Craft Fair Success

The Indie Knit and Spin craft fair was a successful first time event.  There were steady crowds and sales were surprisingly good.  I sold more buttons than I expected.  Joyce Compton also had good sales of her felting kits.  Things went well enough that I will consider doing other craft fairs. 

Knitters and spinners tend to be passionate about their craft.

The displays I built worked well.  I was particularly happy with the spinner display racks that are made from old floor lamps, scrap lumber and PVC pipe.

Small children were attracted to the buttons on the table cloth.  This photo was taken just before the doors opened.

All of the displays were made from recycled materials.

Button Display Boxes and Button Cards

This past weekend I worked at the Lillian St wood shop to make display boxes that will be part of my craft fair display and storage inventory system.  While I was there I also made some wood buttons.  The storage boxes are made mostly from recycled wood that has been languishing in my stash.  The side bars of the boxes are fun.  They are old rulers and paint stir sticks.  After taking the boxes home and filling them with button cards I realized that the boxes need to have a second bar lower on the side to prevent the button cards from falling out.  I'll do that next weekend. 

I also designed some button cards for my recycled and hand dyed buttons.  In the two cards on the ends of the photo I used images from vintage button cards.  I'm trying to express the idea of making old things new through creative reuse.  So my appropriation of these images to illustrate the button cards is in this spirit.  If you look carefully at these two cards you can see that the illustrator was suggesting uses for the buttons.  I took this thought and designed the card in the middle.  By sewing the buttons onto images of paper flowers I'm suggesting to scrapbook artists that they can use my buttons in their art.  I won't know until the Indie Knit and Spin craft fair if these cards are effective selling tools.

I like making the button cards because the process is making me learn how to do things with my software. 

Building a Craft Fair Display

Today was a day spent at the Lillian Street wood shop.  It was lots of fun as usual.  I used my time to build a table top craft fair display.  I'm honored to have been invited to participate in a well organized craft fair that is focused on providing supplies to indie fiber artists.  You will be hearing more about this fair as I prepare for it.  It will be held Saturday November 19th from 11:00 to 5:00 at the Wilkins School Community Center, 7604 Charleston Ave. in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  Check it out!  

It will be my first craft fair and I want to have a terrific display for my button shop.  I built this display entirely from old stash and recycled materials.  It was fun to figure out how to make it without spending any money.  The exception is that I will purchase hooks to hang my button cards.

I started making some buttons from recycled hard wood moldings.  I'll drill the holes on the buttons next Sunday.

At the other end of the shop Beth Rogers is building a table top.  She is in the process of becoming reacquainted with fine woodworking techniques.  If you look carefully you can see that she is gluing up some bread board ends for the table top.

This is a photo of the renovated tool cabinet.  Can you see the influence of playing a lot of scrabble?