Okay, today I was pointed to a new site for selling hand-crafted items. I went over to it to check things out and ended up signing up for it and listing three of my necklaces for sale. There are no insertion fees to list items (at least, not at this time) and only a 3% of the selling price fee once you sell something. The site is Crobbies.com (stands for Crafts and Hobbies). Unlike Etsy, there are not a whole lot of items listed currently, so the stuff I posted today is still up on the feature page. When I posted on Etsy, by the time I finished listing eight pieces, they had all been moved off of the first page and were buried among a group of approximately 1200 jewelry pieces that had been listed during the same time that I was listing. It took me 30 minutes to finally find my stuff in the general sales area! Of course, they were all readily available on my home page, but no one knew that address yet, so hardly anyone saw my things during the three months that they were there.
Oh, you say that items on Etsy are supposed to be on for four months? Correct, but my credit card info needed to be updated and since I was moving, but the time I got back to Etsy to give them the updated info, they had removed my items from the website and even after I gave them the correct info, they wouldn't put them back up. They wanted me to re-list them and pay the insertion fees again! So, no more Etsy for me. I have been selling some of my collectibles on eBay with success, but I just cannot bring myself to list my handcrafted jewelry pieces for auction for $.99 or $1.99. If they were to sell for an opening bid, I would be losing a lot of money as those bids would not even cover the cost of my materials. So, I will continue to take my things to the local craft shows, and now I have Crobbies.com, too.
If you read about this site, I hope you'll click on the link and check out all of the beautiful handcrafted items there. Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Craft Show Season Has Arrived!
Wow, it's finally time for my craft shows to start. Actually, I did a show the first weekend in September, so that counts as my first show of the year. It was at the Aroma Park Two Rivers Festival, an outdoor event that's held in Riggs Grove right at the junction of the the Kankakee and Iroquois rivers. The show time was set for 10am to 6pm, with set up beginning at 8am. It was a long, long day.
I got there about 8:30 and was able to drive up to my spot to unload everything. Since it's an outdoor show, I had to bring my own table and chair as well as all of my crafts. Once the car was unloaded, I parked the car over in the designated area and went back to set up my display. I had brought my sweater coat with me that morning 'cause it was a little chilly that early. I was sure that I would soon shed it, and I did while I was setting up. I got everything set up in about 45 minutes and went to get my free coffee and donut, but there wasn't anyone manning the concession stand. This guy who was starting up the grills behind the stand got my breakfast for me and I asked him where everyone was. After all, they had made an announcement to the vendors that the coffee and donuts were there for us. He told me that everyone had headed downtown for the parade.
The parade. It started at 11am in downtown Aroma Park, about 1/2 mile from the festival site. And even though all of the vendors had to be set up for the 10am start, it looked like there were not going to be any customers until after the parade - about noon. So, we all just wandered around checking out everyone else's stuff. There were a couple of other people who were selling jewelry, several home decor vendors, a lady selling the cutest jeans bags and kids clothes as well as a few folks who had typical farmers market and flea market stuff. All in all, a pretty good mix of crafts and junk.
We could tell when the parade was over, because it ended right outside the festival site. The band led the way and the customers followed. We have a pretty steady stream of folks for the rest of the afternoon. The organizers had set up a kid's games area just beyond the vendor area and we had good traffic all day long. I had a lot of folks stopping to admire my work. I actually sold one of my expensive Swarovski component bracelets, as well as a few other things. I ended the day selling about $50 over my table cost, and that's what I like. (Any show that I make table fee times two or three is a really good show.) Oh, and that sweater coat that I brought - I put it back on about 2:30. You see, we were in a totally shady area under these towering aspen trees and there was a pretty stiff breeze off the rivers, so it was pretty cool out there. Glad I brought the sweater coat.
At about 5:15, I started putting my jewelry back in its little bags, but left the bags on the table. We were supposed to stay until 6, but I didn't want to wait until then to start packing up. I was afraid it would get too dark if I waited. Once I had all of the jewelry back in its bags, I was able to grab it pretty quickly and put it into it's little pink bag. Most of the other vendors started shutting down at about 5:40, so I started folding and packing my stuff, too. Once I had everything packed up, I went and got my car and pulled it up next to my space. I packed up the car and was out of there by 6:15. I was home before 7 and was really happy to take off my shoes and sit down. The next day, though, I could barely walk (all that standing and walking around on muddy, uneven ground on Saturday), so I spent the day just lazing around the house.
Anyway, that was the start of my craft show season. And now I'm working on my inventory for the next show, which is on October 19/20. This one is an indoor show and I'm looking forward to it. I've been making these little dolls, which were originally created by a lady as a swap with her friends. My dolls are a take-off of that idea, but instead of just having a ribbon hanger on them, I plan on adding a lobster claw clasp so that they can be snapped onto a purse pull or a cell phone. I'm hoping the tweens and teens will like them. Each doll is made from one 5" charm square, and since I'm adding the clasp, I'm thinking of calling them "Charm Dolls". My goal is to have two dozen of these ready for the show. I'm also working on some 9" and 10" ankle bracelets. I had a couple of folks ask me for them at the last show and one lady is planning on coming to the next show to see if I actually got them made. I want to have about a dozen of those ready, and I hope that lady shows up and buys a couple of them. I will also have my Halloween Trick-or-Treat bags at that show, and I hope they sell. People at the last show thought they were cute, but I think it was too far out from Halloween for them to buy them.
