Yesterday, I finished my last craft fair of the season! After a very mild fall we got slammed with the expected winter weather – temperatures of around -40°C with the windchill and new snow made the show a tough one to get to! We persevered and setup for the Highwood Community Show in the nick of time. This was one of my best shows last year and I was looking forward to it!
This is my booth on a 6ft table – a little more compact than the regular 8ft ones but it still works fine! I display with less ‘white space’ for these shows (or should that be black spaces, given my drapery choices?). I forgot most of my booth signage as well but at these small shows that doesn’t seem to matter much. In the New Year, I’m going to see if I can’t talk a screen printing cousin into letting me whip up a few booth banners!
By this point, my daughter is an old hand at these shows. And we have an arsenal of things for her to do to keep her occupied because I have to admit the kids that run around at shows drive me crazy. One of those things is building a fort under the booth table since my stuff packs up quite compactly(and I store boxes under the table).
Some of her other preferred activities include minutely rearranging items on the table, making faces at herself in my booth’s hand mirrors and carefully picking out what she gets to spend her show money on. I long ago learned that my ‘no spending’ at the show policy was a bother so now we set aside an allowance to spend at the show- treats for us, sales for our fellow vendors, general goodness all ’round. She bought finger puppets for a cousin’s gift (and a few for herself).
Despite the weather – this is a piece of the parking lot – we did get brave souls come by the show! My first two customers, in fact, were repeats from the show last year who came looking for me. Talk about flattered!
This is Joyce’s table – her website is not up yet – and she sells lovely Christmas picks and baking! I’ve seen her at quite a few shows the last two years and I think I’ve bought at least a few things each time. Her amazing shortbread cookies were my breakfast this past week! This time, we got oatmeal and raisin cookies for my long-suffering kidlet.
My sales were way down this show from last year but that was sort of expected with the weather. I had the same fun talking to vendors there, gathering cards and networking. Lois the organizer was VERY organized as usual which makes it an easy show to do.
Now, I have to take a look at all my figures for the season and decide how the next year is going to go! I’ll post a recap of the season once my brain is unfrozen.