Monday, May 10, 2010

more details for my craft fair booth

I got my official information e-mail from the Iowa Arts Festival today! I still had a few questions so I e-mailed back (still waiting for a response). Actually I have more questions than that, but there are a couple specific issues that I need to know before I get that weekend. Everything else can wait. Now that I know all of the set up times and what not, I can try to recruit at least one or two people to help me. Normally I would be able to recruit my husband or my mom, but unfortunately they're both working that weekend so I need to ask other family and friends. If any Eastern Iowa family/friends are reading this, be forewarned that I will be contacting you soon haha.

I worked on a few more booth projects tonight. The Arts Festival booths are outdoors so I put together paper weights/pen holders. While Jake and I were living in Chicago a few years ago, I stored some of my stuff at my in-laws' house because my parents had just downsized and we had no extra space in our apartment. When we were there a couple weekends ago, I took the last of my stuff, which included a box of art supplies. I'd totally forgotten that I had a TON of these mosaic rocks leftover from a project that my mom and I worked on 5-6 years ago (what you see below is about a third of the collection). I bought some glass cups from Wal-Mart's floral decorating aisle ($1.00 each) for them.


I finished the major work on my large sign. A quick tutorial on this: I printed the letters from Word and cut them out. I glued them with rubber cement to red and blue scrapbooking paper (left over from when I used to make most of my own cards) and covered the front side with contact paper. (I buy large rolls of contact paper from Office Depot for work.) I cut the letters out again, leaving red/blue borders and glued them, again with rubber cement, to a piece of poster board. I'm going to put some jewelry pictures around the edges with Velcro dots (again, purchased in bulk for work) so I can update them in the future as needed.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to hang it. It depends on how long my table fabric cover ends up being and how the festival booths are constructed. I'm thinking either large safety pins or Velcro. If anyone has any advice, please let me know!

Those were the two major projects for tonight. I also finished the last couple table signs and photographed them. The process for these was pretty similar to the large sign. I printed the signs (again from Word), cut them out, and glued them with rubber cement to the red scrapbook paper (these are all edged in red). I cut them out with borders and glued them to a large piece of posterboard, allowing room under each one for tab. I measured out the full length and drew outlines before I cut. I covered the front of each sign with contact paper. Each one has tabs on the bottom so I can tape or pin them down as needed (which I'm pretty much counting on for this event anyway).

The other biggest project I have for this week is to finalize my PR materials for family, friends, and co-workers and start getting the word out.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

continued weekend progress

I hope that all of the mothers reading this have had a Happy Mother's Day. :)

Today was another productive day with crafty endeavors. I finished the majority of the signs for my booth. Currently I have them under a large book to flatten them out a bit. I will take (and post) pictures of them later this week. I've decided that I will have enough magnets to sell them at the Arts Festival so I need to finish all of the ones that I have assembled but not yet glued. I made a decent amount of progress with that today. I photographed three bead woven items and two button stud earrings. I organized my finished but not yet photographed button stud earrings. The weather was gorgeous today, and I was able to photograph outside. Finally, I finished a cuff that I've been working on intermittently for the past couple months. It's similar to my Easter morning peyote cuff but with a fall color scheme.

I picked out the beads for a pink/black skinny peyote cuff. I think working on Sharla's cuff a couple weeks ago inspired me to make another skinny cuff right away because I finally finished pink/black one yesterday. While I had the pink base beads out, another idea came to mind. Normally if I name my pieces, I don't do it until they're completed. Also, I normally don't pick out the button that I'll use for the clasp until I've finished the rest of the piece. However, a name popped into my head right away, and while I was searching for a pink/black button clasp, I found a perfect button for this cuff, too.

Here's my mix with the button. It's going to be a wrapped cuff like this one but with more embellishment. I'm going to call it Birthday Cake.


I hope that this week gets off to a great start for everyone tomorrow!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

new listing, button treasury

I listed my second pair of leaf earrings tonight. This pair is in cream.

