Just say No to the VFW Hall

Four years ago I did my first craft show in a VFW hall. At the time, I was making jewelry from fishing lures, gumball machine ninja toys and wine corks that I found on the street. I had sold a few on my website and was super excited to show them to the buying public in person at a real craft show!

After a long day of sitting in front of my stuff, I had sold one hot pink glow in the dark fishing lure necklace to a 6-year-old girl. And her mother wasn’t impressed by the purchase. I had also heard not one, but two ladies say, “Yuck,” to my creations. I was crushed. I was horrified. But most of all, I was surprised. Were all craft shows so darn lame? And what would I do with the 45 ninja necklaces that I had made?

Later that year, I pushed aside my fear of the craft show when I heard about the first Crafty Bastards Arts and Crafts Fair. I applied and got in! I remember on the way to the show, my husband said to me, “Now, Tina, it is ok if you don’t sell anything,” reminding me of the VFW hall. Little did he know that I would sell nearly everything that day. And the world of indie craft fairs was opened up to me.

Three Crafty Bastards under my belt, a handful of smaller local events and I am ready to take my stuff on the road. Only 8 days from now I will be setting up at the Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia, PA, along with 100 of the coolest makers in the country. What is totally rad about getting into a juried indie craft fair is that odds are at least one person is going to think your stuff is amazing. And if it is a good day, more than one. Maybe 10 or 50 or 100 people will totally love what you do. This makes for a bit of pressure when preparing. I am always asking myself, “What if someone wants this zombie shirt in a 3XL? What if I haven’t made enough of this design in aqua? Will anyone even react to this new shirt?”

So my kitchen table silk screening station is in full production mode with nearly 100 t-shirts to silkscreen with various designs. My aging Print Gocco machine is ready to retire for a lovely new orange model, but not just yet. First she has to get me through these next 8 days. Since I am a mom to twin two-year-olds, I stay up late into the night making things. At around 1 this morning, I wondered how many of the 100 other vendors at Art Star were up right then, making and making and making. What an amazing shared experience we are all having. And lucky for us, with indie craft fairs popping up across the country, we never have to set foot in another VFW hall again.

Tina Seamonster blogs her life and craft at http://www.ilikeseamonsters.com