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…
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| "Give yourself a hand!" |
(Yes, those jokes were going ALL
day and were an endless source of amusement.)
