Fabulous Finds Recap!

Well I survived my very first two day large scale craft show and boy was it ever an adventure! I'm actually still pretty tired from all the madness (even with the time change to help out) but thought I better do an update for all of you in case you were curious how it turned out! Here we go!

So the day started off with very minimal sleep (we're talking less than two hours) after a super late thursday night/friday morning of crafting, preparing, and organizing. Once again I did not manage to learn my lesson to prepare early and avoid that last minute rush, but hey - perhaps one day that will sink in... So up and ready or not I packed the car up and started off the two hour drive to kelowna to set up for the show. There was a lovely sunrise to greet me (which I pretty much never see with my late night/sleep in a smidge schedule I run on). How pleasant!


We ended up stopping in vernon on the way there for an extra kick of espresso and made it to the summerhill winery (location of the fabulous finds craft show) pretty much on time! Hooray! The organizer of the event (the most fantastic rio) had everything organized and ready to go for us so we got to unload the car and get setting up! It is so nice to have such a great gal run the event - talk about smooth operation! Woo!

Time for me to set up my table and try to figure out how it will all fit in! I really wanted to do a dry run before leaving friday morning, but when I was still printing things off at 4:30am I decided a few hours sleep might be a better choice than a well planned set up...but not to worry! I had enough time to figure it all out and I absolutely loved how the lighting turned out! Fraser really came through with his octopus (er...pentapus?) lamp idea and the white xmas lights gave it an extra little pop. The lighting was certainly necessary too (just like rio warned me in an email a few days earlier) since the winery didn't have the brightest convention hall and the first day of the show was in the late afternoon/evening. All that hard work was paying off with a wonderfully stocked table of goodies. Check it out:


Oh so much fun! I am really quite pleased with how it ended up coming together - here is a closer up view too:


I'm also pretty stoked with the budget earring display I came up with using a $1.25 bulletin board, some black paint, butcher string and a few push pins:


Not too shabby! So now for the fun details - the show! I got to meet loads of amazing crafters reminding me just how awesome kelowna is and how kamloops sorely lacks culture! I got tons of great feedback on my stuff, craft shows, and my setup and learned tons about successful selling! I even somehow managed to contain my urge to buy every single item from every single booth at the show! Go me! Soon enough the craft sale started and the customers flooded in the door! My booth was totally a smashing success and the top seller of the event was my felt mustache sticks! When I originally set up I was a little worried they'd get lost in my full table too! I mean they don't exactly pop:


But regardless the very first customers in the door made their first purchase at my table! Before long everyone in the hall was buzzing about all my fun goodies and there were mustached people everywhere to be seen! Other top sellers for me included the pocket mirrors (as I suspected) and my coffee sleeves. I also sold quite a few magnets (thank goodness fraser was there to help me make them) and some buttons, postcards, and plush microbes. The earrings and bags weren't super hot sellers but the owner of one of my favourite kelowna shops (funktional) told me to bring all my unsold goods to her shop after the show to consign! Bonus! Oh! and when we went there late saturday chantel told me I was the talk of the town when she overheard various people talking about my table! Cool! I was so stoked to be such a hit and to actually make a bit of a profit! At the end of the sale I even won a "best in show" bottle of wine as vendors choice for best booth! Hooray! Oh and since we started off with a pretty view I figure I'd end with one too since I realized how gorgeous the summerhill winery was the afternoon:


*Sigh* What a great two day craft show! I gained some invaluable contacts, renewed my love for crafting, and had an absolute blast doing it! And even though the show is over I've still got loads to do making more felt mustaches for frock (another super cool shop in kelowna) before the xmas rush of shoppers hits! Yay!