Making Crafts for Craft Shows ...

I've been very busy lately, and having a B*L*A*S*T doing it!  Anyone who crafts knows how much fun it is to give up a day just to play with your supplies, and I've been doing a lot of that these days!  I did a craft show in a small town north of here the first two weeks of October, and I have to say my little paper things sold quite well!  As did the hand crocheted cotton dish cloths. 

Now I have another festival on Saturday - just for a few hours, and then the first weekend in November I am doing a show in a small mountain town an hour or so north of here.  And after my things sold so well a few weeks ago, I needed some new stock!  One thing that sold very well were tags and bookmarks.  Another was Christmas gift tags.  So since Christmas is just around the bend, I've made a nice supply of the gift tags.  Here are some examples ...

Aren't they cute?  I used vintage images from either Flickr or a collage set I bought from an Etsy vendor (snow people), scraps of ribbon and lace, lots of Stickles, and inexpensive Christmas papers.

One new thing that I made were some very cute 'Candle Jars' that I first saw on the cover of the November/December Paper Crafts Magazine.  The first moment I laid eyes on them I 'KNEW' that I wanted to make some for craft shows!  My mama gave me the jars, I found a dozen candle holders on Amazon (not cheap, but not too much), and I traded some of my dish cloths with my friend Sue to get the battery powered candle tea lights.  The ones with stuff inside are for display only - you don't get that as part of the jar!  Before the show I'm going to get some starlight mints to put in a couple of them, too! 

The candle fits in the top part, and you can fill the bottom with ornaments, candy, or anything you want!  The papers I used for these are from Graphics 45.



One of my favorite projects for this year is this Christmas banner ...

This is made up of parts cut using my Cricut Expression and my very favorite cartridge, Elegant Edges.  Note the red organza ribbon is shimmery and glittery and that matches the red drop baubles that drop off of the bottom of the letters.   This is two parts that go together, and you could hang them on your mantle, a mirror, your front door (if it's protected from rain) or even on your Christmas tree.

And then there are the poinsettia tags.  These are not hard to make, but I always end up with TONS of glue on my fingers when I make these.

One thing I've found about doing craft shows, and that is that how you display things can make a big difference in how they sell.  Another thing I've learned is that the more suggestions for ways to use your products, the more likely you are to sell them!

So, with that in mind, I took a plain brown paper gift bag, lined it with red tissue, and tied one tag to the handle with jute twine.  Then I stuck the packages of tags in the bag with a couple sticking up out of the bag.  This will do two things - make a cute display, and give the customers an idea of how very pretty, easy, and inexpensive gift wrapping can be!

So that's a few of the things I've been making for my upcoming craft shows.  Which do you like best?  Which do you want to learn how to do???  I'll be doing a tutorial on making the poinsettia tags on Friendship's Garden Challenge in a few weeks, so keep tuned for more info on that!

Have a wonderful fall weekend, folks!  Blessings, Becky