Sterlingfest

I did it. Mission completion! Yesterday was Sterlingfest and I pulled off a successful booth selling my handmade jewelry. This was a big deal for me. I'm not sure I even let myself think about how big a deal it was, really, until it was done. ... I won't get too existential on you... but yesterday I felt really... proud of myself. Amazed that I could do something like that. Happy with my accomplishment.

Sales weren't great. The vendors all seemed to agree that this day was full of more "lookers" than "buyers". But it was a success none the less. I got lots of compliments, handed out lots of my business cards, and made a semi-respectable amount of sales. Sure, I wish I'd sold more. I'd have loved to come home with no jewelry at all left! But I feel good about it anyway. I think my booth set-up was a total success and I really enjoyed the day. I had two girlfriends there with me most of the day so we had fun chatting. The weather was a gorgeous mid-to-high 70's. I would have baked in the sun had it not been for the canopy.

Here's a pretty awful photo of me in front of my booth.



This table had most of my jewelry on it. The other table had my pendants, the socks my Mom beaded, and my friends "Southern Living" catalog.

Here's a close up of the beautiful necklace tree that my Dad made for me. I got plenty of compliments on the beautiful pieces he made from the other jewelry vendors (who all stopped by before it started and seem duly intimidated by ME!)

The other table with the great socks and a few other miscellaneous "Chic Made" things.
Here's a close up of one of the bracelet displays my Dad made and how I set out some matching sets on the table.

The bracelets that were laying on the table actually seemed to sell better than the ones of the great wooden displays. I think people liked being able to see the whole thing and touch and feel a little easier. I started rotating them between the table and the display about half way through.

My best-sellers were child and baby sized bracelets and the $4 earrings. I think this event really had more of a "free entertainment for the family" vibe than a "shop till you drop" vibe and I think that was part of my downfall. People were buying tokens to remember the day by - not investing in jewelry. I started mentioning Christmas gifts in my "schpeel" and I think I made one extra sale that way. And I did make at least one sale because I was willing to "customize" (I added a photo frame to a bracelet). I even got an extra sale by pointing out matching earrings to go with her bracelet. I think I was a pretty good sales-lady. I also spoke with a couple of people about doing real custom pieces totally from scratch. We'll see if those people ever get back to me though.

All in all - a success. I think I could happily be one of those people who does a "fair" every weekend. But that's just not going to happen at this point in my life. I think I'm going to sign up for a local craft fair in March that was mentioned to me. A couple of these a year is all I can pull off right now I think. I'll stick to Etsy. One, I was seriously stressed leading up to this. Two, it took up an entire Saturday which is valuable property to my young family. And three, did I mention I was seriously stressed? I really didn't sleep well all week leading up to this.