Out of the Blue Craft Fair

I had a fab day in Edinburgh yesterday at the Out of the Blue Arts Market in the Drill Hall. It’s a great venue – nice and bright and airy. I got a great stall location too and felt very lucky to be in the main thoroughfare – it was terribly chilly though so I kept my cardigan/coat on all day. Music played all day and the cafe was always full to the brim with people and so there was a constant stream of customers with only a few lulls here and there throughout the day.

Sales were good, but not as good as I had hoped, but I think that’s down to the fact that I spent a lot of time chatting to friends and people I hadn’t seen for ages and ages and neglected the ‘selling’ aspect of the day from time to time. I know if I had been fully focused on selling all day, sales would’ve been better. But I’m really happy with how it went as I got to see old friends, make new friends and also had a few wholesale enquiries and lots of orders for my rings. I even got asked to do another craft fair in Edinburgh in November, so I got a lot out of the event and really glad I did it.

I am a bit confused about the stalls though as I paid for a standard stall without any wall hanging space, but it seemed that all the stalls came with wall hanging space – so I must query that so I know for next time as it would’ve been great to be able to hang up some of my garlands and paper wreaths. I must find out when the next event is as I’d definitely do it again, but might wear my thermals next time around.

Here are some pics of my lovely stall.

You’ll notice that I’ve changed my presentation a bit as for the first time ever I didn’t use my Milomade board with the painted on logo. I decided to go unbranded as my brand is on most of my products and so I think it’s quite obvious who the stall belongs to. I’m thinking of making/sewing myself either some bunting to run along the edge of my table or some sort of sign that I can attach to the front of my stall from now on.

I like the simplicity of this new look stall and I love my new choker stands. I got a cardboard tube from a local carpet warehouse and cut it into 4 pieces. Then I painted them white and screwed in little hooks to hang things from. I think they look great although I can still see paint strokes, so might need to get the roller out and give them one last coat before my next fair.

I also love my new suitcase display – this is something I found in a charity shop for £8 and as luck would have it my IKEA hair bobble tray fits into it perfectly – it’s like a match made in heaven and adds an extra dimension to the presentation – I love it when things are on different levels as it makes your eye move around the stall more and explore and discover stuff. I had tons of positive comments about my presentation style – it’s great to get feedback from customers about this and I’m happy that people love my stall and the way I display my wares.

And some pics of fellow stall holders… Kinghorn Glass Studio and Materialised.

I love Julia’s stall – she has an old doll’s house as part of her display and if you stand in the right spot you get a great whiff of lavender up your nostrils from her lovely little scented bags decorated with lovely moths and cats and other animals. I especially like her cats and if you hop on over to her online shop you’ll find Frisky the Kitty amongst others:

Fab!

Another stall I wish I’d gone back to at the end of the day to buy stuff from was the one run by glass artist Min Fidler. She had a range of beautifully hand crafted beads, but what really caught my eye were her little animals, especially the cats and dogs. I wanted to go and buy one at the end of the day but we had to pack up really quickly and vacate the space as the Ready Steady Jewel auction was on that evening, so I didn’t have time. I’m going to email her a piccy of Abee and see if she can make me a little black and white dog bead. Here are some examples of her cats!