weekend show prep

I'm sure that most of you already know that I have a show coming up this weekend.  Getting ready for a show is always a lot more work than I think that it will be.  I'm glad that I continue to evolve my product lines and tweak my display, but that means extra work every year.  Hopefully it will continue to be worth it.  Here are a few of the things that I've been doing to get ready for this next show.

Making more cards.  I am not stressing about having tons of cards, but I'm advertising that I'll have graduation, Mother's Day, and spring cards so I've been getting final singles and mini card sets finished.

Packaging more cards.  I did another round of packaging last week and will do one more today or tomorrow.

Packing more cards.  I am so happy that both the card boxes and sleeves will fit in this old shipping box from ULine.  This will be perfect for bringing cards to and from shows.

Gathering all of my craft fair supplies.  This is the one area of this room that I did not overhaul earlier this week simply because of this upcoming show.  After the weekend, I'll figure out a more permanent solution for some of these supplies.

Pricing and sorting new jewelry.  Similar to packaging cards, I like to price and sort jewelry when I have a bunch of items to do at once.  Do you remember how I sorted all of my jewelry back in the fall?  It was a lot of work, but it has been a huge time saver for pulling ordered items and for show set up and tear down.

Re-working popular designs that sold out during the fall and winter.  I have a handful of listings are made to order on Etsy, which is fine most of the time, but not so much for shows.  I'll have a few popular shell and charm bracelets back in stock for this show.

Working on a new flower idea.  Do you remember the flower bouquet that I put up on my Mother's Day post over the weekend?  I've been making a whole bunch of felt and paper flowers the past couple weeks.  I started doing this so I could make a bouquet just for our house and so I could have some new flowers for cards.  However, like most projects, I got carried away cutting and now have a lot of flowers.  I also decided that I could write an article about this project so I'm taking a lot of pictures of the process.  They would make a fun impulse item for Mother's Day.  We'll see if I can get enough done to sell them.

What have you been working on this week?

I included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday - 5/4/2012.

the packaging side of greeting cards

As many of you know, one of my endeavors for 2012 has been to pick up my interest in greeting cards again.  I used to make cards for everything and really let this slide while Jake was in med school.  I had a lot of other priorities for those 4 years and don't regret buying a few cards, but I did miss playing with paper.  However, I wasn't prepared for all of the work that goes into selling cards.  Now that I have a show coming up in a few weeks (more on that soon), I've been tacking the growing pile of cards that I've created since my open house in February.

I spread everything out in Jake's gaming area so I could watch TV in the basement while I was working.  I started by sorting out all of my cards.  If you click on this photo, you can get a better look at my stitching on the St. Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day quilt cards.  And yes, I have been plugging away on Christmas cards since Christmas 2011.  I want to have lots of sets to sell at holiday shows this year and don't want to start this huge project in October.

I'm going to sell most of my Christmas cards in sets of 8.  I'll have some singles and sets of 4, too, but I think that most people will be interested in sets.  I bought these boxes and most of my card packaging supplies in bulk through ULine.

One of the tedious parts about getting cards ready to sell is creating all of these labels.  As I create more cards, it gets easier because I can do a lot of copy and pasting.  One of my other goals for my shop this year is to create a more unified look with my promotional and packing materials.  I'm creating most of my materials in red and turquoise and using the same font as often as possible.

I will also have a shop information label on the cards and/or sleeves (I don't put these labels on all of my mini cards).  I didn't think to add those when I got everything else ready, but I will at some point.

I have a photo storage box that I use for displaying most of my cards at shows (I also have some out on little easels).  I already have way more cards than it holds (which is fine...how many St. Patrick's Day card sets do I need to stock for a May show, right?).  I will need something else for storing extras both at home and to take with to shows so I can re-stock throughout the show.  For this packaging session, I grabbed this spare plastic box.  I have a nearly empty ULine box that held empty jewelry boxes that will hold card boxes and single cards perfectly so I will transfer everything in there before my next show.

I will be selling a lot more cards in show than on Etsy, but I am continuing to list cards there, too.  Here are my two newest that I got up this month.  Click on the photos to check out the listings.

I created this design for the wedding shower that I went to last month.

I created this design for Valentine's Day this year and also made an anniversary version.

Is anyone else preparing for a show right now?  How are things going with that your way?

