There are times when I think that I am doing my whole handmade business backwards. Vending in my first craft fair after I've already made an Etsy shop, worked in a local yarn store, written patterns, and started a blog on my own website, feels like one of those times. Add in the extra drama of participating a local street fair having only moved to this city, this STATE, a few months ago, and being 6 months pregnant, and it feels like even more of a leap. But honestly, it all comes down to timing. This was the right time, after I am no longer full time teaching, and now that my husband has most weekends free to help, that we went for it. I'm so glad we did. So, let me tell you how my first craft fair went and what you need to do to get into yours!
Plug Into the Local Scene
This was probably the hardest part for me. Since I've been working from home, and my husband commutes into the city for his job, we honestly did not have a good sense of how to get involved in the local scene after moving to New Rochelle. I started by following hashtags for my city online to learn more about the local places here, but hadn't found my people yet. The closest local yarn store was nice, but very small, and did not have any community craft nights or events. So, I used an app called MeetUp to try and find some yarny friends. I found one for my county that met once a month, sometimes in person, and sometimes online, and it was there that someone mentioned the street fair. I immediately started to research it, and got my application in right away. I now had a goal, I now had somewhere to start!
Prepare Inventory
I really enjoyed this part! I took the inventory I already had from the Etsy shop, and then looked at what my followers on social media really responded to. I wanted to maximize using the yarn I already had in stash, or was leftover from other projects, and make things that were small and manageable. That led me to making 4 new categories of things I thought would sell in person. The first were gnomes. I have made custom gnomes for friends and family and a few as orders on Etsy and they seemed like a fun place to start. I ended up making 5, each with their own unique personality. The next item were earrings. I had made a few pairs for myself and loved wearing them. Plus, they were teeny and would require very little yarn, and not take up much space. I made 20 pairs, and then really, really did not want to make any more! Then I made Tunisian pumpkins. I had tried crocheting pumpkins
before, and never really loved the texture of them. However, using Tunisian crochet in a sport weight yarn that I already had on hand was the perfect combination, and I made 8 for the fair. In fact, when I posted them on Instagram, I had someone ask if I could make her a set, and so I already had a sale before the fair! The last new category of things I made were mug rugs. I have always though these oversized coasters were so cute and I knew I had the yarn on hand. What I didn't realize was how time consuming they would be! I used Tunisian crochet and wool for them, and so I had to block them before adding the fringe, all which took much longer than I anticipated. Lesson learned! Part of the reason why making inventory was so fun, was that I just felt free to create wihtout thinking if it needed to become a tutorial or pattern. And that lead to some beautiful pieces, and of course, new pattern ideas!
Procedure
In addition to making sure I had beautiful things to sell, I also needed to think through my booth. My husband was an extremely valuable asset for this. We talked through what we would need the day of the fair and settled on buying 2 collapable tables, a canopy, a Square card reader, dispoable table cloths, and a few baskets and stands. Having an extra pair of eyes is so helpful to thinking through how best to display your inventory to its best advantage. I think I would have talked myself out of a few things if it wasn't for my husband! Once we had everything, we did a trial run of the set up in our yard, figured out which items to group together, and then packed everything away for the big day!
The Big Day
Before the day came, I waffled between nervous excitement and worry that I was not ready for this. But that morning, I felt as ready as I could be. We loaded up the car, checked in at the fair, found our assigned spot, and set everything up. It looked SO cute, even better than it had in the yard! And then, you know what happened?
It RAINED. I'm not talking about an annoying drizzle that would keep some customers away. I mean, rained so hard, we had to hold part of the canopy down. So much rain, that our canopy leaked at the seams. And it did this for 2 hours. We had put so much work into this, felt we had done everything right, and then something out of our control pulled the rug right out from under us at the beginning of the fair. I was frustrated, and embarrassed by having product that had gotten damp. We smushed all of our cute layout to the middle of the booth to keep things as safe as possible. We thought about going home. But, we were rewarded for sticking it out by early afternoon when the rain stopped, and people started milling around. We made our first sale (a baby blanket for someone's cat!) and were ELATED! Then we made more sales. I got to meet other vendors, and learn more about the community. It all ended up okay! By the end of the day, we had brought in $380 in sales. That covered our registration fee, the tables, canopy, and decor we bought, as well as the small things I had purshased to make a few items. And we are really, really proud of that. We did come home with more product than I anticipated, by we also learned what our community would like the see in our booth (pet banadanas and baby gear!) and that felt like a real win. I also learned that my husband may be a better salesperson than me, and that I really should give me a raise. Overall, we both felt proud of what we had accomplished, and excited for the next opportunity!
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