Guest Post - anything once: selling crafty wares at the swap meet

This guest post comes from my mother, who I will prattle on about on Sunday. 

I have always had a distinct propensity toward being a very crafty person. This is apparently a fruit that has been shaken from my family tree: my mother always had a “project in the works,” and my grandmother’s fingers pretty knit, crocheted, and tatted (yes, it IS a lost art) until her fingers wouldn’t work any longer. But underneath all the saved toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners and pretty scraps of yarn, I have always wanted to sell my wares at “ye old craft faire.” Okay, there really isn’t a local “craft faire” here in California, but “ye old swap meet” just doesn’t quite have the crafting ring to it.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to my mother, “Mother’s Day is coming up in two weeks and I would love to sell craft stuff at the swap meet,” and she quickly responded, “Let’s do it!” I ventured down on a weekend to the swap meet to make our $40.00 reservation. I was rewarded with a permit for a 10ft x 10ft stall that we could turn into an adorable Mother’s Day crafting oasis.

We proceeded to think of the swap meet as our personal crafting quest, crafting like CRAZY for those two weeks.  My mom made charming coin purses and she even made a “ring-keeper,” a latex glove stuffed with quilt batting and a ribbon with lace around the end of it. She made one as a test product and brought the “ingredients” with us to make more if they actually sold. I created a whole bouquet of BIC pens from the 99-cent store (10 pens for a dollar? Do you see profit in my future?), wrapped them with yarn and put a button on the end – soft, cute, funky, who wouldn’t have to have one of these for their beloved mother? I folded endless origami bookmarks and put together sweet gift bags of matches and smelly candles. We had such a precious array of inexpensive items starting at 50 cents and topping out at $3.00. We were sure to make billions of dollars.

The morning of our adventure, I picked up my mom and discovered we had both gotten up early almost as excited as any kid on Christmas morning. We came back to our house and my husband, Timmy, helped us pack up the pick-up, and we headed out to the swap meet. We had no idea what to expect, but we were in this together and regardless of the two week prep period we felt confident that all who saw our booth would feel sufficiently reminded or guilted into remembering their mom with the purchase of an item from this sweet little booth.

This single space booth, no matter how charming, was dwarfed against the backdrop of double-wide spaces exhibiting tool vendors, second-hand paraphernalia and knock-off name brand handbags and apparel. We felt tiny, mostly invisible, yet satisfied since we were not making a living from this. Every once in a while someone would come by and comment – “what a great idea” or “how adorable” – as they touched our handy crafts, smiled and possibly bought a little item. But most walked away. Parades of people came and went in a human wave as we pondered what we learned from this crafting excursion:

1.     Know your customers. If we had perused the event prior to being a participant, we might have noticed that there were NO other “crafters” in any of the aisles. (hmmm, good to know…)

2.     If possible, try not to be sandwiched between a booth that hides you completely and a booth that people will walk through YOURS to get to. (We got asked about prices for the merchandise next door many times throughout the day. If we’d been on commission it would have been great!)

3.     Attitude, attitude, attitude. Why were we there? To make money? Or to enjoy the lovely weather, people watch and maybe do something we’ve always wanted to do, with someone we love doing things with, for adventure?

Since we followed point three on this list and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, I would deem this “anything once” as a success so, we told each other to…

"Give yourself a hand!"

(Yes, those jokes were going ALL day and were an endless source of amusement.)