December 6, 2016

Craft Sale Recap

Nicole blog + shop

Whew! As fun as that was, I am glad that the craft sale madness is over! Saturday (Dec. 3rd) was the last sale I was taking part in and I’m not too sorry, as I needed a little break from thinking, obsessing about it. I am definitely a “details” person, and I tend to be over-prepared for things, as being under-prepared stresses me out. But then being prepared stresses me too. . . there is no winning 😉 I spent a lot of time during the months of October and November crafting, and creating, and ordering, and planning and working out all the little details I needed to put in order for the craft sales. It was a great experience, but now I can put it to the side now, in order to focus on other things. . . like Christmas! I cannot believe that Christmas is less than three weeks away. By focusing on the sales, I kind of forgot that Christmas is almost here (despite the fact that they were Christmas craft sales!) I’ve also not posted here for a while as I’ve been so busy, (and am getting sick again now. Noo!! I just got over being sick)

I have shared a few pictures of the sale on instagram, but for those of you who don’t follow me there, here are some more pictures of the table set up. It was kind of hard to get a picture of the entire table, as both times there were other tables in the background, so I mostly have pictures of just the table top. My sister and I had a lot of fun coming up with our display, though we did end up changing it between the two sales.

One thing we learned at the first craft sale, is that people tend to look right at the top of your table and they don’t really look “up”. For the first table, we had placed my dress mannequin on the end of the table to display jewelry, but people didn’t notice it, as it was white, and it was vertical rather than horizontal. So, for the second sale, we used the suitcase, which was red and black and at eye level. That way people noticed it, and it showed off the jewelry rather nicely, while still giving us some vertical display space. Also, for some reason, people didn’t notice the things we had scattered in trays, so for the second sale, almost everything was placed simply on the table. Not as creative, but people noticed it and really that is all that mattered!

Also, we found it was really nice to have a variety of products. We were selling hair accessories, jewelry and artwork. We got a lot of men stopping by to look through my photography, and because of that a lot of their wives, daughters etc. would stop by too, to look at the jewelry, or vice versa. If we had been selling only the jewelry and hair stuff, we wouldn’t have had so many people stopping by 😉  I don’t know as though it made a different sales wise, but it was still great to meet so many people.

I was so glad that my sister first enquired about having a table at the local farmer’s market back in August. She asked me, after that first sale, whether I wanted to share a table with her, and so that is how I ended up selling at the market too. I have thought about selling at farmer’s markets and craft sales before, but for various reasons never ended up doing it. I was so glad that she decided to, as it was just the push that I needed! I was also really glad that she was there selling too, as it would be a loooong day by oneself. (Set was up at 8:30am and take down was at 4:00pm for the one sale) It wasn’t the best sales wise, but it was a lovely community event and we met so many people. Also, we spoke with a few people who expressed interest in us showing our work in April at the art show. I didn’t even know there was a local art show!  Getting such good feedback on our work was such an encouragement, and now I am really looking forward to the new year and perhaps exhibiting at a few art shows. It will be a different audience (of people looking for artwork, not baking!) so I think that it may go better.

So, there are my few thoughts on what it was like to be a part of the sales. It was definitely a learning experience, but I really enjoyed it, and I think that I am going to actively start looking out for more local shows in the future as well. Do you like to shop at Christmas sales? Have you ever sold at a craft sale before? If you have sold at a craft sale before, do you have any clever display ideas?

Ps. I would also like to say “Hello and Welcome” to anyone who has found my blog from the sales last week! I’m so glad you are here!