Christmas in the Country Art & Craft Show!

Hi everyone!

Most of you know what i have been up to lately, some of you don’t. For those who don’t, I have been extra super-duper busy creating lots of fun projects and creations for an annual Craft Show that is held here in Gatton. It is the major fundraiser for the school my children attend and it is quite a big event. It starts with an opening night (which includes some absolutely divine nibblies and drinks), and then followed by two jam-packed full days. I have taken some photos of my stall at the event and then for all the other demos out there with up and coming fetes and stalls I will share with you what and how! LOL!

I must say my hubby made me the best display board known to man-kind……wait til you see it!

Okay photos….

This is the best photo I could take of the whole stall. My good friend Anastasia made me a gorgeous table cover and matching bunting (which you can see on the display board). Speaking of the display board. I went to Spotlight to purchase the material they call WonderWall. It is that lovely soft fabric that velcro sticks to beautifully. But upon finding this fabulous stuff I found it was 1.2 metres wide and $39.95 /m. As much as I wanted this stuff I just couldn’t pay this, especially being so close to Christmas. I need at least 2 metres as well to make this large display wall. I decided to go to Bunnings. What I found was Utility carpet (I say carpet loosely, it was quite thin). It is usually used in the back of utes and inside caravans. It wasn’t as soft as WonderWall but velcro stuck to it like stink on a skunk, LOL! PLUS it was 2.4 metres wide and only $19.95/m I bought two metres and got double the amount of material for half the price. The added bonus was hubby had heaps left over to make me two 28″ x 28″ easel boards to use at workshops. I’m so very profesh now!! LOL!

Hubby made a light weight pine frame and staple gunned the material on and attached two eyes so I could hook it onto the pegboard. The cabinet, chicken wire frames and racks were wired on and my name, bunting and flowers were velcro on. The flowers are similar to the ones in the catalogue, but instead of using the Build a Blossom punch I used the Blossom Party, Fun Flowers dies and some flower punches to create them. Much easier to put together. I took this photo before I used chalk on the little chalkboard on the top left.

More photos….

My cards fitted beautifully into this old soft drink crate. I am so very lucky to have a wonderful and generous friend who let me use some gorgeous display items. The crate being one of them. The little timber park bench beside it is something I bought at a local giftware store. it is super cute! In front of it is a little mini crate I also bought from that store and it was the perfect size for decorated gift jars.

These two cute enamel bowls that held my little key ring notebooks were also borrowed. And the little chicken wire basket beside it was something I bought from Party Lite. It used to hold a big brick candle, it is now a useful display item. I clipped my decorated jumbo clips on it and had matching key ring post-it note books in it.

The two white bookshelf cubes I bought a few years ago from Crazy Clarks. This was and still is my sons toy box. They usually have those bright coloured baskets in each cube. I found I could fit more goodies on my table if I had tiers and shelving. Plus goodies being at eye level was also advantageous. I used these for my gift boxes, Christmas crackers and decorated frames. You may have noticed the magnetic “to do” lists on the side of the shelving….well my hubby cut up an old washing machine, hot glued it to the side of the shelf so I could display them. Isn’t he super clever?!

My mini notebook holder was a three-tier shelf with drawers. I pulled all the draws open and stuffed it with shredded brown paper (the paper we get in our SU order boxes), I also put this paper in the white cubes. No special reason. It certainly looked the part anyway. Above that is an old fruit crate. I just tipped it on its side and it was a perfect size for the mini milk cartons. At the very bottom of the photo you can see the decorated jumbo paperclips. Some of them anyway.

In this tray I had the Ferrero Rocher gift boxes. With the Ferrero’s of course LOL! Plus a very cute cake stand for a decorated frame.

Just in front of my silly face pulling hubby is an old stationery box. I put my catalogues, business cards and large notebooks inside this.

This is a great piece of display furniture. It is an ex-display shop unit I used it for all the pre-packaged goodies, including embellishments, bookmarks, and money slips. I also used the shelving top and bottom by placing my retired stamp sets on it. What I love about it is that it spins.

That pretty much covered everything, except this wasn’t all of the projects displayed. With most of it I only displayed one of. The rest was under the table stored in underbed rollers. When an item sold I just replaced it until I ran out completely. There were a couple of “one only” items. Mostly being the frames.

I have been asked by a lot of people what was popular and how I priced everything. I will list the things that were popular for this particular event as this was not wholly and solely a papercafting show. It specialised in all sorts of hand crafting from quilting, beading, crocheting, mineral make-up, jewellery, woodwork, soaps, folk art, chocolate, knitting, sewing and so on. So it what was popular here may not be popular elsewhere. But I will say that stocking stuffers were the most popular.

• Gift Boxes incl. #2 box, mini milk cartons and fancy favor. They loved acetate boxes and the Christmas themed boxes especially Rudolf. But do other themes as well, like Frankenstein. People liked them for birthday boy gift boxes.
• Mini post-it note key rings
• Decorated jumbo paperclips
• Mini notebook key rings, I used the 2 3/8″ scallop circle, Full Heart, Fancy flower punches and the larger full butterfly on the Beautiful butterflies die.
• Small notebooks with matching decorated pen (these are the ones with the fun flowers on the front)
• Pre-packaged embellies (esp. the bird and owl ones)
• Ferrero Rocher Boxes
• Magnetic “to do” lists

The ones listed above either completely SOLD OUT or I was left with one or two. I am not saying that all the rest didn’t sell at all, they did, the above list was the most popular. Most people were looking for stocking stuffers and teachers gifts, so if you keep this in mind you should be on a winner! LOL!

Pricing your goodies is hard and is not a precise science with hand-made goods. It depends on what you used. You have to, of course, work out what the projects costs are to create it. You also have to take into account your stall cost. I also added a little more to cover the percentage the school was taking of my sales. As long as you price above your costs, you should be fine. As nice as it would be to add-on your time to create your project, it’s not always going to work. I would also look at my individual project and think about what I would pay for such an item.

For example my little Post-it note key rings-  They cost me .30c ea to make. I came up with a price I would pay and then made sure that price covered the takings by the school. With a lot of items you can tack on a little more. It depends on the item. I charged $1.50ea ($2 would have been a good price also) for these cute little things and they were an absolute hit. They were the cheapest thing on my stall and they all sold like hotcakes. Another example- The decorated jumbo paperclips cost me .60c ea to make and I charged $2.50 ea. They also sold out. I think if you just be realistic about your prices your things will sell well. I would rather have someone say “I would have paid more for that item” than “Holy Cow that’s expensive!” Quite a few had said they would have paid nearly 50% more for my gift boxes and were very happy with the price that was on them they decided to buy more. I of course was very happy. My costs were covered with at least 60%- 70% profit on most items. With the bigger items that wasn’t possible. For example the frames. One of the frames cost $11.70 to make. My price for that item was only $15. After the schools takings I barely broke even. But that is the problem with the bigger cost items. If you try to put 60%- 70% on top of that it is just too expensive and people won’t look at it. You can always drop prices if things are not shifting. Just don’t go below cost!

I am just blabbering now! LOL! It has certainly been one very long week, full of workshops, classes and one awesome Craft Show. I am beat.

I hope my info has helped you somewhat……..oh one more hint- Move things around on your stall. As crazy as this sounds it worked. I found when I put something in the place of something that sold very well, that item also started to sell well. I called it the “Sweet Spot”. It’s the spot your eye is drawn to, and it is usually the dead centre of the table. Give it a go….you will be quite surprised! LOL!

Thanks for dropping by!