June Fair of the Arts

Whew--I'm exhausted! Today was the June edition of A Fair of the Arts, our local monthy craft fair attached to our farmer's market. Great weather, great people, no weirdos, and lots of love--a fun time was had by all.

Here's my booth this month: It's the first time I've actually been pleased with my display; it's organized, visible, reasonably attractive, especially if you look back on the blog and compare it to my other displays in past craft fairs. It could still look much more put together, such as with matching colors, more well-constructed signs, and a professional-looking quilt rack, but that's a job for another day.

The woman at the left of my photo is my awesome friend Betsy, and here's what awesome Betsy is awesomely busy doing:

Bags of bags! Betsy folds, cuts up, ties together, and crochets those vile plastic bags from our local stores into these handsome, sturdy, washable, and non-vile totes. Betsy didn't sell any of them today (I might maybe have over-priced them on account of I think they're so terrific, but I seriously think they're cheap at twice the price), but man, she got the love. She kept me company from 8:00 am until we closed at 1:00 pm, crocheting the whole time, and I can't even tell you how many people she had to explain her work process to, and happily so, because she's Betsy, and she likes to teach. This one mom brought up something like four kids and had Betsy explain the whole thing, how she got from bag to bag, with visual aids, and even after the mom wandered off to look at record bowls, the kids all still stood around our table, just staring at Betsy, maybe a foot away from her. "Keep talking," I whispered to her out of the side of my mouth. Anyway, I think Betsy's going to try to make a couple of items at lower price points for next time, so we'll see how the love pays out then.The fatty stegs also got a lot of the love today. A representative from the Waldron Arts Center asked if I'd bring some into their gallery shop to sell this summer--um, yeah! Only thing is, now I've got to spend the week working in my one-woman fatty steg sweat shoppe instead of decompressing, because I sold most of these, including the vinyl steg. It's very nice, because being represented in some local stores is one of my goals, and I managed to partly achieve it today without actually having to get off my butt. Yay.I spent most of the rainy day yesterday making this display on the living room floor, specifically to hold these record bowls, and it paid off nicely. People really like record bowls, and they have a great profit margin. I actually collect pretty specifically--I like showtunes/musicals; children's music; music I remember from when I was a kid (Peter, Paul and Mary, anyone? I sold my entire collection of them today); and weird self-improvement or instructional recordings--so often people will browse all the titles, and then pick a bowl based on what speaks to them. One guy today said to his wife, "Oh, my god, honey! She's got The Lettermen!" It's fun to sell to people when they do stuff like that.

And what else did we do today, you ask? Well, there was this little thing today that I like to call...THE GOODWILL 50%-OFF STOREWIDE SALE! But that's a story for another post.