My First Vendor Fair Experience

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Good morning crafters! I want to share with you my first vendor fair experience. I’ll recap all my prep work, what my day was like and then my reflections. Now I have been to a bazillion craft fairs in the past and thought this would be fun. I started researching how to have a successful fair day and soon discovered a vendor fair is not a traditional craft fair. A vendor fair is really for direct sales companies like Tupperware or Avon. However, as a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator I’m a little of both. I am a direct sales demonstrator and what I sell is used to make crafts.

The prep work

For my first vendor fair I needed inventory. (duh!) But what inventory was the most popular? A search on google wasn’t very helpful but to say food is always a good choice. So next I got on Facebook and found Craft Fairs Stampin’ Style group page. They were amazingly helpful. It is a very active group and share pictures of what they’re working on and their craft fair experiences.

The first thing I made were these adorable mini coffee cups. You can read my earlier post about them HERE.

Next I decided on Friendship Tea. Sometimes it’s called Russian Tea because it’s made with Tang. Tang is the drink astronauts took in space sharing it with the Russian Cosmonaunts . At least that’s what I read somewhere. I just called it Friendship Tea.

Friendship Tea:

1 cup Tang
1 cup lemonade mix
1/2 cup instant tea
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground clove

makes 4 cups

I made a Christmas organizer

altered composition notebooks

post it note holders with pen. I have a previous post about these HERE

binderclip photo holders

jumbo paperclip bookmarks

and of course greeting cards

After I thought I had enough inventory for my first vendor fair it was on to the display booth. The research all said it needed height and open for people to feel welcome. I decided on two tables in an L shape and a chicken wire folding screen to hang my greeting cards. I wanted it bright and cheery and so decided on the color yellow for my theme.

The folding screen was a much bigger project than I had planned and wrote about it HERE.

I had my banner made at an office supply store along with matching business cards.

I then packed it all up the night before.

The big day

I was so nervous it took me forever to fall asleep and then I was wide awake at 4:30 am. I decided to go ahead and get up and have a good breakfast, check email and surf the internet until my friend arrived. She came with coffee (bless her heart) and we were off.

We got to the fair a little early but the coordinator let us in and showed us my spot. I was concerned with the size of the space she had given and so she moved me to the corner and that was perfect. It took us about an hour to set up and so with the extra time we walked around and met some of the other vendors. I made friends with Courtney who sells USborne books and Melissa who sells Perfectly Posh.

The fair was hosted by SNAP, special needs assistance partners and this was their first event too. I will say the turn out was a little sparse but for a first timer myself it was just enough for me.

My mini coffee cups were my best seller and I’m excited about making Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas one’s for my next three events.

After all was said and done I ended up with a profit of 115$. I know that’s not much but it’s more than zero and my next events are actual craft fairs. So I’m happy. Oh also I got 15 people signed up on my email list and I love that.

And mostly I want to thank Dawn Ziesmer for giving up her Saturday morning to help me set up. You are an awesome friend! I couldn’t have done it without you.

My Reflections

I am so glad I took the leap and entered my first vendor fair event. It took a lot of time preparing for this first one but now that I have it under my belt the future ones should be much easier. Next year I think I will have a make and take at actual vendor fairs and not so much product for sale. My main goal was to get people interested in coming to my card making class and I did not get anyone signed up for that. I had a great day and look forward to my next event which is September 30 in two months. It is a craft fair at a church so I want a lot of product for that one, especially Christmas themed products.

If you are in the area I would love to meet you. Details where I’ll be are listed below.