The Goody Bag Experience

The Funky Finds Holiday Shopping Experience is 26 days away. AAAHHH!!! I have so much work to do! But I am LOVING working on it each day.

I wanted to get all of my frames and canvases done in September. That was my goal. Did I finish them all? No. Of course not. But nevertheless, when October got here, I made myself switch directions.

One of the fun things about this craft fair is that the first 150 shoppers get a goody bag filled with items from the vendors. Vendors are not required to put an item in the bags, but I knew from the beginning that I wanted to. I wanted to think of something cute and cheap to make that would make people want to stop by my booth. It's also a guaranteed way to get a business card into the hands of 150 shoppers. But what to make?

Well, several months ago, I saw a pin on Pinterest of a bookmark that I thought was adorable and so creative! I had never thought of this before, but the person had made a heart shaped bookmark by using the corner of an envelope. The idea is to create a little pocket that the page you are holding can slide into. Genius! Your book can open and the bookmark won't immediately slide out. When I saw that pin months ago, I immediately got up and made one. It's the only pin that I've ever done that with, but it looked so easy, so I wanted to see if it would still be cute even if I made it, and guess what? It totally did!

This was also the perfect item for the goody bags because I just happen to have a lot of envelopes lying around. Working at a school, I get stationary sets as gifts a lot. Two years ago, during teacher appreciation week, a family gave me the most adorable set of 100 postcards with matching envelopes. There were 5 colors, and because I had other sets that I was going through, I had only used 15 or so. So I started there.

Now, when I say they are easy to make, they totally are... but there are a lot of steps. I had the template from the few that I made a while back. But I had to trace the heart onto to each envelope. And then because a plain envelope was too, well, plain, I wanted to put a smaller heart cut out of craft paper on top of the envelope. So I had to trace those hearts onto craft paper. And then I had to cut it all out. After doing all of that tracing and cutting, I had to glue the hearts onto the envelopes. 4 glue sticks later, they were looking cute, but then I ran into a little predicament. If you know that it's a bookmark, it's adorable. But at first site, it looks like a little paper heart. It's not obvious that it's a bookmark. So what to do? My first thought was to attach something to it that said "Enjoy this bookmark from Gypsy Rhetoric". But how to attach it? If I staple it, the recipient would have to pull the staple out in order to use it the way it is intended. That would likely tear it, and then it's just a piece of trash. So I briefly considered using a hole punch to tie a little tag onto it with that message, but nothing about that really appealed to me. I didn't want a hole in the heart, and making the tags and tying them on was more steps than I was willing to take. So I abandoned the idea of attaching something.

My next thought was to glue a quote about reading to them. I found three quotes that I loved, but when I cut them out, I didn't like they way they looked on the bookmarks. I would have had to mount them on colored paper to like the look, and because of the shape, I knew that was too much work. So I decided to try stamping. I went in search of a stamp that said something about reading. I mean stamps are everywhere, right? All three of the major craft stores around here have entire aisles dedicated to stamping. Surely I would find something to my liking. Well, in the end, all that I found was a set of two stamps - one that said "Once upon a time" and one that said "And they lived happily ever after". Well... that just didn't thrill me. I do think that both of those quotes make people thing of "stories", but would it definitely let you know that it's a bookmark? I wasn't sold. I bought them and seriously considered them, but I just didn't want there to be any confusion about what they were.

As it so happened, the stamping aisle at Joann's also had a section of clear re-sealable bags. A bag of 100 5" x 4" bags was $2.99. That is what sealed the deal. (No pun intended ;-)

What I ended up doing was still a lot of steps, but they were all very simple. I cut craft paper down to 4.875" x 3.875" rectangles. Then I designed a 3" x 3" image that had my cute little Gypsy Rhetoric bird and tree, and the original, very obvious, message of "Enjoy this bookmark from Gypsy Rhetoric". Then I cut those out and glued them onto the paper. Then, to jazz up the bookmarks a little, I put a little inspirational-ish sticker on each one. They are quotes or fun words. It's a set of stickers that I saw a month ago when I was spending a gift card at Joann's and knew that they would come in handy one day. And then finally, I put a paper with the glued on message and a bookmark into one of the baggies and bada bing, bada boom, it's a goody bag item!

I started on Saturday, October 5th and I finished on Saturday October 12th. I did NOT intend for them to take that long, but with the time that I had available, that is the best that I could do.

I have about 210 completed - I realized that I wanted to have some at my table so people could purchase them - it would make an adorable stocking stuffer or a little something to go along with a book that you're giving as a gift. I would like to make 90 more. I need 150 for the bags and I will probably sell them as 3 for a $1, so I'd like to have 150 at my table. If I have a lot left towards the end of Sunday, I will probably include them with a purchase. For now, I'm going to move on to something else, and like the frames, come back to them in a few weeks if I have time.

I haven't printed business cards yet, but I will definitely put one in the bags intended for the goody bags, probably inside the heart, to help people see how to use them.

Here is a slightly blurry picture - because that is apparently the only kind of picture I can take on my iPhone - of the finished product. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are planning to come to the show!