I have another pair in turquoise that I'll be listing soon. I had fun going through my seed bead collection and finding Czech seed beads that matched delicas. I have pink and lime green pairs picked out for future earrings.

I also curated a Treasury West today. As I'm sure you know, it's pretty rare that I catch an opening, but sometimes on a weekend or a break it does happen. This one is called Buttons in Action! I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't featured button items in WAY too long.

You can view this treasury live by CLICKING HERE until Monday May 10 11:08PM EST.

Some of these items have been in my favorites list for quite a while, but I came across a few of them this weekend: the red and gray button earrings, the daisy chain button bracelet, and my new favorite the clock button ring. Now that I've started tackling button earrings, I'm itching to do a few button rings. If anyone has any advice about where to get quality ring blanks, please let me know.

I photographed a handful of new items today, including a few more pairs of button stud earrings, which are now ready for the Arts Festival. It's been chilly here today (high 40s) so I took pictures inside. They still turned out pretty well. I'm planning to work on the pricing signs for my table this weekend. I'll have tags on all of my items, but I'm going to have signs for items with the same price and for 2 for 1 price deals as well. I have a pretty good idea how these will look, but if anyone has any ideas/advice for a bigger shop sign and how to hang it, please let me know!

Friday, May 7, 2010

leafy feature number 11

Thank you to everyone for your continued advice for the Iowa Arts Festival! I compiled my Etsy inventory today in a way that I'll be able to use it for the festival. I have almost a dozen other bead woven items that aren't listed or aren't even photographed yet that I'll add to the list, too, as well as a couple dozen button earring studs. I'm planning to photograph everything that I'm taking, but the weather hasn't cooperated lately. I did take Margaret's advice and rounded as many prices as I could to multiples of 5 to cut down on the number of small bills that I'll go through. I'll still have a few dozen pieces that aren't, but that's okay. Thanks Margaret!

I'll continue to post progress as I continue to get ready for the festival. I'll limit how much I post about it every day, though. I know that's not all that you want to hear from me.

I'm revisiting leaves tonight. Enjoy!
Leafy Earrings in Antique Silver by dallied

White Leaf Post Earrings - Free Shipping by IndieAndChic

Woodland Forest and Moss Green Sterling Silver Necklace, Lampwork Glass and Leather by ErikaPriceOriginals

soft cover for your journal/organizer - LEAVES by verityunmondoaparte

silver hummingbird - sparrow - cut out bird pendant - hangs on 18 inch chain by bethtastic

Leafy Green Bag by KnottyByNature

Sea Glass Filled Bottle, Sterling Silver Necklace by akkricket

Thursday, May 6, 2010

craft fair stuff, random feature

I'm pretty proud of how much I've accomplished already for the Iowa Arts Festival. There is still a lot to do, but I'm making progress. As I've been working on everything this week, I've thought of a couple more things that I'd appreciate feedback on.
The first one is how much change do you like to bring? I've been reading various advice and people recommend everything from $100-$300. I don't like the idea of starting with more than $100 cash, but I don't want to run short, especially with smaller bills. Let me know what works for you.
Also, for those of you who have done outdoor shows, do you use anything to hold down your table cloth? I'm planning to use a fabric cover for my tables (hopefully music themed) and have been looking for something like picnic table clips without much luck. If you've found anything that works, let me know. If you don't use anything, that's helpful to know, too!

Random feature tonight. Enjoy!
Spring Jade Earrings by nemeton

Scrapbooking Armada Punch Buddy by tiram13

Mallard Drake - 8 x 12 Fine Art Photograph by PhotoGrunt

Wedding Tea Lights by CarolinaCottage

STRAWBERRY RED PENDANT....Free US Shipping by blueseraphim

Crystal Tabac Square Earrings by HidingPlaceBeadery

Spring Garden by Juliesparklybits