Handmade for the (ho hum) Holidays

So. Handmade for the Holidays was this weekend and it was a bust. The turnout was underwhelming to say the least (minus my cool customers, of course) and at times I questioned why I was even doing this to myself, spending two days away from my family just to sit amidst all this weird stuff I made and watch people walk by. I at least made my money back ($200, ouch) and about $175 on top of that, but I'm not sure it was worth it. The saving grace was having friends stop by and hanging out with the the other vendors. We commiserated on the lame music and crappy turnout and did a lot of Christmas "shopping" through some great trades.

I liked my booth though. I'm getting good at fitting everything in my car and setting it all up in a mad rush. Each time I do it it's a little different.

I had my wall-o-monsters,

my tower of sundresses (most of which I spent all last week making),

my turny circle display of necktie accessories (these turned out to be my best selling items),

and my rack of purses, trunk full of pillows, and another tower of baby clothes.


The question I heard most often was, "You made all these things? " Yep. Just don't ask me why. I have no idea.

My friends Lauren and Leslie stopped by:

Lauren rocks for watching my booth for a while while I ran around visiting others and moved my car.

(Sew Darn) Jenny, Cathy (of California), and (Miss) Alison stopped by:
Jenny bought one of my Smokey the Bear sundresses for a Christmas present. Those dresses turned out to be pretty popular. I sold another one to some nice customers and traded one with the super sweet Robert Mahar of Mahar Drygoods and Junior Society Fame.

He got the dress for his niece and I got McKenna a bag of beautiful crocheted vegetables.

Other shopping I did included getting hand carved letter openers (Christmas presents) from my vendor neighbors, Bridge for Africa, these Christmas cards from Jamie Zollars and an awesome work of art from Michelle Caplan (which I will show on my next Artsy Friday blog post.) They all gave me a fellow crafter discount, which rocks.

I traded my city skirt (yeah, the one I contemplated keeping - I can make another) for a bunch of awesome stuff from Random Nicole - a couple candles, something for Erik (I can't show you, it's a secret), and this cool shirt for McKenna:

I also traded a tie cuff for that gorgeous hat she's wearing made by a vendor DirtiMartiny and I traded a headband for a pretty button necklace made by her booth partner Didi Gal.

I got Sage some Christmas stuff too, a Robot wallet and a cammo/skeleton shirt from nice vendors whose names have slipped my mind (sorry!). I also traded two headbands for this shirt made by Bumble-N-Bee:

and a headband for all those cool silkscreened patches by Field Day. I also traded two monster print shirts for a lovely jewelry box by my supersweet other vendor neighbor Sherry Giang. I'd show you, but it's going to be a Christmas present for someone who probably reads this blog.

So the show wasn't a total bust. I took credit cards for the first time ever. That was fun. I also saw some of my fellow craft-show friends like Christine of Twospace (who bought and rocked one of my headbands) and Jean of Rotem Gear, plus I met some vendors who are also doing the Little Monster Market (Dec. 1st) and Craftmas Bizarre (Dec. 9th) with me. It's such a crazy lifestyle, this craft show circuit. Two more to go - then no more for a while. I need to regroup.