Sharing Some Craft Fair Tips

Display of Artists Anne Buck and Libby Zando art

Delaware by Hand held it's Memorial Day Show yesterday and it was a big success for me.  It was my best show ever.  I am sure that the great weather helped to contribute to the great attendance.

There were artists there with a wide variety of media there.

Since it is held in the park of Zwaanendael  Museum in historic, downtown Lewes, Delaware, there are always lots of gorgeous dogs like this pair.   There is a farmer's market held a few blocks away so that is a big draw to the town.  Of course, there is the beach.  Remember I mentioned the great crowds. They were at the craft fair rather than the beach because the air temperature was cool and the water temperature is the sixties.  Perfect weather for Memorial Day weekend shopping!

                                                                   Bay Moon Design's 2 tables at the fair


Prior to the show, I spent a lot of time preparing for it.  I am sharing what I did with the hope that it will be of help and interest to you.   I had a large inventory of jewelry and cards on hand.  I actually broke down and bought a display rack for my cards from the online store Wudis.   Wudis has a large line of wood displays and they will even customize for you.  You can see it on the far, left side of my left table.  It was huge upgrade for my table.  The natural unfinished wood words well with my gold, black, and tan color scheme. The display also has the huge advantage of raising my cards up and helps to organize them by categories.  Having cards for Father's Day, Weddings, and Graduation paid off for me.  Unfortunately, for me, I didn't notice that the display leaned forward due to the level of the earth below my table.  By the time I spotted that little problem it was too late in my setting up process to make changes.  Lesson learned!

New burlap displays made from tired old white ones

I upgraded the appearance of my jewelry displays.  I spent 1 hour to 1.5 hours in covering 6 old, white jewelry displays with burlap that was sitting around in a closet of mine.  All I did was cut the burlap so that it was larger than my displays and I used a hot glue gun to attach it.  The one tip I have is to make sure to cut the excess fabric out of the folds of the fabric on the back corners.

Large burlap jewelry display is now perfect background for photos

The burlap was left over the time I repurposed an old wood frame into a display for some of my art necklaces.  You can see the frame on the far right side of my photo on the right of my display table.   An added benefit to covering these displays is that they are now perfect for photographing my necklaces.  I originally bought the large, formerly, white necklace display above for this purpose but learned pretty quickly that it did not photograph well.  Another advantage to the fabric is that I can hook matching earrings for the necklace right there on the display.

I also purchased some brown craft boxes to put some of my bracelets in when displaying them.  Their brown, natural look worked well on top of my gold table clothes.  I really splurged and bought brown and black paper bags for purchases.  Prior to this I was recycling my plastic grocery bags for sale.  These little details work to make my customers' shopping experience more enjoyable.

beach bag charms by Bay Moon Design

In addition to the large inventory of jewelry, I made sure that it was varied. This year I made 4 beach bag charms and sold 3 of them.  In the winter, I have scarf pins available.  I also have a variety of price points.  I also priced more items to sell.

Seagull Necklace and Nest Bracelet by BayMoonDesign

I had a lot of lookers at this seagull necklace and nest bracelet.  I thought it was perfect for the beach crowd and priced to sell but it didn't.  Oh well, my online shop customers will have a chance to purchase it HERE.  I am thankful to my customers for making this craft fair a success for me.  It is most likely my only one for the summer I will use my profits to make purchases that I need to make for the holiday season.