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Learn from my years of art & craft show experience

October 6th 2021

I was recently contacted by a very nice lady who is relatively new to art & craft shows. She wanted to pick my brain for any advice I might have, so perfect subject for a blog post!

I’m going to start with the tent, you must have a white tent. Any other color and it’ll distort your product. Blue tent will give everything a blue tinge, green tent green tinge etc… Some of the higher end shows are banning the pop up tents. They’re requiring a dome tent. My preferred dome tent and the easiest for me to set up by myself is the Light Dome by Creative Energies. The poles are made from aluminum, not too heavy and I was able to assemble it alone. The base price for this tent is $950, but you might be able to find a good used one for less. If you do order a new one add at least one zipper for a front awning later on down the line.

As I got older I liked the ease of a pop up tent. The one I chose was the Undercover Canopy I bought mine from Costco online. Free shipping $259 great price! It’s of course white, has Cool Heat Reflective Silver Undercoating, which did help. Some tips I can give about this tent, take the top off when you fold it down to pack it away. That will prevent pinhole leaks it might get from rubbing on the tent frame. If you find like I did that the silver on the walls was too dark, face the silver out and the white in.

I also added 2 tent rails to help stabilize it. They worked really well and were easy to add to the tent legs. Bought them off of Eurmax, as of this writing they are $59.95. Don’t forget to properly weight your tent, 40#’s per leg is recommended. If you’re in a park and it’s not prohibited, stake down your tent.

It’s best if your display is neat and neutral. You want your art to be the star of your booth, not your display. Price everything, nothing annoys a customer more than having to ask what an item costs. If your items are small consider blown up pictures to hang in your booth. I had a banner across the front of my booth with my business name and description along with some pictures. Bought mine off of signs.com

So now onto how I interacted with my customers. Remember not only are you selling your art you’re also selling yourself. If your customers don’t like you they aren’t going to buy from you. I know it’s hard but if you’re having a bad day don’t let it affect how you treat your customers. I always sat inside my booth. I've seen so many potential customers leave a booth when the artist got up out of their chair which was placed outside of the booth to talk to them. Make sure you have a place to sit or stand in your booth. Have all your product packing organized so you can check them out quickly. If you take credit cards, which you really should, have signs listing the cards you take.

Greet every single customer, even the ones standing outside of your booth looking in. Just a simple hello or “how are you doing” will bring them into your booth. Don’t be pushy, let them take their time to look at your art. Tell them you’ll be happy to answer any questions they might have. After that let them browse.

When choosing what to eat or snack on make sure it won’t leave a mess on your clothes and it is easily put aside to take care of your customers. Sandwiches, crackers, cut up fruit etc…

Ok now onto show etiquette, when setting up please completely unload your vehicle, park then start setting up. Get your van, car, truck out of the show site as quickly as you can. Other artists need to get to their booth space to set up also. Same applies during pack down, don’t bring your vehicle in until your booth is completely packed up. That includes the tent, don’t be that exhibitor that blocks the whole row bringing in their van early and taking their sweet time packing up.

Once you’re all set up and ready to open greet your neighbors, if the show doesn’t have booth sitters offer to keep an eye on their booth for potty breaks or when they go get something to eat. Your weekend will be a lot more pleasant if you’re on good terms with your neighbors.

I think that just about covers everything, if you have any questions you think I can help you with don’t hesitate to message me. I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions if I can. If you’ve had a good show and it was well organized don’t forget to thank the promoters and volunteers. They work just as hard if not harder than we do. Oh don’t forget to check the weather before heading out. Have fun, make money and make new friends.

I was copied by the Chinese

September 5th 2020

In late February I started selling a lot of Voodoo Doll incense burners. One night I went to bed thinking I’ll never sell the 17 voodoo dolls I had sitting in inventory, the next morning they were all sold plus some. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on.

