a late holiday craft fair wrap up

Normally I write a holiday craft fair update post in you know...November. Not late January. This year I made sure to promote my shows on Facebook and Instagram, but I totally dropped the ball on posting pictures of my booth and writing about how shows were going. Now that all of the holiday craziness is over, I've finally gone through the few pictures that I did take during the 2014 holiday shows. I'm sharing them here today for any and all who are interested. Enjoy.

 

How were your 2014 holiday shows?

What's Up for April

There is proof that someday there will be green outside again.

Following up on my bullet points from last month: I did put in a last minute crunch for my first 2014 craft fair and worked on a lot of projects that I will benefit from all year, like reorganizing my entire inventory. You can read more about that over here if you didn't already. I've done all of the initial research that I need to for writing an ebook. Now I need to make some progress past my outline. I didn't make ANY progress on catching up with photo printing and frame hanging. Fail. Maybe I'll get somewhere with that this month. I have been reading. I'm pretty excited about that. And I had a good birthday. Thanks to all of you who left me kind birthday messages here and/or elsewhere last week.

• Easter. I'm playing in church the next three weeks and then for four masses the week of Easter (and then at least one mass the week after Easter). I don't think of Sunday morning church commitments as major time commitments because it's something that I've had almost my entire life, but they really are sometimes. They can also be really stressful sometimes. It will be something of a relief to finish up with the bulk of that commitment for the 13-14 school year after this month.
• Social plans. The good news is that I already have a lot of social plans on the calendar including a couple very brief (i.e. day or half day trips) opportunities to get out of Milwaukee. It's also a little scary because I know that there are going to be days that are really crunched for work, but that's a good problem. It's still really nice to have things to look forward to in the next few weeks.
• Not losing sight on my passive income goal. Remember how my biggest goal for 2014 is to build my passive income? It's amazing how quickly I lose sight of that on a day to day basis. I get caught up on meeting certain word counts and income goals, and I forget about the bigger picture. It's really bad. If I'm going to make any progress on the goal this year, let alone significant progress, I have to maintain focus.
• Making the best of the weather. In January and February and even March, it's easier to get excited about the occasional 50 degree day. As we get into April, it's harder. I'm not as motivated to get out and take pictures when the weather is halfway decent because everything is still pretty brown and gray and because I'm ready for really nice weather. But sitting instead all of the time isn't healthy for a lot of reasons. I still need to make the best of the nice days that we do have this month.

What are you up to this month?

What's Up For March

It looks like spring is on the way, doesn't it? I actually took this picture in late February, but March often looks exactly the same in this area.

• Getting back into craft fair mode. I made this one of my bullet points last month, too, which was...optimistic. I make jewelry all year round, but I have a hard time getting motivated to work on show inventory (i.e. my small items that I don't list online) and other show prep like making new price signs and restocking earring cards until I'm up against the deadline. Here we are so now it's crunch time.
• Researching ebook publishing. You may or may not remember that one of my long-term 2014 goals is to increase my passive income. It's actually my biggest goal for this year. I would still like to bring up my HubPages and PDF jewelry pattern earnings, but at this point, there needs to be something else in the mix to reach the numbers that I want. I've been floating a number of ebook ideas in my mind the past year, and I think I've finally settled on one. Now I need to start working on actually making it happen.
• Catching up on photo printing and hanging. I'm sure that you've noticed in some of my recent photos that I have a number of frames sitting around the house. I got most of them for Christmas. I need to print out a bunch of fall and early winter photos, which includes making final decisions about which professional photos to print from my brother's wedding. I finished my photo albums, but I want a few prints for new frames and the fridge, too.
• Keep reading. One of my unofficial goals for 2014 is to get back into reading. This means reading books, not just pulling up photography articles on my phone. Once upon a time, I read for fun all the time. Then I started undergrad. I read so much for school that I didn't feel much like reading during my down time. It's been eight years since I finished undergrad, and I've never really recovered. Last week during my trip to Las Vegas (more on that soon), I brought along a few books and did some real reading for the first time since late 2012 / early 2013 (don't judge). It was amazing. Now I need to stick with it.
• My birthday. My birthday probably definitely does not need its own bullet point in this kind of post, but I love birthdays so it gets one. This year is not a milestone birthday like last year so it will be considerably less eventful. I will still enjoy it. Having a birthday at the end of the month means that I look forward to it all month. I'll post an Etsy birthday wish list next week.

What are you up to this month?

What's Up For February

January was a tough month. While there is nothing that automatically changes when the calendar rolls over to a new month, it's nice to get that little fresh start. I'm glad to be moving on and looking forward to bigger and better things for February.

• Getting back into craft fair mode. I've been making jewelry the past couple months, but I haven't been working on much else for craft fairs since my last show wrapped up in early December. My next show is in early March, and I will most likely have at least one more show in the spring. I want to revamp my price tags and price signs, make new small inventory, and roll out some new packaging for my smaller items.
• Embracing Bubblews. The cool place for writers to be these days is Bubblews. It's something of a cross between a social media site (i.e. Facebook) and a dedicated writing site (i.e. HubPages, Squidoo) where you get paid for views, likes, and comments on your content. I've had an account for over a year but literally didn't do anything with it until the fall. There are a lot of things about the site that I don't love. However, I think that it could be a worthwhile time investment. I am enjoying the writing format and am hoping that with more practice, writing and networking there will become a more natural part of my routine that won't compromise blogging, HubPages, or client writing.
• Planning for a vacation. As I've mentioned before, the furthest that Jake and I traveled in 2013 was Chicago. Last month I eluded to the fact that we did have a winter vacation in the works. It's taking us a ridiculously long time to get the logistics together, but we will be heading to a warmer-than-winter-in-Milwaukee destination later this month. I can't wait.
• Taking more pictures. Lately there have been a number of things that have prevented me from getting out and taking pictures as much as I normally have been the past couple years. I miss it so much. Lousy weather or not, I'm determined to get out of the house and take more pictures again this month.

