Tuesday 5 June 2012

Update on craft fair

It was the craft fair yesterday and even though it's June and supposedly summer, being outdoors it was affected by the weather.
It looked like a sunshine and showers day but as I got to the church yard to set up my stuff I soon realised how windy it was. I had problems securing my promotional banner, it was flapping in the wind and then my bunting was taking off! Because lots of my things are small and light I wasn't able to spread my brooches out so I had to leave them in tins and rely on customers to rummage through, not ideal so I wasn't very pleased with how my stall looked so not got many photos.


Eventually I was set up. Lovely atmosphere and friendly people and sales got off to a good start.



You guessed there's a 'but' coming! It started to rain, it came with little warning and a keen customer was rummaging through my things at the time which made it awkward to start getting my plastic covers out as a sale was about to take place, so she bought something and then I tried cobbling bits of bubble wrap together over my stuff and dragged what I could under the table. A bit too late, all the little tags and packages I'd spent ages printing out had succumbed to ink running which has left some things a complete mess with imprints and of course all the labels need making again. Some greeting cards were damaged too. I think we'd only been open for an hour when it rained. 


It stopped but looked very cloudy so I kept the covers on and then of course people were just walking past as it all went to a bit of a damp squid.


Things resumed and I made a few more sales and towards the end, I think I've started packing up on this pic, you can see it ended up lovely and sunny! Darn weather!


All considered, when the takings were totted up last night, I did a tad better than I thought given the weather conditions.
Here's what sold best, I made some fudge and sold a few bags but I was next to a sweetie stall so maybe that affected fudge sales. The sweetie stall had nothing homemade, just tubs of bought sweets but the kids seemed to make for that type of thing. I was surprised to sell lots of lavender filled gifts which can be a bit hit and miss, I also did quite well with my cheaper brooches, the knitted bunnies like Bob did quite well and I always have a bargain bucket of £1 items which are either sample pieces or things which aren't to my usual quality standards and people like  picking over those.
I didn't sell any of those little handmade notebooks, greeting cards, purses, iPad covers, fabric pencil pots or pin cushions.


After all this frantic making over the last few weeks I think I can relax a bit with craft things and restock my Folksy shop with the leftovers!

4 comments:

greenrabbitdesigns said...

Why do we have to have weather in this country because it's seldom good and if it is it doesn't hang around for very long!!!!
Craft fairs? Well I won't start but having people in selling stuff that isn't hand made really annoys me.
I'm glad you did make some good sales Sally and that the day was successful for you.
V x

Anne said...

Such a shame the weather has been a washout, typical bank holiday weather! At least you can put it in your online shop so your hard work wont have gone to waste.

thriftwood said...

Your stall looked lovely and glad you did well. I did a vintage fair on Sunday and would have been much better in sunshine, but this is England! We have to make do with what we're given ... love your blog, it's very pretty and British! Love from Claire (newest follower) xx

Unknown said...

Hello there Claire, nice to meet you and I hope you did ok at your vintage fair.
What would we British talk about if we didn't have the weather!!!