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Well, today was my first craft fair. I have gotten tons of ideas from this website and thought I would share the results!
It was a big success! Greater than I could imagine. I was hoping to just recoup the cost of renting the table at the craft fair, but boy was I suprised! I made hundreds of dollars!!!
I thought my big sellers would be my 2 x 2 magnets, "color your own thank you cards", and holiday candy jars. However, I sold massive amounts of marble coasters at $15 for set of 4. I had only brought 8 sets of coasters with me, but realized my mistake within the first 10 minutes as three people wanted the same set...so I started taking orders for coasters! And I think I will be making coaster for the next two weeks!!! My only dilemma is delivering these coasters. The craft fair was at my son's school, so the customers were all parents/relatives of my son's schoolmates. Although sending coasters in with my son to be brought home by other kids does not sit well with me as these are breakable. GUess I will cross that bridge when I get there. For now I am off to stamp coasters, and cut paper for my Stamp-A-Stack on Sunday!
I thank all you lovely splitcoasters for your advise over the last few weeks!
Congrats on your success! Can I ask, what stamp sets you used to do the coaster sets? My friend did a "fair" this past week and sold her cards. I think she did pretty well! (Hi KM)
I am doing a fair in a few weeks. Could you please post a sample the coasters you made that sold so well? Also, what set did you use for "color your own thank yous." I have the carnival fun wheel - that may be a good one.
I would appreciate any information on prices you charged for specific products.
I was just invited to do cards for a craft fair. I have to place an order just to have enough supplies, but I think it will be totally worth it. I love hearing when people do great!
The Madonna and Child sold the best. (The craft fair was at a Catholic school.) But the butterfly and lighthouses were a close second. The botanicals coasters sold, but I had comments on preferring a different color instead of red. I also made ones with the "Tags and More" snowman with "merry and bright"words stamped randomly. I cased that one from this website! And have several orders to fill for that one! I also made coasters with "in Full Bloom" which was modified from sample also on this website.
I also made compostions books-got directions from, yes, you guessed it...this terrific website! I brought an alphabet stamp set and ink with me to the craft fair to personalize each one that was bought, but ended up being so busy I just brought them home to personalize! Will simply send them back to school with my son to deliver via "kid mail".
About the "Color your own cards" I used the "Heart and Home" set stamping randomly on the cards and using a "Thanks" saying! Everyone commented that it was a great idea...but it did not sell as well as the coasters or journals. I sold them for $5 for a set of 5 cards,envelopes and crayons. I think the carnival wheel would be great for this idea!!!
Marble coasters are tumbled tiles that have been stamped on to be made into coasters. There are probably several threads on this topic on this website.
My prices...
Coasters set of 4 for $15; single for $4(nobody bought a single)
Cards for $2-3 depending on layers and complexity of card
Decorated compositions books with matching RSVP pen and personalized if desired for $8
Holiday candy jars $3
Domino pins and keychains $2
Color you own Thanks you cards $5
2 x 2 tile magnets and Christmas decorations $2
Beaded pens $3
I was keeping track of my sales in a spiral notebook I had covered. Did not have any of these for sale, but had 4 orders placed for these anyway!!! They were small sized so asked $3! Luckily I have about 10 sitting at home I had bought when on sale to use for an upcoming stamp camp.
OK, that was probably more information than you all wanted to know! But sharing is what this site is all about!
Good luck to anyone out there with an upcoming craft fair!
I brought a word set with me (and a black ink pad) so if a customer picked out a card that was blank inside they could choose their greeting. This went over well since I have a large amount to blank/general cards.
I sold my cards individually...but if I was to do it again I think I would have made some sets of cards as several cuostmers asked if they could get multiples of the same card.
My Christmas cards did not sell well. But the other themes all seemed to sell equally well. That is probably becasue I expected the Christmas cards to be my best seller!
The Butterfly is gorgeous! How did you color that, with Sharpies? I'm curious, in your set of four tiles were they all the same? I'm getting ready for a Craft Fair in Dec and wonder about packaging them. If they are different I want them to be able to see them all instead of tying a ribbon around all four. Or....did you just offer four for $15 and they choose which ones they wanted. I'm thrilled to hear about your experience and am excited about doing this myself. Packaging is my biggest dilemma. It is so important.
WOW, sounds like your day was a big success. Congrats!
I did a couple craft shows last year and both were poorly attended. Unfortunately, the ladies in charge of both didn't advertise very well. I decided not to do any this year and if I do them again to only do established ones that have good attendance. I'm so glad you had such great success.
A stamp-a-stack is an event where you mass produce cards in a short time. We will be making 20 cards in 2-3 hours. Basically we are making 5 different cards, but 4 of each! The cost is $20. THe theme is Christmas, and mine usually sell out so I actually have two dates set. One is already sold out!
I was luck at this craft fair. It was actually an add on to a fall fest and many people did not realize there was going to be crafts sold! Luckily they bought anyway, but some said "Oh, I left my money at home" and things like that! I gave out my business card to many who plan on calling to place orders!
My son goes to St. Louis Catholic School, and that is where the craft fair was.
Oh, and Jenbish...
I brought a word set with me (and a black ink pad) so if a customer picked out a card that was blank inside they could choose their greeting. This went over well since I have a large amount to blank/general cards.
Have fun with your cards!
Unfortunately, I'll be making the cards in KS, and sending them to IL. Oh well--can't win them all--that's a great idea! Though I'm sure with how busy you were, you may rethink that. Thanks for the tip!
My numbers got bumped up today, as the lady organizing this only wants SU demos making cards. I was at 30 sets of 8-12 yesterday and am now up to 50 sets of 8-12. Yikes!!
Any thats great you had such a successful craft fair! I did a carnival once and got stuck with all the other little vendors, but I always wanted to try to actually do a craft fair. Thats for being inspiring!
My friend just found out today that she got a spot in our church's huge annual craft fair in two weeks. She doesn't haven enough inventory, so, taking my cue from you, Amy, I'm going to supplement her jewelry table with tile coasters. Thanks for the inspiration!
I have a friend that is doing two well-established craft shows the first week of December, and she has told me that I can share some space at her table to sell cards and stuff - now I'll have to go and buy some tiles tomorrow (while I pick up dominos and small tiles) and try them out! If nothing else, I'll have some left for Christmas gifts! ;)
Could you tell me what you used on the back of your tiles and how you attached it? Felt or cork, if either of these? How did you package these? With ribbon? I have a show Friday and was going to try and make a few to try and sell.
The domino pins sold well. The composition notebooks with pens I only sold 5 out of 9 made. I had made them all with girl themes...and had several mothers asking if I had any boy ones, but did not. I did modifiy one into a boy one, but will make more gender neutral or boy ones next time! I did not try to sell any legal pads.
On the back of the tiles I used the small felt circles for the bottoms of chairs, or just bought large squares of felt and cut into 4 x 4s which I glued on with E6000. It did not seem to matter to the customers. I packaged my tiles in sets of 4 with a ribbon around and tag hanging off. I made one extra of each to sit infront of the set so customers could see what they were gettting. I was going to sell the individuals for $4 each, but everyone wanted sets.
My sets were mostly matching images, but for the lighthouse set and covered bridges I made one of each in those sets, and made an in full bloom set with same image, but in 4 different colors(that one did not sell). Probably will keep them all matching next time!
Your items look lovely and I am new at stamping..... Is there someplace that you can direct me (on the web) that will give me the instructions for making these tiles.... Do you have to prep the tiles first?
My craft fair experience!
