Creating Wonderful Displays for Your HandcraftsWritten by Linda Nigro
Signing up for my first craft show, fulfilled my long time dream of creating something that would be marketable and enjoyed by others. My goal to build a display that would not only enhance my work, but would cause a customer to stop, look & purchase, proved to be a problem. I am sure like others, my misguided thinking, expecting that I would create a wonderfully marvelous display first time around, with props that I would use forever. Thinking I was getting great value for my money invested, I started out with my first display with a look of moss green skirting, burlap with assorted containers made of wicker and tin. I was hmmm....okay with this look, but knew that it just wasn't fabulous, and I wanted fabulous. Being unsure of myself and not knowing how to create a great space, I just left well enough alone. I did take notice at shows I attended, charming and creative booths done so professionally by my fellow crafters. It seemed that this gift of presentation eluded me. One fellow crafter, was very helpful when I openly admired her display. She explained that it wasn't always so, but that her display just evolved. New ideas would form and then they would be incorporated into display till it became what it was that day. The suggestion of building on what was already in place seemed like a good idea, but I was reluctant to replace props with new things, thinking I was throwing good money after bad, but I was missing point about evolving. I entered my second year of selling, when I met a wonderfully talented crafter who did Monet type of painting on all sorts of items from fabric to wood. The beautiful pastel colors were showcased on simple white muslin material, topped with a pretty white on white patterned sheer cloth draped on top. Bellows of white and that soft impressionist type painting was simple, but it was gorgeous. She was a great encourager and got me to thinking about my colorful soaps and how well they would look on a white background. So display #2 was born. Cast away was what now seemed to be dark dreary burlap and in was new, bright white. To cut costs I decided to keep my baskets and just whitewash them and added some silver grid baskets purchased at a dollar store, my lifts were my transport boxes doing second duty. So I created a new look of white tables, whitewashed baskets and a few intermittently placed silver baskets I completed this new change for my next craft show and I was glad I had taken that sound advice. My colorful soaps did look striking up against white fabric. Sales increased and customers and fellow crafters gave rave reviews on my soaps and my display. I was pleased that I had tried something new.
| | Garage Sale Addicts/Modern Day CrusadersWritten by John Lundgren
Title: Garage Sale Addicts Modern Day Crusaders Author: John Lundgren Contact: John Lundgren 518-854-3088 A few centuries ago it was quest for Holy Grail, but today it's "Holy Sale" as garage sale addicts everywhere search for gold in form of lost or unidentified treasures. They do this with a fervor not seen since since real crusade. Great discoveries are announced regularly on "Antique Road Show," where proud crusaders hold up tiny baskets and other finds worth hundreds of dollars. Then they announce to multitudes, " I paid 50 cents for this basket so my little dog Sophie would have a place to sleep." If you don't think stories like this are affecting garage sale landscape, you haven't been to a garage sale recently. On a typical Saturday morning, hoards of garage sale addicts are charging down a street near you! Cars line streets as crusaders pursue impossible dream. But dream is possible after all; they saw it on The Antique Road Show! That lost Winslow Homer, that Shaker chair, that Tiffany master piece is out there, and they are going to find it!
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