May Craft Show, Etsy Happenings, EstNJ

Hi everyone! I just finished up with a few last minute (okay a couple of days in the making) additions for tomorrow's craft show in Manahawkin, NJ. I made some polymer clay heart pins and a few other poly clay pieces. The pins are very cute and hopefully I'll have a moment to take a couple pictures of them before the show starts. If any come home with me after the show I'll be sure to get some pictures up on Monday's blog, before I add them to my Etsy shop.

My shop will be inactivated all day tomorrow, and I'll be back up and running on Etsy during the evening. If you happen to be in the area and attend the show, do stop by my table and say Hi!!

One of my pieces are shown on the EtsyNJ street team blog...
http://etsynj.blogspot.com/

The EtsyNJ street team donated quite a few pieces of handmade items to make a beautiful basket which was auctioned off for a very worthy cause. Please take a look at the wonderful basket everyone contributed to, along with the very happy winner of the basket!

Well, I'm pretty much all packed up, hubby is loading my tables as I blog and it's time to get some shut-eye...
til nest time...
R

Spring Craft Shows, Etsy- April Report, New Creations

Hi everyone! It's been about a week since my last blog entry and I just wanted to catch up.

I'll start with my upcoming craft show this weekend in Manahawkin, NJ. The show will be held on May 3, at the Southern Regional High School, starting at 10am. Shows at this location do very well traffic-wise. It's located on a major road in Ocean County (Route 9) and in past shows in Manahawkin, I've been able to compete well against other jewelry vendors.

I have added some hair accessories for this show (Inexpensive, fun and colorful) along with some pretty earrings in a price range that will attract younger girls. I've done very well selling many lower end items at this type of show and it's always been the difference between a weak show and one that wasn't too bad. I find Mom's love the lower end items for the little girls, especially when they are buying one of my sea glass items...it's easy (on the pocketbook) to make their daughter happy with a small $5 pair of earrings or $4 hair-tie.

The weather is supposed to be overcast for Saturday, with a chance of rain...hopefully the weather doesn't prevent the traffic from coming to the show!

As April winds down, it's been another slow month on Etsy. Sales haven't been coming as fast and furious as they did in January and February, but they still trickle in. The positive about Etsy is the changes to the site that are being made...IMO, these changes will benefit my shop and items. The changes will allow my items to stay on or near the top pages of the category longer, no that they will be removing the supplies from the jewelry sub-categories.

This change makes a lot of sense, as buyers will know be able to see what they are searching for, rather then 7 straight listings of supplies. It can't possibly be a good thing for a buyer who's looking for bracelets, to see listing after listing of loose buttons, and other supplies for making bracelets. It certainly isn't good for a seller's items when they quickly get pushed off the top couple of pages, because a supply seller has put on a half-dozen button listings.

Once again, I have several new sea glass creations for this weekend's show, along with already mentioned hair accessories and lower-end earrings ( I say lower end because of the price point, not the looks or quality) I also have a few new polymer clay pendants ready for this show and I'll soon be starting a couple with etchings, to be hand-painted. These pieces that were very popular last year.

That's it for today's blog, I'll somehow update between my boys baseball games later this week...I hope : )

til next time...

R

Handmade Faire Craft Show

I went to my first craft show in quite some time as a customer this past weekend. The Handmade Faire show was held in Waretown, NJ and the first impression of the show was...I So Want To Do This Show Next Year!!!
There were 20+ members of the Etsy NJ street team selling at the show and the show's promoter... AbbieRoad.etsy.com (please go visit her shop!) did a wonderful job of selecting a wide variety of vendors and the quality of the items were among the best I've seen in recent memory at a south NJ show.
The layout was great, the turnout seemed to be steady during the time I was there and of course the Etsy members were very friendly. It was a lot of fun to meet many Etsy members that I previously only met through the site forums, such as SeahorseDesigns, NiftyPear and so many others. It was also great to say Hi to old friends like South Pacific Body and Little Pies again

The show was the first annual and I can't wait for next year's show...

Now I need to go promote and list a few new creations....I have to pay for everything I bought at the show yesterday...LOL

Craft Shows, New Items, Craft Networking...

My first craft show of the spring season was yesterday. It wasn't a very good show, turnout wise. The cloudy, rainy cold weather we've had along the Jersey shore recently had much to do with the turnout. After a cloudy, rainy, WARM Saturday, the sun finally made an appearance on Sunday. While it was much colder than the previous day, it was still nice enough to get outside and do things outside the house. There were sooo many people going out for walks and exercising (my hubby took the boys for a beachcombing trek and there quite a few people walking on the beach, fishing, etc) so, I think the nice day became a huge factor in the weak turnout.
The show also had many vendors selling jewelry. As a seller of jewelry, it's nice when shows limit the amount of jewelry they allow in the show. The promoters of this show didn't and there were some customers complaining about all the jewelry. So while I didn't have a good show, I did make back my table money and made a bit of a profit, but it certainly wasn't worth my time and effort. It could have been worse, but I think I'll have to pass on this spring show next year.

I made several new items for this show, including a bunch of new sea glass creations...bracelets, necklaces and earrings. One of the necklaces sold, along with a necklace from my Etsy shop (that had about a dozen hearts) and I sold a couple pairs of beach glass earrings. My beach glass items did draw a lot of attention and many of those people took a business card, so hopefully I make an Etsy sale or 2 from this show.

Craft networking... this is an interesting topic and one that I read quite a bit about in the Etsy forums. Networking outside of the the forums and does it work? It's worked for me, as I've made a few sales through these forums and discussed crafting, shows, Etsy. It's way to discuss things on a more personal basis than the Etsy forums, where sometimes you can end up talking with 20 people. Some of these social networking sites take up a little time each week, but they really do work and can often result in a new Etsy customer or three!

I came across this site about a month ago.... http://home.bigcrumbs.com/RideTheWave
I often surf Ebay for items or supplies I can use in my crafts. Some of the most-respected sea glass sellers sell jewelry quality pieces on Ebay and the link above, allows me to get cash back on my Ebay auction purchases!
I also just order a crafting magazine from one of the other sites affiliated with this program and my final cost for a magazine that I have purchased from the store fro $3.99 an issue... 1 year/8 issues for $9.90 after receiving my cash back rebate! (the subscription cost $12.00 minus a $2.10 rebate!) I get cash back when I buy from 230+ well-known company sites!
I'm doing nothing different, except getting cash back now....Very Cool and it's totally FREE!

Til next time...
R