Second Craft Fair: Part 2

Today marks the end of my second craft fair. Here's a picture of my tables - since the ladies the day before decided not to come back.

I didn't do well (again), but I believe I did better than some of the other jewelers. There was not a lot of traffic. It really stunk that I wasn't in the main area, although I hear some of those people didn't do well at all. I did get a lot of compliments, and some people took my card for to have custom pieces made. I don't know if it was the economy, or if it was just a bad weekend all together. I really don't know what more I learned today, except make sure you have things that are lower priced that the parents can buy for the kids. My big sellers were my lanyards and eyeglass necklaces along with the seed bead memory bracelets. Those were some of my cheapest items as well. I'm just going to try and stay positive and try again at my next craft fair in two weeks. Wish me luck!!

Second Craft Fair: Part 1

This was day one of a two day fair. It was a big difference from my first fair. First off, I was a bit more organized. Although I was more organized, and it was a HUGE fair (over 80 vendors), I sold 2/3 less than what I did at my first fair. From what I saw and heard a lot of people did poorly, and some people sold NOTHING! So I guess I did pretty good compared to others.

I bought myself two little dollies that have a plastic carton on the bottom. I found them in Wal-Mart for less than $20.00. This helped me limit my trips back and forth to the car. I also only used one jewelry case, instead of three. I packed my earrings in plastic bags, on homemade earring cards with the lips on the back so I could just take them out of the bag and hang them up. It save a lot of time.

I really have no special hints or tips, because I wasn't very busy, so I learned no real lessons. I did hear that a few vendors are not showing up tomorrow because they did so poorly, so hopefully tomorrow more people will show up, and enjoy my jewelry!

I met a great artist (her table was next to mine). She's another jeweler, and I learned a lot from her. It was really refreshing talking with someone in the same line.

First Craft Fair - some lessons learned.

I went to my first craft fair on Friday at my place of employment. There were about 15 tables there, five of which had jewelry. I got there a little after 7am to set-up to open at 9am. This being my first craft fair, I figured I would a little to be ready for my second fair. My first BIG mistake was having things packed poorly and with little or no organization. It took about six trips out to my car to get everything to the room. I'd like to make only one trip, and so hopefully next time I will be able to whittle that down a little. I had everything in boxes, which, I then had to take out of boxes to hang on the earring stand. That took a long time, since I first had to take it out of the box, then put the hanger on the earring card (I make my cards myself), then hang them up. First off, I am not going to store my things in the individual boxes anymore. I will store them in plastic baggies, with the hanger already attached. This will cut back on me having to bring three craft cases filled with the jewelry in the boxes, and maybe only have to bring one craft case, and a bag filled with boxes.

Second big mistake, I forgot a pen. ooooppppsss!

Third mistake, I had no way to hang my banner up. I thought I could hang it with ribbon on the table, but the ribbon kept pulling the banner, and the banner kept trying to keep rolling back up. I will have to figure something out with that.

I only had about four busts to hang necklaces on, so I had to keep a lot of necklaces in the boxes on the table. I thought it looked crappy like that. I have ordered a few necklace boards, so next time it will all look a little neater.

On a positive note, I did have small bills, my cards, everything priced and a mirror available for people to try on necklaces.

It was a good day. A bit stressful, but I am looking forward to another fair.