Craft Show Recap

Phew! I have no idea how people do trade or craft shows all the time. It was a lot of fun, but exhausting. Friday 3-8pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 11am-4pm. Pretty much standing the whole time. I guess I didn’t realize how much I sit on a day to day basis. I am SORE. How sad is that? It’s pretty sad

Here are some pictures of our booth:

(Please excuse the wrinkly tablecloth, it didn’t look wrinkly in real life. Or maybe it did and we just didn’t notice. Moving on…)

We had a bunch of items for sale:

- Beaded dish soap / olive oil bottles

- Wire wrapped serving ware (coffee scoops, cocktail knife and fork set, spoons, etc)

- Beaded and wire wrapped plate

- Hostess aprons

- Quilted coasters

- Potholders

- Vintage suitcases updated and personalized (for dress up cloths or trips)

- Baby bibs

- Wipe cases

- Burp cloths

- Knotty Hats

- Scarves

- Toddler chef hats and coordinating aprons

- And probably some more stuff I can’t think of right now

Our favorite sale was to a mom/daughter duo:

How cute are they? Seriously.

Here’s a quick recap of how the weekend went:

Friday:

- We arrived at 12:30 to set up our booth. It took a trillion times longer than expected so we  didn’t get a chance to grab lunch. Clearly we would have to eat half a bag of emergency chocolate during the show to compensate. (Check)

- Doors open at 3pm. Crickets. Not a person. Panic sets it. OMG, what were we thinking?

- 3:30pm first sale. Thank God. People start to come by, chat, and buy.

- Eat chocolate. Sell some more. Get tired legs. Repeat until 8pm.

- Clean up. Cover table and take items off shelf to dissuade kleptos. You know, because a black table cloth draped over our stuff will definitely keep the thieves away. Whatever. It worked.

Saturday:

- Arrive at 8:30am to remove thief-deterring table cloth and put items back on shelf.

- Doors open. Crickets. Again. Really? Where are the peeps? Oh, that’s right. They’re at or watching the Texas / OU game. Shoot! Why didn’t we think of that?

- Saturday started off slow but really picked up after the game.

- Repeat Friday’s clean up regimen. Home!

Sunday:

- Set up what’s left of merchandise. Thankfully we had a LOT more room to spread out our things since a bunch had sold.

- Chat, sell, chat, chat, sell, chat.

- Clean up booth after show.

- Accidentally leave my box of leftover merchandise at show. Go home.

- Phone rings. Super nice vendor tells me she saw my box and will wait until I come back up to get it.

- Curse at myself for being so dumb as to leave said box.

- Arrive back at the show. Give lady and her husband big bear hugs and profusely thank them for being upstanding citizens (I didn’t say that, don’t worry). Feel happy. Go home.

… If you have made it this far into my post and aren’t snoozing yet, I’m impressed!

I learned a couple things from the show:

1. Craft show vendors are HILARIOUS! Most are people persons and some are pretty kookie. All are fun to talk to and willing to share their experiences.

2. There were some janky looking booths and some totally awesome looking booths. Here were two of my favs:

3. If you want to sell a bunch of stuff, you really have to have an edge. You can’t sell things people see everyday. There has to be something unique about what you are offering.

4. Sharing a booth with a funny, sweet, fabulous friend is entertaining and totally the way to go:

5. Make sure you aren’t pricing your items out of thin air. You need to calculate materials, labor, and wear and tear on equipment..You also need to make sure your prices are competitive. Do some research!

6. Before committing to a show, calculate how much money you need to make and how many items you need to sell to break even.

Overall, the craft show was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Profitability wise, it was worth it. I sold enough to cover materials, labor, wear and tear, and booth fees. Plus enough to buy a Cricut (whoo hoo) and have some money to put back into the biz.

Have a great week! I need to catch up on laundry, cleaning, errands, etc. Apparently they don’t do themselves.

XOXO