A customer informed me that my voodoo dolls were on a chinese website, almightymars and also sent me a link to a FB ad they were running. That explained a lot, too many people have been scammed by these FB ads to trust them. As a consequence they did an image search which led back to me and my website, etsy store and my amazon handmade site. Every last voodoo doll was snatched up.

I had so many requests for more I was having a hard time keeping track of all the orders. Ended up making an email just for the voodoo dolls. I also received a lot of requests for international orders. So many in fact that I spent some time doing research on just how to ship internationally.

My first UK shipment was frustrating but I finally figured out how to do it. Also learned that if you ship to the UK through Etsy sometimes it goes through Global Mail. The package gets shipped to a hub most likely in Miami, then another label is slapped on it with a new tracking number and delivered through Royal Mail. The really annoying part of this whole process is that no one, not me or the customer gets this new tracking number. So lesson learned, no more international shipping through Etsy.

Another thing I learned was that no matter how many times I put a customer’s name on a reserved Etsy listing if that customer didn’t buy it right away someone else would. Ended up having to redo so many reserved listings. Because of all the unintended customers buying other’s voodoo dolls I had to change the process time from 1-2 weeks to 3-5 weeks.

At first I was very upset and angry that my images were stolen by this company. But as the orders started pouring in my anger lessoned and I looked at this situation as a learning experience. It taught me the value of a good ad, reinforced that old saying “spend money to make money”. Forced me to figure out and include international shipping.

A friend of mine sent me an article about what I was going through. It basically said that there’s nothing much you can do if the chinese copy you. Especially if you’re a small business. Also stated that if you are copied by the chinese congratulations you apparently have a winning product that garnered their attention. She also suggested I send them a thank you card, don’t think I’ll be doing that tho.

Since this happened I’ve been watermarking all my new images, I know this isn’t foolproof but it makes me feel better. I’ve been getting requests for Sugar Skull Girls and Plague Drs, sure enough they copied those also.

What could have been a fiasco turned out not so bad. I've gained a lot more customers and followers. More people are now aware of my art. I'm almost as busy as when I was doing shows but without the added stress. I’m also looking into FB ads apparently those really work.

Thinking outside of the Box

Dealing with a Pandemic

October 9th 2020

So many of you are probably aware that for years, too many to comfortably count, I was doing shows and festivals all over the South Eastern States. Then covid happened. My very last show in 2020 was at New Smyrna Beach, The Art Fiesta at the end of Feburary. It was a great show and I was looking forward to 2 FL shows in March. We all know how that turned out.

So there I was sitting on a lot of inventory and clay with nowhere to go. Forced me to think outside of the box. A good friend of mine Susan Sorrentino has had an Etsy shop for many years, you should really look her shop up. So I naturally looked to her for advice on how to make a profitable Etsy shop. She had a wealth of information that she shared with me.

So I started my Etsy shop with 12 items as of me writing this I'm up to 83. I got a lot of good advice and feedback from my customers. Started branching out into other areas.

Did you know how popular garden items are? I didn't, my toad homes are the best sellers of all the things in my Etsy shop. Next up are the garden mushrooms. Who knew I certainly didn't!!

I've been making enough through my online sales to not feel the sting of all those cancelled shows anymore. Some of which are starting up again.

But here's the thing, I'm enjoying not traveling 2 - 3 times a month. I like not having to try to find a decent, affordable, pet friendly safe hotel to stay in. I really like not having to put out hundreds of dollars a month for shows that will take place 3-5 months from the time I pay for them.

I'm enjoying staying home in my small slice of woods with my husband, 3 cats and 2 dogs. We're isolated enough that we don't have any neighbors. I walk out on my deck and all I see are trees.

I may decide to do some shows in the future but not many and certainly not until this virus is under control. I'm 61 and Ernie is 65 as well as being immune compromised.

The pandemic forced me to slow down, re-evaluate my life and how I make a living. Jeez it even opened my eyes to toad homes and garden art!! I'm more relaxed now then I have been in years.

