Back to the Craft Shows!

I've been selling my handmade jewelry online for a couple of years now, and love the way this works. I have tried shops on various handmade venues, as well as an eBay store, and have now settled down to just two venues, with my Etsy shop being my anchor.  I've actually just recently replaced my original shop with a new one, because I wanted to update my name and userid, and this was needed to make that happen.  Unfortunately, my history of feedback could not be transferred, but is still viewable in the original shop.  My new shop is:
http://peartreejewelry.etsy.com/.  My old shop, for viewing those nice comments from my customers, is http://fpc4you.etsy.com/. 


When life gets busy, as it tends to do, both in my day job and in my household, I like that I can be flexible with my shop efforts. During times of light sales, I can focus on building up my inventory. This is good in this economy, as folks are trying to conserve pennies, and jewelry isn't always on the list of priorities! But even when things are busier, there is not a lot of pressure in selling online. I can list just the items that are already complete and ready to go. This is a real plus in keeping stress under control.

My sales, however, have been slow for some time now, and it occurred to me that I need to try and turn this around. Years ago, over a decade, I did craft shows with an earlier product line, hand painted, carved children's jewelry. These were personalized pieces and quite popular back then. My current jewelry is natural gemstones, Swarovski elements, and also my new thing, wire wrapping. I recently made the decision to go back to doing the shows, and see what happens. With jewelry, being such a personal item, and with such a range of quality out there, I think sometimes customers prefer to actually see the pieces in person, touch them, pick them up to judge the quality, size, weight, etc. So I decided to take the plunge and start looking for shows to participate in.

I'm now almost ready, and none too soon, as craft "season" is just about to begin! So far I've got six days lined up, if all comes through as expected. I had forgotten just how much is involved in doing craft shows vs online sales, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to again being involved in the holiday craft show environment, and the people surrounding this fun season. I remember my earlier craft show experience as a LOT of work to set up and break down, not to mention dealing with weather surprises, etc. But I also remember how much I truly enjoyed chatting with visitors to my booth. You meet some really interesting people at these things, to say the least! I also enjoyed getting to know several of the other "craft show gypsies" - those local artisans whom I seemed to run into at many of the local shows. We tended to look out for one another, watched each other's booths for nature breaks, and generally enjoyed the connection shared in our mutual pursuit of creativity.

Crafters are generally a very nice bunch, and in my personal experience, so were the our customers. Particularly over the Holiday craft season, it is hard not to be cheerful when surrounded with brisk air, someone selling hot cider up the way, and discovering what new wares our craft-buddies have come up with this year.

I'm finding that preparing to do shows is still a huge amount of work, and very much like setting up a brick-n-mortar shop, only this being the mobile version! The toughest part of the day is the setup and breakdown, but during the actual live hours of the shows, it was really fun. Now that I'm heading back into it, I hope my memory has not just become overly selective! As long as the weather cooperates, I think it's going to be a great craft show season!

Now, where the heck did I store the stakes for my canopy??