Craft show questions

[Dennis Kotlowski]

I have found alot of information on this forum since I have joined and everyone here has been nice and very helpful. I am looking for some advice now. I am going to begin a new venture into craft shows and was wondering what are some of the things that could be sold there other than the normal personalized orders this time of year. With Christmas being over is it to late to try ornaments? Any suggestions here would be greatly appreciated.:)


Denny K

[Linda Tetreault]

Dennis, I've been using snowflake designs & engraving company logos in the center, there's a company called Berry Basket, they sell designs on CD, in PDF format, real easy to use. Some of the formats have hearts or flower designs, so they can be used for several occasions, not just Christmas or winter. I've done them on mirrored acrylic & solid wood, you can also cut out a design & back it with colored acrylic, for a suncatcher. Once you get started, the ideas will just flow. Linda

[Keith Outten]

Dennis,

Some items that I would try;

- Small laser cut boxes in wood or acrylic
- Prayer Plaques, wood engraving plaques from JDS are inexpensive
- Denim bags from Walmart can be engraved with graphics and text.
- Engraved Light switch plates

Check out the Vector Art CD#1, it is full of very high quality art work and although a bit pricey it is worth every penny and will pay for itself many times over.

Keith

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[Kurt Sallaz]

Hi Dennis, Julee Sallaz here. Sounds like you've gotten some good ideas from other replys. My advice is on the shows themselves. We did 15 shows in 2004 and learned alot. When looking for a show to participate in, look for well established shows and ask what their attendance is. Show entry deadlines are set well in advance (well established, popular shows in November usually have a due date in February) so plan ahead. You'll have to have your product made and photographed to present with your application. Show participants are selected by jury in better shows. Your display is very important too. A table with merchandise strewn all over it is not inviting to customers. They like to walk inside your space and touch things. If you are going to do ornaments they should be hung up. Smaller tables within your booth area leaves room for moving around. Once the weather warms up purchasing an EZ-UP canopy is a good investment. We got a top of the line on E-Bay. By one with detachable sides. Try to keep your product in line with the current season. A little tweaking of product can change it to reflect alot of different themes. Give them a catchy name that makes people remember. It's all part of marketing and if you can stand out from similar vendors it gives you an edge. Have business cards printed and hand them out at shows. Talk to people, tell your story. Have a show schedule printed up and available - people will follow you from show to show. I go as far as to write a thank you letter to everyone who writes me a check. I jot down what they bought in pencil on the back of their check and mention it. One final thing, you can't predict how a show will go. We've had expectations for certain shows and were greatly disappointed, where with others we almost ran out of product. There are so many variables. You will learn from each show and usually get information that will help you in future shows. You'll meet some very interesting people and make new friends. If you are interested I can send you pics of our booth. We purchased our engraver last year and are just starting to incorporate it into our creative work. Good luck and enjoy creating! Julee :D

[Barbara Buhse]

Hi Dennis...
I am currently working on ideas for spring craft shows too...
I have some nice designs I purchased (downloable) from Berry Basket of some crosses for Easter.
I am going to make some "blessing" plaques, with Irish blessings and the like.
I also make sure to have a display of photo plaques to take orders,
and the engraveable photo albums I purchase from Laser Bits are really good sellers too. I have not dome a spring show yet, but imagine people will be looking for Mother's day, easter, passover, and maybe even Fathers day(if they're really planning ahead). I think secretary's day is in the spring too.
I am also still trying to build up ideas for some cash and carry items that don't require personlization...
hope this helps, let us know if you think of anything else!

Barbara

[Dennis Kotlowski]

Thanks everyone for their great ideas. I will have my first craft show at a local school in about a month or so I have a little time to get some things together. I will let you know how it goes.

Keith......I have the Vector Art Mega Collection 2, is volume 1 better? Also, I had thought about doing the engraved light swithches. Do you know of a source to get them from fairly cheap and what would you charge for something like that?

Julee.....please send me a photo of your booth. I would like to see how it looks.

Thanks again everyone.

Dennis

[Dennis Kotlowski]

This question goes out to whoever has done ornaments at shows. I am not sure if is a silly question also. Should the ornaments be displayed with ribbon, hooks, etc.. on them for the customers or just put on some sort of display?

Dennis:confused:

[Jeff DeVore]

I use jute to hang my ornaments.

[Barbara Buhse]

Dennis,

I did very well with ornaments this past christmas season, (in one show I sold over 100).