What are you up to this month?

2014 craft fair game plan

I had my final 2013 holiday craft fair over the weekend. It definitely hasn't sunk in yet that I'm done and am actually starting to get my life back now. In 2012, I did two open houses and seven craft fairs. In 2013, I did nine craft fairs. So you wouldn't think that it felt like that much more this year than last, but with everything going on this fall, it really did.

For my 2013 shows, I kept my two best selling high-end lines: dagger bracelets and leafy bracelets, and I devoted the rest of the booth to $25 and under items. I didn't display any of my other high-end lines. As I made very little other changes to my booth from 2012 to 2013, I'm not sure what else I can attribute to the fact that overall, I had higher earning shows in 2012 than 2013. Even though it's rare that people buy those higher end items, I think that not having them there cheapened the display. I didn't get people into the mentality to spend $20-$30 or more at my booth.

I'll be honest: it's frustrating. I was tired of having endless discussions about the hours of work that went into making the high end pieces that customers were never interested in buying. I thought that keeping the pieces that did sell well around would be enough to keep that "wow" factor in my booth. But clearly I need more.

The good news is that even if my earnings weren't as high, I still had a better show list in 2013. All of the shows that I vended had good traffic and were decently, if not very well, run. Even when you aren't making a ton of money, both of these factors play a large role in whether or not you would ever go back. For those of you who vend shows, you know how awful it is to do completely dead shows and/or very poorly run shows. All of the shows are well established and very likely, if not definitely, going to be back in 2014. It's a relief to have a great list at the start and not spend a lot of energy hunting for shows that may be a complete waste of time.

The other good news is that I still have high-end pieces that I can bring back into my display for future shows. I haven't sold or donated that inventory, which would have left me to start all over with that path.

With that being said, I'm going to focus on the following for my 2014 shows:

• Better signage. Even when every single item is tagged with a price, a lot of people still have trouble figuring out how much items cost. I did have a lot of section signs this year (i.e. "button rings $3 or 4 for $10"), but I need to overhaul the vast majority signage for my booth. Some aspects of it have worked okay, but there are a few areas that are severely lacking.
• Packaged small items. In past years, people have bought multiple different small items and/or taking advantage of deals for multiple single items (i.e. get a free button magnet when you buy 5 magnets), which meant decent cart totals. This year I had way too many people spend $1-$3. This simply isn't enough to make shows worth my time. With the exception of my button rings, which people 1) buy regularly and 2) love to try on before purchasing, I'm going to package all of my $5 and under items into $4-$12 sets.
• More high-end inventory. As I've already mentioned, I still have this inventory. I need to figure out how to incorporate it back into my display.

 I have nearly three months until my next show (and it's very unlikely that I will possibly schedule anything else before February), which gives me plenty of time to work on these goals and hopefully make 2014 a higher earning year for shows than 2013.

How did your 2013 shows go? Are you thinking about 2014 shows already?

What's Up for December

It doesn't even seem real to be writing that subject. Moving on...

Hello, December! What's going on this month?

• Finishing up my 2013 holiday shows. Many of you already know that I've been up to quite a lot of things this fall, including the most holiday craft fairs that I've ever vended in a month and a half period. For the most part, it's been great. I'm excited to have a solid list of shows that I would vend again next year, a few ideas for new shows, and a wealth of ideas for revamping my booth and product lines. I'm also really excited to finish up the 2013 stint and have time to regroup and prepare for the new year.
• Getting ready for Christmas. Most years I have the Christmas letter written, the Christmas cards and stamps ordered, and the majority of my Christmas shopping done by the first week of December. I'm sure that it's not much of a surprise that all I've done thus far this year is buy a couple small Christmas presents. I'm glad that I'll still be able to give these tasks as well as other fun Christmas happenings (like decorating the house) the time and attention that they deserve these next few weeks.
• Regrouping and setting new goals. To say that I'm at a loss about my overall goals for 2014 is harsh, but for a handful of reasons, I'm struggling to put together a plan for 2014 as easily as I did for 2012 and 2013. The short of it is that I don't want to wake up in five years and realize that I've neglected personal projects and the chance to grow my passive income the way I would really like to in lieu of short-term pursuits that may be lucrative but are ultimately unsustainable long-term and are generally not as fulfilling. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to find time for the projects that I want to pursue without giving up so much of what I've built these past two and a half years, but I'm getting there.

Blog sponsorship

I'm restructuring my blog sponsorship for 2014. It is now $12 to have a blog ad for the entire duration of 2014. That price remains the same no matter when you decide to join. The great news is that if you join up now, you get the ad and the social media and blog promos that it includes for the entire year. In other good news, if you decide to join up later, this price is still very reasonable, and you'll be sure to get your money's worth out of it. Whether you currently have an ad and would like to renew for 2014 or you're interested in joining up, contact me at randomcreative28 at gmail dot com.

Thanks for sticking with me during a truly crazy October and November! Here's to a great December.

What are you up to this month?