Much ado about craft fairs !

One good outcome from my recent move, is that,  I found a local community centre which runs a crochet and knitting group amongst other things. They are a friendly bunch of ladies who hang out, chat, have tea, crochet, knit and sew.

So, when they said, they were planning to have a Christmas craft fair, I was all too excited and jumped in. I crocheted some bells, lots of ornaments – wreaths, trees, angels, hearts etc in addition to lots of hearts, angels and wreaths to be used as packaging tags and decorations. Here are some of the things I contributed including the tree top angels on the tree below :

 

How did it go you ask ? A damp squib 😦 Literally ! Everything about it went against my expectations including the weather ! Here is a glimpse of that rather distasteful show !

tree ornaments most mine

 

the white basket is full of tiny angels, hearts wreaths and stars !! all crocheted by me !

And yet, when the centre-in-charge a lovely lady asked if I would like to share a table with her at her children’s school Christmas fair, with unfailing childish enthusiasm I said ‘yes’. I said to myself, this is my fair, my table so it should be fine. But alas ! what do I sell there I asked myself !! I had nothing on hand to display. All that I had made in the past months, I had dumped them all back home during my visit last vacation.

And so, I began to crochet ! Purses, monsters, coasters, desk tidies, gift pouches, greeting card embellishments, bells, tree ornaments, and last but not the least, completed the nativity set which I started to crochet long before I joined the centre.

I had no idea whatsoever about the scale of footfall, and the interest in the product range. So, I went about creating a handful of items in different categories, appealing to different age groups. Here was an opportunity, I thought I could expose my ware to, and seriously put in some hard work. Two weeks time was too short to do anything more.

So, that is my table ! My first solo craft fair !! How did things go ? Did I sell anything ? Of course NOT. Why, did you expect I would ? If you did, then bless you for thinking so 😉 I did not. If at all, I thought, I would make a sale, it would be some kid picking up those monsters and insisting his mom buy it for him !!!  But, as luck would have it, there were no kids at all !!

The only ‘people’ who visited  were ladies who moved around in the heated hall sipping their drinks and filing past each table in disinterested abandon as if it were a compulsory chore 🙂

In retrospect I understand their compulsion !! This was after all on a Friday evening, after school, conducted by the PTA (who are notorious fund raisers through such fairs) and they had to pay an entrance fee too !!! My poor customers, I did not want to add to their burden and let them complete their rounds … err chore !

Lessons learnt ? Plenty. Will I do it again ? Probably. There are more lessons waiting to be learnt 😀