My First Craft Show Report

On December 8th,  Marty called me to let me know of an upcoming craft show at the hospital.  I had thought I had missed out on all of the hospital craft shows for the year.  (I had been thinking I might have actually participated in one this year.)  So I was pleasantly surprised when she called.  Marty is the woman in charge of the craft shows for the hospital.  And a portion of the proceeds go to fund different events for the staff throughout the year.

Well she let me know that the craft show was on Dec. 18th, Yikes!, that only gave me 10 days to come up with something!  I spent the first 5 days playing around with ideas, and making a couple of things, but was not crazy about them.  Then I thought of the popcorn wrappers that many of the women on the HGTV message boards have been making for the last 2 years or so, with great success, and figured that's what I would make.  In today's economy, people are mostly buying less expensive handmade items.  I had not seen anything like them here, so they were a good bet.  So on Sunday I went to Office Depot to get some copies of the snowmen wrappers, bought a few more bits of fleece, dug some out of my stash at home, and began to work.  I worked on them off and on this last week, going back to OD for more copies and for copies of the cute tags to go with them.  Finally I finished them, tags and all, Thursday.  I took them to the hospital on Thursday night.  The craft show started at 7AM.  Since I am not a morning person, taking them the night before was better for me.  I got to see the other things for sale while I was there.  There was a nice selection of items. No one was there while I was setting up, so I did not fill out any paper work, and I was not sure how the system worked.  I went back home and began trying to grunge up some shipping tags. (I had made a tag for the candy cane wall decor and wanted to play some more.  I stayed up pretty late doing so and was still awake when my husband got home after getting off work, 5 hours early from a 12 hour shift.  Oops!  He was not that surprised as I always am up late.  I had planned on going to the hospital early in the AM, in order to fill out the needed paper work, but of course was too tired, so I woke up after noon and then ate lunch and got ready to go.  I got there after three, and had discovered the night before that in the entry way a person can look down into the cafeteria where the craft items were displayed.  So as I walked in, I was shocked to not see any popcorn wrappers left, but two.  I had convinced myself that no one would want to buy much stuff from me.  But I chosen the right item to make.  Yeah!  Out of the 48  I made, and  brought 47 to the show (I gave one away to a friend) I only have two left.  I also made 4 Tootsie Roll Snowmen, (same snowman image wrapped around a tootsie roll bank), sold all of those, I had 4 sled ornaments (made 2 years ago, and did not have time to make more this year), sold those.  One paint can snowman, did not sell.  One Candy cane door hanger, did not sell.  But I still consider this a success since most of what I made is now gone.  Hopefully I can participate in more shows next year.  Craft shows are something I've been wanting to get into for a long time.

Here a my pics of the popcorn wrappers and other items.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

  I sold 45 of 47 of the popcorn snowmen.  Yeah!!!

This is a paint can snowman.  It did not sell, but I only had one at the show.

This also did not sell, but again I brought only one.

These are some sled ornaments I made.  All 4 SOLD!   I'll make more for next time, but these i already had on hand so I brought them to see how they'd do.

These were tootsie roll banks (filled with tootsie rolls of course).  I wrapped the snowman wrapper around them and added a hat and scarf,  I used the same sizes from the popcorn snowman.  I sold all 4 of them.

So, for my first ever craft show, I think I did well.  Gives me hope to try another one.  Later!