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Posts Tagged ‘Auntie B’s Wax’

What Makes A Good Craft Show?

Posted in Craft Business, tagged , on July 5, 2012| 6 Comments »

Someone told me I’d be a good craft show organizer.  After vending at craft festivals and fairs for over ten years I think I can agree.  It would be hard work and I wouldn’t want to be a professional organizer, but one event?  Might be fun.

Most importantly, in my opinion, is that an organizer should actually care about the event.  I could do that.  In fact, I might care too much, for when I take on a project I get pretty enthusiastic about it.

The organizer has to keep others engaged too.  She has to make the event attractive to the vendors as well as the shoppers.  What makes an event attractive to me as a vendor?  Here are some things I came up with in no particular order:

1.  Reasonable booth fee

2.  Ample booth space

3.  Desirable event location

4.  Free donuts and coffee on set-up day!  (Not required, but a definite plus.)

5.  Big crowds ~ Not a predictable factor, but if past attendance is indicated that’s helpful.

6.  Sufficient advertising

Now it’s your turn.   What makes an art/craft show attractive to you as a shopper?  I’ll get you started:

1.  No entrance fee

2.  Entertainment (music, kids’ activities)

3.  Food vendors (if so, what kind of food?)

4.  Good variety of artists, i.e. not heavy on one particular type of art/craft

Are you a vendor?  A shopper?  Both?  What do you look for in an event?  Are you buying for yourself or gifts for others?  Do you like to make an afternoon of it, or do you like to zip in and zip out?

Even though I’m into the show season by now, I’m always looking for a good venue.  Do you have any favorite shows you attend?  I’d love to hear from vendors and shoppers alike!

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Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Wordless Wednesday, tagged , , , on June 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

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Happy Day To All The Moms

Posted in Craft Business, Nostalgia, tagged , , , , on May 11, 2012| 4 Comments »

This Sunday many of us will be honoring mothers or being honored by children…or both!  Hooray for mothers, for without them we would never have the quirky malfunctions of character that make us so loveable!

Oh you know I’m just kidding.  And I know that the 1915 song M-O-T-H-E-R was written about moms exactly like mine.

“M” is for the million things she gave me

“O” means only that she’s growing old

“T” is for the tears she shed to save me

“H” is for her heart of purest gold

“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining

“R” means right, and right she’ll always be

Put them all together and they spell MOTHER, a word that means the world to me.

~Howard Johnson

M-O-T-H-E-R Sheet Music Magnet can be purchased in my Etsy shop by clicking on the picture. You can also buy it (and many others) right here! Click on the Sheet Magnets tab at the top of the page and go from there.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who have given it everything you’ve got!

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Hello, I Must Be Going

Posted in Blogging, Craft Business, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2012| 2 Comments »

More and more I am embracing the sentiment “you can’t have it all.”  Because it’s true, you can’t.  You can’t have it all and you can’t be it all.  And when I say you I mean me.

I’ve been spoiled with time and freedom in my life.  I don’t have a multitude of obligations, I don’t have kids, I have a day job that requires no more than forty hours a week, and I have a husband who is fine with my doing pretty much whatever I want, provided I afford him that same luxury.  When I started Auntie B’s Wax I was free to spend as much or as little time with it as I wanted.

Then came my fascination with blogs.  I was reading The Pioneer Woman before she was famous.  I’m so thrilled with Jenny and her newly published book I want to take her out for a celebratory drink even though I’ve never met the woman.  Donna and her funky junk makes me want to live a completely different lifestyle, as does Corey in France.  The more I grew my business and the more I read blogs the more I realized I must be doing something wrong.

How do they do it?  Those bloggy women are running their businesses, they’re raising families, they present a blog post every day and they all appear to be clean and well-groomed individuals.  (It’s no accident I don’t post my picture on this blog.)

Here’s the thing.  If I hit the homekeeping chores in a way that satisfies me the business suffers.  If I concentrate on the business (which includes keeping my Etsy shop up to date, getting inventory ready for live shows, keeping consignment stores stocked, doing the paperwork, and actually making things to sell), as well as putting out a blog post every day, my house turns into a nasty abode unfit for any creature, human or not.

I don’t have a point with all of this, really.  I’ve just stopped by to say, hello, but I must be going now.  Off to dust off the credenza.  Off to unmold the candles.  Off to make a meal of comfort food.  Off to bead some drink charms.  Even though I know it will never happen, I want to be one of those women who can do it all.  Or at least appear so from your computer screen.

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Silence Is Golden

Posted in Craft Business, Nostalgia, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 3 Comments »

I remember years ago when I was in high school how my dad would be so disgusted at my homework practices.  I usually had the stereo blaring (before the days of iPods) with records or radio.  He was certain I wasn’t giving my school work the concentration it needed.  I would laugh, of course, assuring him I could concentrate much better with my tunes.

Now that I’m older, older than my dad was when he lectured the importance of concentration and focus, I get it.  It seems I’ve developed a sensitivity to noise with my increasing age, especially artifical noise (natural noises like birds chirping or babbling brooks don’t count).  I don’t want to have music constantly streaming through my head.  I don’t want to have the TV on as background noise.  I go completely out of my mind with noises the building makes at my day job, and seriously, what’s with white noise?  It’s incessant and annoying.  I don’t mind hearing people talk to each other in person, but to have to hear someone talking on their cell phone makes me positively insane.  Sometimes I think I’m as bad as The Grinch when he complains about Christmas in Whoville with all the “noise noise noise noise!”

I wonder what it would be like to live with Harpo Marx.  He didn’t speak.  Nice and quiet, with a few exceptions of course.

When I’m home alone I usually don’t turn on music or TV for company.  I don’t sing or hum to myself.  I just enjoy the quiet ~ the quiet I can’t find anywhere else unless I’m completely alone.  The stillness is like a soft pillow, the silence like a downy quilt.  It’s cozy.  It’s quiet.

Of course this isn’t to say I don’t want anyone speaking to me, or amongst themselves.  I wouldn’t enjoy a world completely void of noise.  But every once in a while I’ll turn it all off, think of Harpo, and remember how silence is indeed golden.

Silence is Golden magnet ~ available in my shop. Just click on the picture.

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