was hoping for one last good sale to get me to last year's numbers when a women ran up and started working me over. She asked if I would take $30 for 3 scarves, which are normally priced $15 a piece. I said how about $35 and she hands me $30 and a few singles and says that's all I have. I tentatively said okay and she started grabbing. She ended up walking away with 3 very nice scarves and I felt like I'd been taken. I really wasn't prepared despite the stories I've been told about how people can be at shows. I'm used to people going on about how reasonable my scarves are and was not ready for someone to try to completely low ball me. I should have said "I'm sorry but the prices are as marked and I do take credit cards if you are interested." As I said I was in a weakened state.

To be fair if handled properly it's not a terrible thing to ask for a discount. Earlier in the day a women had waited until my booth was completely clear and approached me about taking a few dollars off a scarf. I had only spent $1 or so on the yarn in this item so I was OK with it and we were both perfectly happy with the transaction.

So I've shared the good, now the bad, and here's a little ugly. These are my poor, swollen, achy feet after day 1 with the lovely backdrop of the cheap hotel bedspread.

Booth Display Rough Draft

This weekend I got serious about my Fall craft show display. I've been thinking about it A LOT the past month but it was time to put some verbs in my sentences as Dr. Phil would say. First thing I did was stain my new display shelves. After they dried I decoupaged the center panels on the front side with some earthy colored paper that I think goes really well with my banner and feel of my shop. I cut out pieces and used decoupage glue on both sides and made a sticky mess but it was actually lots of fun. I then painted the back sides of the panels beige. I'm really happy with how it came out. If I ever get sick of it I can scrap the paper off and repaint it.

I should be able to put 3 rows of scarflettes on each row which means I should be able to display around 40 scarflettes on it at a time. That will definitely be an advantage over last year where my little rack displayed less than 20 at a time.

After setting up the rough draft of my display above and studying the picture I found several things I didn't like. First I don't like the green tablecloth that I picked up at GoodWill. I think I will look for a brown sheet instead. I also thought the gray hands stood out like a sour thumb or 1 thumb and 4 fingers, pun intended. I decided to paint them and do a little of the decoupage on them as well. Don't look too closely at the picture. They look a little splotchy as I had just touched up the paint job.

I definitely wouldn't be able to use the other display shelf as it wouldn't fit on my table. The tables they provide at Strange Folk are bigger than mine so I might bring it just to see if I can use it there. I've been keeping my eyes open for a quilt rack that will match my fold up one so that I will have more matching displays for my scarves but if I don't find one I'm okay with using the ones I have this year. Overall I'm happy with my progress and I think I am going to have a much more professional and pulled together display this year which hopefully will mean an increase in sales.

Banner Day!

I am so excited about my new craft booth banner from Wilson Graphics on Etsy, see here for a listing if you want your own. He took the little jpeg I sent him of my blog banner and turned it into the 10" tall x 43" long outdoor vinyl banner with 4 grommets to hang it. It was only $22, well worth the price and he had it to me in just a week.

I love my fabric letters that I used last year and I will still be using them somehow in my display but they just weren't very legible. People were always standing there trying to figure out what they said when they should have been looking at my scarves. This banner is clear and totally ties my booth in with my on-line presence which I think is important.

Wilson was so friendly and easy to work with. I am really tempted to buy some of his other amazing items including this wall graphic. I love the sleek and modern metroscape above but he really has something for just about any room or style. He's got big and small graphics and decals.

He obviously has a great love of nature because his work is full of birds and insects that come alive on your wall. I particularly like this butterfly which also has a nice message. He also has lots of great decals for a kid's room like the castle at the top of the bean stock or he has some amazing dinosaurs too.