Strange Heads for Strange Folks

In between long stretches of good knitting time this weekend I think I got my Strange Folk Festival booth display ironed out. I am completely changing it from last year. I used those fold up shelves last year which were easy to transport but a total failure I'm afraid. People were unwilling to look through the piles of scarves on the shelves. Things just sat there until I moved them to the quilt racks. I will continue to use the 2 quilt racks on either side of the table which is where almost all of my sales came from last year.

So I've decided to retire the shelves and use only display items that are drapeable. I set up my table minus the knitwear on my back porch this weekend. I found the rack on the right at a Salvation Army for $7 and painted it tan but I think it probably needs another coat. It will hold a lot of scarves/scarflettes draped over it without being overwhelming like the shelves were. I already had the child coat rack on the far left which will be perfect for displaying hats. I gave it another coat of tan spray paint. I got the plant stand in the middle at an antique mall in Rolla for $10 and painted it a deeper beige.

I painted my Styrofoam heads which I bought at Sally's Beauty Supply for $4 a piece with a metallic copper acrylic paint. I had a failed attempt at spray painting them tan. Who knew that there was a chemical in spray paint that would turn a styrofoam head into a mutant creature? It started bubbling up but for some reason I kept spraying until the eye socket completely sunk in. Only then did I research what you should use to paint styrofoam. I obviously won't be using this one at Strange Folk. I will use the heads to display scarf/hat sets.

I will probably use 2 of the levels on the stand to hold mug racks that I got for a few dollars at Goodwill and painted the metallic color. I will hang some of my left over wrist cuffs from last year on them.

I got the table cloth at Goodwill for $4 and I really like the colors. I will probably put a cream sheet over the top and just show the print on the sides of my table but I haven't decided yet. I will use my banner from last year with my Lenox Knits logo on it.

So I spent around $40 including the paint this year on improvements to the booth which I think will pay for itself with more sales off of the table. What do you think? Do you like the tablecloth or do you think it will be too busy once I put all my colorful scarves on the table?

Displaying My Knitting

A few weeks ago I was getting out the things I used for displays last year in my craft show booth. For the most part they were pretty sad pieces that I had picked up at garage sales and tried to give new life too. They were cheap and they served their purpose for my first real year of doing shows. I had a few wine racks and a coat rack that I'd tried to spray paint a tan color. As long as you didn't look too closely they were fine.

The poor rack I was using to display my scarflettes had to be replaced this year. It was falling apart and just didn't provide enough space to display enough of them at a time. I use quilt racks that are not matching but are very functional to display the majority of my scarves. I have one for $15 scarves and one for $30 scarves on either side of my table. My favorite is the black fold up one that my sister in law found for me at an antique mall in town for $15. It has 3 rows to hang items on and it folds up nicely for travel.

I had bought a shelf unit at an antique mall at some point this year and I got it out in hopes of being able to use it to display my scarflettes. It is not sturdy at all and has very thin rickety legs. Mike told me that it would be falling over whenever someone picked one up to look at it, not a great way to make a good impression. I said that I guess I'd better start hitting the garage sales to find something else. He than said something that I had never thought of before. He said, "Why don't you buy something that is made to display things and will travel easily." It was such a revolutionary idea. Buy something that was made to do what I was buying it to do. I really want to be a DIY person but I unfortunately don't have the skills that some people have to really repurpose things and have them be functional.

I felt like I was taking the easy way out but I decided to at least look and see what was out there for display purposes. I went on-line and found a store display warehouse but their items were almost entirely metal which I didn't think went with the feel of my display. I checked Craigslist and there were a few things I thought might work but I just didn't feel like putting out the effort to track them down. So I did what I usually see as a last resort. I checked Ebay.

I found a seller called blackriverartgallery who had items exactly like what I was looking for. They are fold up shelving units that lock into place and sit on your table top. You can find listings here and here for what I bought. The prices were perfectly reasonable and I actually got free shipping on one of the pieces and the other shipping rate was only $8. They store easily and fit in your car nicely. I will probably only use the larger piece this year that you see above, which I bought an extra shelf for so there will be 3 shelves to display. I think if I put both units on my table it would be too crowded but I'm going to do some experimenting this weekend with my displays to see. I'm glad I have them both since as I grow I will hopefully be expanding my display in the future.

I bought some spray wood stain and a matte finish at Michaels this weekend with a 25% off storewide coupon to make them look more finished. I am also thinking about doing a decoupage on the back panels with some earthy colored paper I have to add some interest. I don't want to go too crazy and distract from my scarflettes but I also want them to be uniquely me.