How I Fared at my First Craft Fair

I can’t believe it has been four days since I had my stall at The Made-It Market in Cambridge and I haven’t blogged about it yet! In my defense, it has been lovely just unwinding and doing nothing after work these past three days, after the manic run-up to the fair when I was burning my candle at both ends.

The fair was really good fun. I don’t know who was more nervous, The Boy or I, as we drove there in the morning, but he was a great little helper to me setting my stall up. I was a little surprised at the size of my table, as it had been described as 6′ long, but was definitely smaller than this, and I had far too much stock (I think because I had been worrying that I didn’t have enough, I over-compensated and made waaay too much), but we got it all set up and looking inviting. Once the doors opened at 10am there was a steady stream of people, and it didn’t stop or slow down until the end of the day at 5pm. There was a lovely atmosphere, most people seemed in happy relaxed moods, willing to take their time looking at everything on all the stalls, chatting away to their companions and stall-holders. I received plenty of lovely compliments and regular customers, and lots of members of my lovely family turned up to support me and take over occasionally! I’m really grateful I have such a loving supportive family on my side, I was such a bag of nerves that day!

While my sister was manning the stall I took the opportunity to look around at all the other sellers and was amazed by all the talent and at the quality of the whole fair,  it was really nice seeing that there are so many other people like me who love making things and being creative. Everyone seemed very friendly, although my shyness prevented me from actually talking to many other stallholders (I need to work on that, something for next year perhaps?).

my mini-bunting kits

the snack sacks before they sold out

I have learnt a lot from my first craft fair experience, and am hoping to have a stall at the same fair next November. The first things to sell out were the roll-up car carry cases, I only made two of them and they were both sold by 11am, and the roll-up spanner cases also all sold quite quickly. I sold ten of my 12 mini-bunting kits and all of the snack sacks. The oven gloves were a big hit and so were the crystal snowflakes, and I really should have had more iphone cases as loads of people wanted one and kept asking me if I had any more. The things that didn’t sell as well as I thought were the large shoulder bags, I made five of them and only sold two. They got a lot of attention and fingering, so maybe the were just a bit too expensive or something, I don’t know. My money apron worked perfectly by the way, and I didn’t run out of small change, so that was a good thing!

It was only when I was packing up at the end of the day that I really noticed how much stock I had actually sold, and once I counted up the money I was happy to declare the fair a success and take the boys out to the Noodle Bar for dinner 🙂

Thank you to everyone who supported me, helped me, put up with my constant sewing, and bought things from my stall, you all helped to make it a success!