Farmer's Market wrap up, new listing

The Iowa City Farmer's Market went pretty well today.  I didn't have nearly the kind of sales that I did at the Arts Festival, but I did have enough sales to make it worth my time.

Among other sales, I sold these earrings that I hadn't even listed yet on Etsy.

I did remember to take a few pictures while I was there.

I broke up my two card tables for the Farmer's Market, which did help bring people into my booth and look at all of the items more than at the Arts Festival.  People really didn't look at many of items that were in the middle back portion of my table during the Arts Festival.  So it was good to see that this helped.  Ideally I think I would like to have a longer table with one or two shorter side tables to create more visual interest, but this works pretty well for now.  I can only make so many upgrades to my display for each show.  You can see the cinder blocks in the back, which Jake helped me tie up this morning.  They worked very well.  As you can also see from this picture, the weather was gorgeous.  It got a little hot toward the end of the morning, but I can't complain otherwise.

Here's the stash of buttons magnet that I brought, minus a few from the first button magnet sale.  The easel was on of my few additions to this show.  It worked wonderfully for drawing people to the magnets and inviting them to pick them up.  Unfortunately it kept tipping over, even after I taped it down so I eventually put it down.  The easel will still be great for indoor shows.  The star and heart magnets were very popular again.  I'm planning to make more of them as well as more Christmas magnets (you can see a few in there now) for my fall shows.

Here are the button earring studs that I had out for the show (this is about half of them).  The water damage on a couple of the cards is from all of the rain at the Arts Festival.  I was surprised that NONE of these sold today.  They still got a lot of compliments.  Hopefully they'll continue to sell in the future.

There will almost definitely be openings for the Farmer's Market again this summer.  I may do it again at least once.  I don't think it's worth the effort more often than that because I'm not going to have repeat customers the way the food vendors are.

I listed another new item today: black and pink fringed peyote cuff.

As I'm sure you already know, I love the pink/black color combination.  I set the beads for it together in a bag quite a while ago.  I finally got inspired to complete it after I made Sharla's raspberry cuff back in March.  I love how it turned out!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Fourth of July!  Jake and I are spending it with some extended family, but I'll still be checking in at random over the next couple days.

treasury feature, Farmer's Market tomorrow

Lorena (gemagenta) included my Christmas button bracelet in her My Christmas Wish List! treasury.  Perfect for the Christmas in July sale. :)

You can view this treasury live by CLICKING HERE.

I've been getting ready for the Iowa City Farmer's Market tonight.  Again, for those of you in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area: It's 7:30AM-noon Saturday July 3, right across from City Hall in downtown Iowa City.  I was planning to take pictures of my newest button earrings and magnets today, but I got busy with other things this afternoon.  Needless to say, it didn't happen before I was ready to pack things up.  Maybe I'll take some pictures of them there tomorrow.  Either way, I will definitely try to take SOME pictures while I'm there.  I have lots of new button earring studs, especially green and purple ones since they were so popular.  I also made lots of new button magnets.  I think that I'll have even more than I had at the Arts Festival.

Also, perfect for the Fourth of July, I'll have these earrings.

I sold a pair like these at the Arts Festival.  Hopefully I'll  sell another pair tomorrow.  If you'd be interested in some for yourself, let me know.  I have a few more of these buttons.  The earrings are only $5.00. :)

Iowa City Farmer's Market, flame class beads

I found out today that I'll have a stall at the Iowa City Farmer's Market this weekend!  For anyone in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area reading this, it will be Saturday July 3rd 7:30AM-12:00PM right next to the City Hall in downtown Iowa City.  There have been several opportunities for non-season vendors to have stalls in June, but it hasn't worked out for me before because of the weather, other events, or being out of town.  I'm glad that I will have at least one opportunity to do a farmer's market this summer.

I haven't exactly been getting ready to do another show yet, especially an outdoor one, so I had a few unexpected errands this week.  The biggest thing was that I had to get my own weights for my tent.  I was NOT prepared for this at the Arts Festival.  Several fellow vendors were kind enough to lend me supplies.  I now have my own.  A word of advice to those doing outdoor festivals: Lowe's sells cinder blocks for $1 each.  Literally $1!  I'm more or less going to have the same set up for my booth.  I only had to get a couple new things for that.  I have plenty of inventory.  I'm just not prepared yet for the other things that a show involves like having an updated inventory list and having price tags on all of my new items.  I'll get it done, though!

While I was taking pictures today, I did take a few pictures of my flame class beads.

I'm pretty happy with the round ones in the far row, especially the orange one.  I think that the cylinder ones in the front will make neat focal beads.  The other pieces are pretty irregular, but that's okay.