I have an irrational fear of running out of merchandize in the middle of a craft fair. Irrational because I have never, ever come close to selling out and have, in fact, done the opposite and sold nothing. This doesn't stop me from imagining standing behind an empty Display Thingie frantically making pin head earrings and trying to sell them as they are made one by one.
Selling out all my inventory would not be as good of a thing as it would seem. Empty Etsy and Artfire shops would kill my very tiny clientele list. That means when I have a craft show scheduled, I start making stuff like crazy. The Indoor Hofstra Craft & Gift Show isn't until after Thanksgiving but I've booked two Saturdays in a row and I'd like to end those two days with as much inventory as I have today, yet have sold hundreds, even thousands, of dollars worth of stuff.
So, I've been making things.
Being a veteran of a whole 4 craft shows, I saw some things. Some things that I would like to emulate. Two thirds of the battle is having people stop at your booth. One way vendors did this was not to put prices on anything, so a person had to stop and ask if they wanted to know. There was one exception, The Bargain Bin. The Bin didn't need to be an actual bin, just a collection of things that a vendor could put a sign over that read: All fignoogles $5! (a fignoogle being whatever it was that particular vendor was selling at a price significantly lower than everything else on his or her table.) I've decided that I was going to sell a fignoogle. Mine are the key chain holders in the upper left. All key chain holders $3!.
My boxes are getting just a wee bit Christmas-y, don't you think? The green one has a ring in it. The red flower pendant goes in the red box.
Not pictured:
The little pill boxes decoupaged with Christmas wrapping paper and glossed to a shiny finish. This is because they don't have a crunchy inside yet. The guys in the picture are on a temporary landing for completed projects not yet photographed. I do have a system. It may be silly but it's my own.
The really nice and big box I put the Extra Bling earrings into. It was a cigar box painted black with white glass tiles. The whole thing was coated in two layers of high gloss and when you lifted the lid, instead of seeing the cigar brand logo, you saw my own "logo". The reason it is not pictured is because I stupidly forgot to take a picture before I sent it out.
All the spray paint nozzles that are now sitting in the spray bottle caps soaking in nail polish remover. These guys are just about ready to be probed with a wire from the bottom up, put on a can of WD-40 for a squirt or to and then replaced on it's spray paint can. I could have avoided doing all this extra work if, when I was done using them, I had turned my spray paint cans upside down and sprayed until only clear stuff came out. Another route around all this extra work would be to buy new spray paint. But no. These cans are practically full. It takes very little spray paint to cover a pill box.
Trying to get a good handle on ear cuffs. They would go good in the slightly bigger boxes the pendants usually go in.
And that's my story. That's what I've been up to. Busy, busy, busy!
No comments:
Post a Comment