I did NOT have a place to hang them. This is what I did:

I bought clear lollipop bags from the craft store (about $4 for 100) and put them in there with a piece of gold string (or skinny red ribbon, depending what was on sale). I did NOT attach the string becuase it just takes too much time. People didn't seem to mind.
I closed the bag by folding a sticker over the open end. I made sure the sticker had not only my company name and phone number, but also MADE ON LONG ISLAND since people actually do care whther you made it or just bought them for resale.

I just spread them out on the table, making piles of like ornaments... people lok through them and were not afraid to pick them up to see them.

Another thing I did, when I made custom ornaments for a local college to sell: I did attach the string to these, and sealed the lillipop bag with my seal-a-meal. I cut a small hole for the string to stick out so they could hang them if they wanted.

After seeing how well the ornaments sold, I don't think I will bother with a hanging display (I don't think its worth the time to attach a string), but maybe next year a small christmas tree to hang just a few for attention.

Barbara

[James A. Wolfe]

Dennis,
I too am considering craft shows as a possible option and I'm always on the lookout for ideas that may sell. I've attached a photo of a surprisingly easy to build clock/nightlight. Also, there was a guy I spoke with a few years ago who sold the ornament attached here. He worked from a kiosk at a local mall and had to stop taking orders 3 weeks from Christmas to be sure he could get them all done. His best seller? A child's picture scanned into a file and added to the ornament with Merry Christmas Grandma. The disks are .76 each from Wally World (Cheaper than I can get them wholesale, by the hundred, from the same manufacturer.)
Jim

[Barbara Buhse]

I also did photo ornaments this past season. I offered them in sets of three, where the fronts were all the same and the backs could have different wording to give to three different people. Single photo ornaments would have been too expensive, since the real work was done to set them up and manipulate the photo. Adding two more and just changing the words on the back didn't add too much to my cost, but allowed me to keep the price up where I wanted it to be. I cut them out of alder, and people could choose a basic shape, like a circle, star, or heart.

Barbara

[Dennis Kotlowski]

James,

Those clocks are great looking. Would you be willing to share the file to make them? I have also had luck finding cheap priced craft items at Wally World. I bought a few Walnut Hollow Basswood Country Rounds from them for $5.67 and buying direct from Walnut Hollow was $8.00 ea. with a large quantity ordered. When I questioned the price they told me Walmart orders alot more from them. So I told them I will just buy them from Walmart. I will let everyone know how I did with my first craft show when it is all said and done.


Dennis

[James A. Wolfe]

Dennis,
The plans for the clock shown were purchased from BerryBasket and are copyrighted so I can't pass them along. What I will do is send you a copy of a version I'm designing which will incorporate some changes to make the clocks easier to build and to allow for limited mass production with the option for customization. It will take a couple of days to finish the drawings and test build a few clocks. I'll post the cdr file here when I get it finished.

Barbara,
As with most newbies, I have no clue about pricing things. If it isn't too forward, could you give me some info on your ornaments i.e. materials, size and sale price.

Thanx,

Jim

[Barbara Buhse]

Jim,
I don't know if I'm underpricing, but for my first year doing the photo ornaments, I just wanted to get them out there... I charged $20 for a set of three. They got to choose a basic shape, and all the fronts were the same (photo, plus if they wanted, a message)... then the backs had words only, but they had the option of making all three messages different. I use 12" x 4" sheets of alder, which were perfect size for three ornaments that did not exceed 3 or 4" in any direction (depending on the shape), otherwise they were easliy bent in half and broken.

With the "generic" ornaments, after much discussion on this forum, I decided to sell them for 3 for $10. Not a single customer bought less than three that way. Many bought 6.

Hope this helps.

Barbara

[James A. Wolfe]

Barbara,
That pricing seems to be around the same as the guy I knew in the kiosk. He charged $8 per and only did one side. I like your idea of a threefer since, like you say, the biggest part of the job was the photo editing. Dividing the time between 3 units brings the cost way down on each unit.
Jim

[Dennis Kotlowski]

Well guys (and gals).....I did my first craft show this weekend. I made about $250.00 at the show and a few orders for photo plaques pending. Plus I got alot of exposure out for my business ( a bunch of business cards were handed out). And I got together with a vinyl sign company to do some engraving for him. I did not do so well with the ornaments. I sold about 20 of them ($4 ea. or 3 for $10). I also sold clocks ($12ea or 2 for $20) and prayer and saying 5x7 plaques ($12 ea or 2 for $20). . I also have a few questions.....If anybody has an answer please reply. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I made my business cards out of a wood veneer. I had alot of requests from businesses to make cards for them. I had no idea on how much to charge for these. Does anybody here sell business cards and how much do you charge?

