The Last Craft Fair

For the fourth time, we printed the signs, packed up the baskets and trays, loaded the goods into the car with the card table and my grandmother’s tablecloth, and hit the road for the craft fair. Today was the fourth one this fall. We have done four towns, both upscale and blue collar, with merchandise in every price point.

So far the outlay is about $125, and we have sold only one item for $7.50.

Everybody loved the stuff, thought it was fairly priced, oohed and ahhed over how cute, etc. Then they all went somewhere else to spend their money. One woman wanted to buy things with a Visa card. At a craft fair at a church. I ask you . . . .

Food sold well at all the fairs. Cupcakes for $.25. Can you make money selling a cupcake for $.25? My daughters are convinced that most of the vendors do fairs as a hobby rather than a money-making enterprise.

So, I am giving up the Craft Fair

Perspective, Perspective . . .

Shopping site for Alyson: http://www.alyson2.etsy.com/

So, as I was kvetching about our troubles, I got a reality check. My sister-in-law has a mentor and friend whose son’s wife just went into the hospital to deliver their first child. During the delivery her heart failed, and when she woke up her heart had been removed and she was hooked up to a mechanical heart. Can you imagine how devastating? Now they are awaiting a heart for transplant. The baby is fine, and I know that is a blessing, but how can I complain about my minor problems in the face of such actual suffering?

Life keeps on keeping on anyway, and this weekend I am putting my work in a local craft fair at our Town’s annual “Pumpkinfest.” My daughters are going to “man” the booth. I have gotten a folding bridge table, vintage linens to drape over it, and many, many pincushions to sell. I decided to make the sock monkeys into toddler toys, and now each one has a little booklet from the pictured monkey directly to the recipient child. They are just adorable, if I do say so. I can’t imagine that some of them won’t find new homes. I am told that their is quite a subculture of monkey-loving children. I hope it is true, because I surely have a lot of tiny monkey pillows. I also have now made over 60 more pincushions that I haven’t placed in my shop. I will wait until the craft fair is over to list those. I tried to explain today why I can’t stop making these things, and I think it’s because it’s a project totally within my control. Nothing else in my life is. Unemployment is not something I can influence or change. But a pincushion. A bit of fabric, a bit of fluff, an old button, and VOILA! A small piece of control.

If anyone is reading this, please post and tell us why you create, and what you create. I am so interested in what women do to express joy in their lives, and to cope with negativity. Be of good cheer, all of you.