What I miss the most from the shows are my customers and interacting with them. But I don't miss the stress or the hours on the road.

So in a nutshell I'll never again do the amount of festivals I was doing before the pandemic, but I will eventually do some. I now have the luxury to pick and choose which shows I want to do thanks to my awesome customers and Susan.

I look forward to seeing you guys again in the future.

March 9th 2021

Transitioning from Art & Craft shows to online sales

One would think that going strictly to online sales would make one’s life easier. After all you no longer had to look for shows to do, research the demographics of the area, search for decent pet friendly hotels at an affordable price.

Do production work, then paint all that finished product. Load the van using your check list so you don’t yet again leave vital items at home. Drive many hours to the show site, check in and get your spot number. Unload and set up the dog kennel to get Chloe safely inside.

Then unload the van, husband parks it while I start setting up the booth, about 1.5 hours. Wake up at 5am, take Chloe out then feed her. Hunt down coffee and breakfast. Drive to the show, park in the artist's lot. Trek to the booth and finish setting up, another 2-3 hours depending on how much we got done the night before. By the time I open my booth I’m already exhausted!

Once the show closes everyone is trying to get their vehicles in to breakdown and load up. We usually break down completely before we try to bring the van in. This process takes us anywhere from 1-2 hours depending on how much product is left to pack up.

Then it’s back to the hotel for one more night, we are much too old now to be driving all night long. Monday we’re back on the road driving home. Once home I unload the empty boxes and start this process all over again.

Transitioning to online sales was a learning process. I had a website but it didn’t get a lot of traffic so I turned to Etsy. Etsy allows you 10 pictures and one short no audio video for 5-15 seconds. Good pictures are a must when selling online.

My phone didn’t have the best camera so I bought a used Pixel 3 strictly for product pics. A cheap white box that I’ve since had to upgrade. A bluetooth shutter button and a small turntable. Fortunately I already had a tripod with a phone mount.

I try to take at least one picture outside, the rest are inside using the whitebox. I spend about 1-2 hours taking the pictures and video. Then they upload to google photos which I then download to my laptop in the work folder.

I’m now ready to start editing my photos. They need to be cropped, maybe rotated and most likely brightened up. If I have a piece that burns backflow and regular incense I have to stitch together 2 short videos. My go to online source for that is Adobe Spark. Very easy to use once you get past all the templates.

Once all of that is done I start uploading to Etsy, video first cause that will take the longest. The hardest part of selling on Etsy is figuring out SEO (search engine optimization). This involves your title, longtail keywords such as “Wizard Incense Burner” and description. I have to come up with 13 keywords. Which really stumped me at first but I’ve gotten better at it.

Now I have to figure out the price, Etsy really likes it when you offer free shipping, that alone moves you up in the search engine. So I found a site that will calculate all of Etsy’s fees plus shipping to get to your bottom line. Very handy so glad someone posted a link to it on FB. Whew, once that’s all done I now have to contend with social media and uploading the new piece to my website, the virtual art show I’m selling on Eventeny and my google business page. For social media I again turn to Adobe Spark, I can piece together a short video that I upload to Tiktok, which then shoots it over to Instagram which is connected to FB. So one video upload hits all 3 platforms. This whole process takes me all day start to finish.

It was interesting to say the least moving to online sales, but I managed. I’m very thankful for Etsy. It has allowed my husband and I to stay home and safe during these dangerous times. We’ve been able to take care of and provide a home to 3 new kitties, 2 ferals and one rescue. If I was still doing shows we never would’ve been able to take them on. We would’ve missed out on the joy of having these cats in our lives.

Once it’s safe to get back out there I plan on only doing 4 shows a year at the most. One in FL, one in KY, one in GA and the last one in NC. Hope to see some of you at one of those, until then please stay safe and healthy.

January 6 2025

My Justice for Artist Experience

One of my earlier blog posts detailed how I was copied by the Chinese. Last year I was

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