After the October show, I have shows on November 8 and November 15, followed by my traditional season ending two-day event at St. Gertrude's Church in Chicago. I have been doing that show for almost 20 years, and I already have orders for a couple of extra long table runners. I'm hoping to have a bunch of the Charm Dolls as well as more of my jewelry, holiday table runners, tree skirts, stockings and ornaments. By the time St. Gert's gets here, I will probably be ready for a nice break from crafting, but you know, I have seen some really, really cute things over the past few months and I think that I can actually make money with some of them. So, I might not be taking such a long crafting break after all.
I got there about 8:30 and was able to drive up to my spot to unload everything. Since it's an outdoor show, I had to bring my own table and chair as well as all of my crafts. Once the car was unloaded, I parked the car over in the designated area and went back to set up my display. I had brought my sweater coat with me that morning 'cause it was a little chilly that early. I was sure that I would soon shed it, and I did while I was setting up. I got everything set up in about 45 minutes and went to get my free coffee and donut, but there wasn't anyone manning the concession stand. This guy who was starting up the grills behind the stand got my breakfast for me and I asked him where everyone was. After all, they had made an announcement to the vendors that the coffee and donuts were there for us. He told me that everyone had headed downtown for the parade.
The parade. It started at 11am in downtown Aroma Park, about 1/2 mile from the festival site. And even though all of the vendors had to be set up for the 10am start, it looked like there were not going to be any customers until after the parade - about noon. So, we all just wandered around checking out everyone else's stuff. There were a couple of other people who were selling jewelry, several home decor vendors, a lady selling the cutest jeans bags and kids clothes as well as a few folks who had typical farmers market and flea market stuff. All in all, a pretty good mix of crafts and junk.
We could tell when the parade was over, because it ended right outside the festival site. The band led the way and the customers followed. We have a pretty steady stream of folks for the rest of the afternoon. The organizers had set up a kid's games area just beyond the vendor area and we had good traffic all day long. I had a lot of folks stopping to admire my work. I actually sold one of my expensive Swarovski component bracelets, as well as a few other things. I ended the day selling about $50 over my table cost, and that's what I like. (Any show that I make table fee times two or three is a really good show.) Oh, and that sweater coat that I brought - I put it back on about 2:30. You see, we were in a totally shady area under these towering aspen trees and there was a pretty stiff breeze off the rivers, so it was pretty cool out there. Glad I brought the sweater coat.
At about 5:15, I started putting my jewelry back in its little bags, but left the bags on the table. We were supposed to stay until 6, but I didn't want to wait until then to start packing up. I was afraid it would get too dark if I waited. Once I had all of the jewelry back in its bags, I was able to grab it pretty quickly and put it into it's little pink bag. Most of the other vendors started shutting down at about 5:40, so I started folding and packing my stuff, too. Once I had everything packed up, I went and got my car and pulled it up next to my space. I packed up the car and was out of there by 6:15. I was home before 7 and was really happy to take off my shoes and sit down. The next day, though, I could barely walk (all that standing and walking around on muddy, uneven ground on Saturday), so I spent the day just lazing around the house.
Anyway, that was the start of my craft show season. And now I'm working on my inventory for the next show, which is on October 19/20. This one is an indoor show and I'm looking forward to it. I've been making these little dolls, which were originally created by a lady as a swap with her friends. My dolls are a take-off of that idea, but instead of just having a ribbon hanger on them, I plan on adding a lobster claw clasp so that they can be snapped onto a purse pull or a cell phone. I'm hoping the tweens and teens will like them. Each doll is made from one 5" charm square, and since I'm adding the clasp, I'm thinking of calling them "Charm Dolls". My goal is to have two dozen of these ready for the show. I'm also working on some 9" and 10" ankle bracelets. I had a couple of folks ask me for them at the last show and one lady is planning on coming to the next show to see if I actually got them made. I want to have about a dozen of those ready, and I hope that lady shows up and buys a couple of them. I will also have my Halloween Trick-or-Treat bags at that show, and I hope they sell. People at the last show thought they were cute, but I think it was too far out from Halloween for them to buy them.
After the October show, I have shows on November 8 and November 15, followed by my traditional season ending two-day event at St. Gertrude's Church in Chicago. I have been doing that show for almost 20 years, and I already have orders for a couple of extra long table runners. I'm hoping to have a bunch of the Charm Dolls as well as more of my jewelry, holiday table runners, tree skirts, stockings and ornaments. By the time St. Gert's gets here, I will probably be ready for a nice break from crafting, but you know, I have seen some really, really cute things over the past few months and I think that I can actually make money with some of them. So, I might not be taking such a long crafting break after all.
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