Funky Finds was SO much fun!!! I learned so much and had so many familiar faces stop by. I could not have asked for a better experience for my first craft fair.
Set up was Friday, which was a HUGE blessing! We had from noon til 8:00 p.m. to set up. I originally thought that I would get there at noon and be done by 5. But Friday morning came after probably two weeks of not being in bed before 1:00 in the morning. I was a craftin' fool! So I stayed in bed until 8:30 or so. I had not put anything in boxes to take them to Fort Worth, so that is what Friday morning was for. I had a few things around the house to take care of, but mostly, it took me a few hours to get everything packed up and loaded. I left my house at about 12:30. And before I could get going, I had to stop at both banks where we have accounts to make sure that I had change for Saturday and Sunday and to pay a few bills. In the end, I didn't check in at the event until 2:30 or so. By 3:05 I was done unloading and ready to set up.
I knew how I wanted the tables configured, so I got those set up and covered and then started to assemble my "walls". In the picture above, it is the white squares with pictures hanging on them that I am referring to. This is where I ran into my first issue. My only issue actually, so it wasn't too terrible. Those squares are meant to be turned into cubes. They have little knobs to connect them and then they can be arranged any way you would like. Well we have used these cubes before, and when I opened the boxes, most of the knobs were missing. Oops.
At 4:00, I decided to run to the nearby Target to see if I could buy another set so I would have the necessary pieces. Well there were no sets to be found. I stopped into the Ross and Marshall's that were in the Target shopping center, but had no luck, so I headed back to my booth.
3 out of the 5 tables that I used for the event belong to my parents. When I went to pick them up on Thursday night, my dad also gave me a roll or plastic table cloth, and a roll of white duct tape. When I was in Marshall's, I thought of the duct tape and decided to see what I could do.
I got back to my booth at 5:00 and got to taping. Luckily, it worked just fine. After getting my little wall up, the question was how to arrange things. When I left Friday night, at 7:00, I was not feeling very confident. I felt like it was very obviously my first time to do a craft fair and that my booth was not very impressive. But I was determined to persevere and do my best!
Saturday morning, all of that changed. My mom, Brett and I headed back to Fort Worth early Saturday morning. The event opened at 10:00, but vendors could get in at 8:00. There was one final display piece that we brought with us Saturday morning, and having that piece is what brought everything together. When we opened at 10, I thought I had a happy little booth. Not necessarily impressive, but it got a lot of compliments from more experienced vendors, so it was definitely sufficient.
The event was Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was a lot slower than Saturday, but all in all, it was a great two days. I had a general idea of what Brett and I had spent paying the fees and buying supplies for the event. I was hoping to break even. At the end of the weekend, I had made about $100 over that amount. At the end of this week, I ended up with another $131 from people who bought after the event. I am thrilled with that!
I sold out of my gift card holders, ice skate ornaments, Christmas tree pencils, card sets and yarn wrapped Christmas trees. I was the most excited when a wreath sold. I sold 2 out of 3 of them and I was thrilled! I love those funky little guys =-) I thought I would sell more scrabble rings. I sold WAY more bookmarks than I expected to. Same with the twine wrapped bottles. I sold half of my felt light ornaments on Saturday and then not a single one on Sunday. Weird!
Here's what I learned/would do differently.
1) I wish that I had blogged more before hand. I wanted to use the blog to talk about the process leading up to it and display more pictures. I didn't do much of that. Partly because in the beginning, there wasn't a ton to show, and in the end, I needed to be crafting and not just talking about crafting. I signed up for this craft fair months before hand, and knew that I needed to be working on crafts all along so I had a good amount of items, but as always, I could have done better. I worked on it on the weekends for a while, but the month before, it was every day, morning, noon (my lunch hour) and night. Next time I will try to do more from the get go so the final month my husband can see me a little more. I'd really like to always be working on something so I'm ready for a craft fair any time. Or, ya know... sort of ready.
2) It's all about levels. I used cloth draped over the boxes that I brought items in to make levels on my tables. I had a lot of people compliment the layout of my booth. You probably can't tell from the picture above, but it was a cozy little nook to walk into, and I feel like the items all looked special.
3) Funky Finds is an amazing organization. They were so helpful and so organized... I would recommend doing one of their craft fairs to anyone who was interested in being a vendor. That being said... it was expensive. I paid $150 to be a vendor, then I paid $40 to put an ad in the event booklet. They had tables and chairs for rent, but I'm SO glad that I brought my own. I also spent $35 dollars or so on business cards, which I thought was too expensive, but I ordered a lot, so they will last me a while.
Now it's time to spend some time on my etsy site. I need a weekend devoted to it. Not sure when that will happen though, as the holiday season is here and I may be doing another small craft fair in a few weeks. I was NOT planning to do that, but I have some product left, and I have lots of supplies left. It's an outdoor event and it's cheap... I think I may go for it.
Here are a few more pictures. THANK YOU to everyone who made it out. Leave me a comment and let me know what you liked best about the event.
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