These are more pictures on the craft show I did in December. I had a great time at this show and plan on doing more in the future. This particular show was put on by Sue at Country Crafts
www.country-craft.com This gal is such a sweetheart!
I hope that by sharing these pics and things I've found helpful you can better prepare for the shows you will be doing!
Anyway...some of the details! This is a full shot of my space. I had a 6' table and the freestanding rack was 2' wide and about 4' tall or so.
Most of the craft shows I've come across require the table covering to be floor length and light in color. This was the best I could do. I wasn't going to pay to have one custom made. I used two items to make this table covering...a tablecloth from Linens-n-Things and a king size sheet underneath. Now, it isn't floor length on all sides...the back is shorter than the front. You can see it a little in the picture. I was fairly happy with how it looked though. The main thing the promoters are trying to achieve with floor length drapings are to prevent the table legs from showing. It also gives you a great place to tuck the storage tubs too! If I can find some other type of cloth that will work better, then I'll change. Until then, I like this. I have to say at first I was a little leary of using a light colored tablecloth. I was always a fan of black. This made me rethink my feelings. I still like black as a table covering, but there was something really fresh and bright about using a light colored one!
My lunchtins were my highest priced item at this show. I decided to display them on this really cute rack. I was fortunate enough to get this from my mom. She has some really cute metal racks that make great display racks. I've seen similar things at TJ Max. I always keep an eye out when I'm there.
For this show I had 11 lunchtins made up, and sold just over half of them. There were 3 different types: Cards, Recipes and Baby. I also had some that were unlabeled on the outside...meaning they did not have anything on the outside of the tin to designate what they were meant for. Surprisingly, the ones that sold best were these "blank" ones. They still had the dividers labeled for recipe use. None of the baby tins sold...they were intended to be a baby's first year tin. The cards tins were also slow on the go...I think one sold over the course of the show.
In the future I'm going to concentrate on making my tins without a specific label on the outside. They will still have dividers on the inside...most likely I will label them for recipe use. While I like the ones that tell you what to use them for...I think its a better decision to leave that up to the customer. It also save me a step *insert wink*
One of the best sellers I had at this show were my kid's color me kits. I got this idea from Joyrae on SCS. Thanks so much to her! I know there are other ones that have posted this same thing, but hers just hit home with me. These were so EASY it was insane. I had 4 cards in one kit, along with 4 crayons. I packaged the crayons up in their own tiny ziplock bag (I got the baggies from Paperzone).
For the cards, I used cardstock from Michael's. I couldnt' see using my SU! cardstock on these, especially since they are not intricate in design.
I packaged the card kits in a plain cello bag and used a simple twist tie to close them.
Another of my best sellers were journals. I made these by covering compostition books with patterned paper and then embellishing. At the start of the show I only had these six. By the second day, I was done to one journal left! I ran home that night and made up as many as I could!!! It was exciting to see these go.
What I had at this show:
- lunch tins..................................$24.95
- altered paint cans....................$19.95
- journals.....................................$5.95
- snowman soup (in a mug)......$4.95
- snowman poop.........................$1.00
- coasters.....................................$2.95 ea.
- magnets (clear button type)..$1.50 for 4
- cards..........................................$2.50 ea.
- tooth fairy tins..........................$2.95 ea.
- frames........................................$9.95
My bestsellers:
- ~lunch tins
- ~journals
- ~coasters
- ~snowman poop (sold out on last day)
- My cards did fairly well. I had a mix of everyday and Christmas. I didn't have a count of the cards before the show...so estimating the sales...I sold about a third of them. Not too bad.
- Thoughts on the snowman soup...it's really cute, but for some reason it wasn't a big seller. Its super easy to put together and fun too! With the mug, the price is really great! I included a package of cocoa, marshmallows, hershey's kisses and candy cane. They were packaged in clear cello, with a stamped tag. The poem was on the back of the tag.
Over the holidays I'd seen snowman soup in many retail locations. I wonder if this could be why its not a hit in the craft show arena? Possibly it has lost its unique-ness? I'm not sure if I will make it again or not.
The snowman poop on the other hand sold pretty well. I didn't have huge sales on it until the last day (Saturday). By the end of that day, I was sold out! It really wasn't anything special...marshamallows in a small cello bag! I was surprised these sold out, and I was thinking of not doing them again...decisions, decisions!
As for the coasters...my best seller were the coffee ones. I didn't have many of these (coasters in general) and wish I would have made more. I will definitely be making more of these, especially the coffee them ones. One person came back and asked for more...sadly, I didn't have any more!
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