Newest article:

What To Do With Walnut Shells: Crafts and Other Activities for Children

Looking for older articles?  Click here!

Where I Linked Up Today:

I included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday - 4/20/12 and Erika's It's a Wrap Link Party - 4/23/12.

getting ready for my first 2012 event

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, one of the biggest things going in this month is an open house in the Chicago area.  It's this coming weekend.  I swore that I wasn't going to do a lot of display or product upgrades for this event, but of course now that I have all of these new ideas floating around, I had to make some of them real.  I shared my new thumb tack and magnet packaging earlier this week, which I will have at the open house.  Here are just a few of the other things that I've been working on for it the past couple weeks.

New Display Banner

Edi very generously did the graphic design work for a new banner.  We coordinated to make the layout, font, and color choices, but she put it all together.  This would have taken me hours, so I'm very grateful for her help.  When she had the final design done, I uploaded it to VistaPrint and ordered a banner.

The blank spaces are for 8 x 10 photos.  I cropped 8 of my photos to 8 x 10 size and had them printed through Target (which was a cheaper option than ordering and shipping with Shutterfly).  We decided that this would be a better option than printing the photos right on the banner because this will allow me to switch them out as my product lines change.

I feel like I've mentioned this 100 times here, but I'll say it again because I know I'll get questions otherwise.  I ordered contact paper and Velcro dots in bulk when I was teaching and still have lots of leftover materials.  That's what I used for my banner.  I covered all of the photos in contact paper and attached them to the banner with Velcro.

Jake is the only one who's seen it in person so far, and he was very impressed.  It will look even more amazing when I have it mounted on the front of my display.  I will definitely get pictures of this at the open house.

New Free Shipping Cards

I send or give out a discount or free shipping card with all of my orders, both online and at shows.  My old free shipping cards were business card sized and very plain.  I just ran through the last set that I'd printed, and it was time for an upgrade.  One thing that I'm really working on this year is building return customers, especially from shows.  I hope that these will help.  (Yep, that code does work all the time.  You can steal it any time you like.)

New Price Signs

Most of these signs are simply for new products or for products with slightly adjusted pricing.  They match many of the signs that I already use, except that these all use the new font that I have on my new banner and free shipping cards.  Here they are matted before I covered them with contact paper.

New Small Button Items

I pushed really hard to get enough of these items ready for my final 2011 shows.  I am going to pace this better for 2012 and just made a handful for this show.  I'll work on making more slowly for spring shows throughout the next couple months.  We were blessed with some sun this week so I was able to take a number of these photos with natural light.

 

New Glass Magnets

I am still in the beginning stages of my glass charms and magnets, but I've found a couple designs that I really like so far so I've been working on a few more sets of those designs.

That's a mean tease, right?  These all have music or flower designs.  I'll get some pictures of them sometime before or at the open house.

Greeting Card Packaging and Display

The biggest investment, both for money and time, for greeting cards has been the packaging and display.  I went ahead and made a full set of tabs for my display box.  As you can see, they are not tall enough to be seen over the card sleeves.  They will be alphabetized so people can find what they need easily enough.  I may adjust them at some point but not for the open house.  At this point, I only have cards for about 5 tabs so it won't be a big issue.

I packaged all of my cards in sleeves with price/description labels.  I bought most of my card packaging materials like these sleeves in bulk through ULINE, and I use address labels for almost all of my shop labels (like the ones on my jewelry boxes).  Eventually I'll have cards in different numbered sets and lots of mix and match price options, but as my inventory is not large enough to do that yet, I'm simply offering discounts for multiple card purchases.  I'll have signs with all of those numbers on my display.

What's Left to Do?

-I'm going to have a basket of $5 or less freebies.  Everyone who attends will get to pick one.  Most of these are ready to go, but I still have a few magnets to finish.
-I got a custom order within hours of creating the open house event on Facebook.  I completed the order (which was for 2 bracelets) and sent her pictures a couple days ago.  She loved them, and yesterday, she ordered 4 pairs of earrings to coordinate with the bracelets.  Those earrings will be one of my main priorities today.  I'll get pictures of all of those pieces up after the open house.
-Then I need to get everything packed up and ready to go!

What have you been working on this week?

Newest Article:

Yep, I got another Valentine's Day article together!

Valentine's Day Desserts: Recipe Ideas

I included this post in Erika's It's a Wrap Link Party - 2/6/2012.