Holiday Craft Fair Tips 2012

Baywood Craft Fair 2012 in Delaware

The holiday craft fair season is upon us.  The last week I was at Baywood Club House in Delaware.  What a gorgeous place to spend the day and what a wonderful event!   We had 39 vendors participating, we raised $459 for charity, the winner of the 50/50 drawing took $228 home with her and we estimate that over 800 people came through this year.  Sonia Koplowicz deserves all of the credit for organizing this wonderful event.  

Bay Moon Display at Baywood Holiday Craft and Collectables Fair

Each year I create a few new items for my craft fairs.  I also work on improving my table displays.  I want to pass on some pointers.  The above photo has some ideas that I will pass on.   You will see several frames with earrings in them on my table.  I located some inexpensive frames and removed the glass.  I cut gold Stampin' Up card stock to be used as the backings and used a punch and semi-circular Stampin' Up punch to create the slit and holes for the earrings.  I got lots of comments on the displays of the earring and I sold more earrings than normal.  One customer even wanted to keep the frame to present the earrings to the recipient of the gift.  Most were happy to let me keep the frames.  I also bought some inexpensive LED battery operated candles that I bought at Michaels.  They helped to draw attention to my table and create a holiday mood.

Leaf and Berry Scarf Pin by Bay Moon Design

A new item that I have at my craft fairs and in my Etsy Store is a scarf pin or lapel pin.  This leaf and berry one was created for the Berries and Leaves Challenge sponsored by Artisan Whimsey.  THe challenge is to create a jewelry component or a finished piece of jewelry using the Berries and Leaves theme.  The oval metal piece has a leaf embossed on it. A rich copper colored artisan bead by Humblebeads also has a leaf pattern in white on it. There is a copper bead at the top and tan swarovski crystal that are the berries.  I used a 3 inch head pin to stack the beads on the top.  I then placed a bead crimp and soldered it to the head pin.  I used my Stampin' Up' Big Shot to emboss a Vinjah blank.  There is a YouTube Video available to help you with that part.

 

The last thing that I did was hammer the end of the stick pin to harden it and flatten it.  I have to give Heather Powers at Humblebeads credit for the stick pin idea.  I adapted my pin from directions that she sent out in her newsletter. 

Packaging and Display Are Important Elements

This year I focused on creating some packaging to help display my items.  I developed packaging to showcase the Scarf pins.  I used Stampin' Up card stock that I ran through my printer and punched a few holes to attach my scarf pins, pendants and some special earrings.  This helped to keep the items from getting lost visually on the table and help the customers recognize what they were.