Yesterday at the Unique Bazaar was not the worst I ever did at a craft show. That distinction is held by the second show I did at Astoria Market where, not only did I sell nothing, I spent a good 60 bucks on beer and food. No, Unique Bazaar was not the worst day ever but it sure was the most frustrating.
You see, there was plenty of people. Gobs and gobs of people. At one point I came back from the bathroom and Hubby was mobbed. Imagine my excitement when I saw customers standing three deep at my table. That never happened to me before. And they all loved my stuff. The words "beautiful", "lovely" and "great" uttered as often as pronouns. But nobody bought anything. Well, practically nobody.
It wasn't only me. None of the other 6 set-ups around me made table. Which was especially surprising for the table next to me. She had these melted bottle thingies-- hard liquor bottles melted into ashtrays, beer bottles melted and mounted on wood with your choice of bottle opener mounted underneath-- that were fantastic and eye-catching and her booth was rarely empty. And yet she turned to me at about three in the afternoon and said, "This is crazy! What's going on?" I felt too guilty to tell her it was my bad craft show mojo.
Then there was the lovely Freckles. Her son died young and she sold jewelry she purchased in bulk on weekends to raise money for the children's hospital where he had gotten his treatments. She had cute little machine made trinkets, many as cheap as one dollar, that barely moved off her table. Freckles was the information lady. She told everyone where they were to set up. She admired my Display Thingie and my jewelry. "I've got these big, ugly earrings I'll never sell and some that came pre-broken too. I don't even display them. You can take them apart and use the components to make your pretty stuff." And as sure as the ham is eaten long before the turkey, Freckles gave me a two bags of stuff. Just like that!
Giving some serious thought into making and selling Display Thingies.
Finally, I'd like to give some fashion advice to the middle-aged and older men trailing behind their wives at the mall. You probably shouldn't listen to my advice on fashion since I dress in a combination of stretchy material and blouses that were given to me but I'm going to give you some advice anyway. Stop wearing shorts and sandals with windbreakers and leather jackets. I cannot believe how many men woke up and thought, 'man, today I'm gonna be a little chilly from the waist up and hot and sweaty from the waist down'. Really. What the hell?
Also some advice from Wesley Willis, a schizophrenic homeless man with more fashion sense that 1/16th of the mall-shopping male population:
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