There is a craft show in April I would like to do but they are asking for a Certificate of Insurance that includes an aggregate liability limit of $1,000,000. Does anyone here have any suggestions. I have looked into business insurance but seeing that I am fairly new and work out of my house I have not purchased yet. This is the first craft show that I have encountered(since requesting applications) that requires this info.

Dennis

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

Dennis,

Regarding your question about wood veneer business cards. I do them. for myself and for sale.

I charge the following;

$45 for 100
$80 for 200
$175 for 500This includes text and a simple logo.If I have to work more than half an hour on the logo then i charge $25 for that.
The cards are very impressive and never fail to attract a lot of interest and attention.
The most likely customers are

corporate sales representatives
all sorts of furniture stores, especially refinishinf.I hope this helps.

i am in Canada so you can and the prices are in CDN$.

abdul

[Abdul Baseer Hai]

Dennis

I buy my cards from a company here in Ottawa called Lee Valley Tools.
The good part is that they sell high quality maple and birch veneer cards precut to a business card size. I pay $cdn 2.95 for a pack of 50 cards.
I have setup a jig to engrave 36 cards at a time and it takes 13 minutes at 300dpi and 20 minutes at 600 dpi to engrave 1 jig. I do all this when my machine is idle and i am busy doing other stuff.

Abdul

[Jerry Allen]

Dennis,
This number was given to me for insurance locally (CA). They were 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of other insurers. Shahinian Insurance 800-4562231.
$1M coverage, $75+$15yrly fee.
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[Joe Pelonio]

Dennis,
This number was given to me for insurance locally (CA). They were 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of other insurers. Shahinian Insurance 800-4562231.
$1M coverage, $75+$15yrly fee.
<TABLE style="WIDTH: 103pt; BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=137 border=0 x:str><COLGROUP><COL style="WIDTH: 103pt; mso-width-source: userset; mso-width-alt: 5010" width=137><TBODY><TR style="HEIGHT: 12pt; mso-height-source: userset" height=16><TD class=xl19 style="BORDER-RIGHT: #d4d0c8; BORDER-TOP: #d4d0c8; BORDER-LEFT: #d4d0c8; WIDTH: 103pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #d4d0c8; HEIGHT: 12pt; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" width=137 height=16></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
I didn't know any company names but this must be one of those companies that will insure craft people for liability at shows. My business insurance for a storefront is $1,400/year, $1,000,000 liability plus contents, equipment etc.

On the business cards I charge $1 each for quantities of 50 or less, have not yet had an order for more than that. I use veneer so have to get more because I'm also cutting them on the laser.

[Barbara Buhse]

Tha last business card order I did, I used the alder sheets and did a qty of 250 for $2.50 each, and 250 $1.75 each for rowmark plastic ones.
This year I expect to raise the price about 10%.

Barbara

[Jerry Allen]

I didn't know any company names but this must be one of those companies that will insure craft people for liability at shows. My business insurance for a storefront is $1,400/year, $1,000,000 liability plus contents, equipment etc.


Yes, for craft fairs and shows. Includes certificates, etc.

[Dennis Kotlowski]

Abdul.....Thanks for the info. I ordered 1000 of them today. With shipping included, it puts the cost of the cards at .06 ea. I was buying 12x12 wood veneer sheets and I could do 18 on each sheet which was about .18 per card. Now I can keep the customers cost at under $1.00 per card. I was thinking .75-.80 per card for 100 cards.

Jerry.....That price for the insurance sounds great. I would only need it for a few craft shows. My shop is included with my home owners. Do you know if they insure in any state?

Barbara.....I have done a few of my cards in the red alder sheets from Laserbits but I never thought for what I would have to charge that anybody would buy them. I think that around me somebody would pass out if I told them the cards were $2.50 ea. Do you sell alot of them?


Thanks for the info everyone.....This forum has been great to me since I have joined. I hope that someday I can help out somebody just as much.


Dennis

[Jerry Allen]

Dennis,
Yes.
http://www.shahinianinsurance.com/programs.htm