Bizarre Bazarre - vol. II

Week two of my adventures in craft sales has come and gone and as promised I'm here to give you the highlights! If you recall, my first day at the Bizarre Bazaar was filled with excitement, overachiever-y arrival/set up, and one heck of an after storm - so I started this week's event with hopes of better weather and more sales! And the result? Well...the weather was better...

Okay - it actually went a lot smoother than last week since I sort of knew what to expect and I am mastering my display set up. Check out my table this week:


Look the exact same as last week's set up? I think not! I made a number of subtle changes! (Check out last week's table here). Can you spot the differences? Let me list them for you:

1) Moved table cloth so it appears longer in the front. I think this makes my sign look a little better and it hides my storage totes more successfully!

2) I taped down my signage and button stand! Kamloops' windy ways weren't going to push me around! Except they did knock over my button stand once...but that's an improvement from the gusty battle of last week.

3) Pocket mirrors!!! Yay! Just like this post (link) described, my pocket mirrors and cases are complete and ready for sale!

and...
4) I added a little sign to my button display to encourage sales! Which seemed to work actually - since I sold buttons/magnets to four whole people this week verses last week's one person!

Here's a close up of changes 3 and 4:


Yay! I'm quite pleased with the tower of mirrors that successfully uses the tins I bought at Ikea with lindsay and fraser! I think it also adds a little splash of colour and height to the table which is very much needed. Sorry to all of those readers who wanted the alliteration "buy buttons bountifully" sign - I opted for simplicity instead. I already get weird looks and questions about half my stuff to begin with, I didn't want to cause too much of a stir.

Oh! and another thing I did differently this week? I brought some a nice cup of sewing to work on during the lull times! It was really great to sew up a few more fabric rings (in smaller sizes since the majority of my ring buyers have tiny little hands) and was a great project since they are easy to pick up and put down depending on the sales traffic. Oh how enthused I am:


And as you can see - I also decided to sport a flower brooch to try to stir up some brooch sales too! Too bad it ended up getting warmer than I expected (seriously - I was expecting cold and brought an extra jacket and a thermos of tea), and I ended up having to take my cardigan off. Let's use that as the excuse of why I still haven't managed to sell any of those...

Speaking of sales...this week I sold 2 pocket mirrors, 3 button sets (one to these super cool french backpackers - which pretty much made my day), a magnet set, a few fabric rings, and a coffee sleeve! I also started to realize that I should really start thinking about remaking/crafting more items for my table since (as the experienced sellers have warned me) the bizarre bazaar is really supposed to pick up in the summer! What fun!

I also got the lovely pleasure of seeing a whole bunch of friendly faces this week and overall a younger, hipper, "more likely to buy things from me" crowd. Nice to see you jim, chandra, sarah, kate, gina, and heather! And I also got to meet a fellow etsy seller Carolyn I met from the Okanagan Etsy team! (Links to her shop and blog). Neato! Fraser helped me out again with set up, take down, and table filling while I had to walk over to my rheumatologist appointment (what a great guy). And unfortunately, although the weather did stay stable for almost the entire day, I ended up getting home to a massively painful throat, enormously swollen lymph nodes, and a ridiculous fever that kept me up most of the night. Yup. And after an early morning clinic trip I found out that I have strep throat and a massive virus. Ick!

Here's to hoping that my next bizarre bazaar is even more fun and successful! And involves fewer illnesses! I'm not signed up for next week's event (since I was supposed to be going to Smithers to visit my sis - which as been postponed until she isn't working), but if the weather is nice and I'm over my illnesses I'll be sure to go! Then we'll all take a break from the bizbaz for the Canada Day and be back to crafty sales in July! Wish me luck!