Peddling My Wares

Today I shall attempt to sell my stuff at IDM Boston.  This market is unlike most of the craft shows that I have seen, but I can't really say why. Luckily, someone else can, so here is their description:

Independent Designer's Market/ IDM Boston is a new retail shopping experience where independent designers and artists come together to show and sell their work.  Often, artists struggle to find a venue to be seen and the community is not sure where or how to find and support its artists. IDM is bridging this gap by uniting both in its new, easily accessible Harvard Square location: 30 Brattle St., Cambridge.

Simply, it's a place I can sell thangs and people can see my creations in person (which is nice).  I've known for over a month that I was going to participate this weekend.  However, since I had participated in this show before, I hadn't really planned to do anything different.  I assumed I could take a few minutes the night before to round up all my merchandise/fixtures, throw them in the car, and then be all set to go the next morning.


Fast forward to last night.  I decide that my table is barren and I need some new displays to make it look more interesting. I zoom off to Goodwill, 'cause that's how I roll.  I was lucky and found 2 awesome vintage luggage type things to utilize in my display (I'll go over these in more detail in a future post) and a metal CD stand to tape pictures of examples of custom luggage tags to (actually nicer than it sounds. I hope.).  Then I'm all, Hey! If my table top was higher, it would be closer to eye level, so people could better see the awesomeness of my crap!


So, I go to WalMart.  Since I've moved to Boston, I really don't go to WalMart. It sucks. While living in Georgia I would go to WalMart every freaking day. It was not odd for me to visit the store 3 times in one GD day.  I still hated it in GA, but they just had everything that I needed, all the time!  I guess since I've moved, I don't need anything, so I avoid WalMart at all costs.  It's just so hick, even in Boston. And by hick I really mean annoyingly crowded (don't ask me how that works...).  Anyway! I go to WalMart and get some plastic bed risers that raise the height of my table by over 5" (That's what she said?).


You probably wouldn't think it would take that long to throw some stuff on a table, add the merchandise, and create cute signage, but it does, Gandalf, it does. (Sorry, *horrible* Return of the King reference that probably doesn't even make sense to anyone but me [I watch LotR about once a week]). I think I'm starting to go off on a tangent...Oh, yeah, so my point is: I was up late trying to plan out my table for the craft show, and really should have thought about how my table was going to be set up sooner.

I'm happy to say I didn't procrastinate too much when it came to finishing up the merchandise I was going to sell at the show.  Wait, yes I did. I wanted to have 100 tags to bring.  I didn't even have half that.  I think I just ran out of stuff to stamp.  Poor excuse, I know.  I made a few duplicates of each quote I used.  I didn't want to stamp a whole bunch of quotes that I hadn't 'tested' yet, and then be stuck with them if they didn't sell, so I'm saying that is the reason I didn't reach my '100 tag' goal.

 Luckily, I started making tags for the show a week in advance.  I think the final number of tags that I'm bringing is about 40.

 I can't sell custom tags at the show, so I have to bring 'ready-made' tags.  My intention was to bring a wide variety of tags, however, the majority of the tags I ended up making were Firefly/Serenity, Jane Austen, and Hunter S. Thompson inspired. 

I'm bringing cat heads, too.

Well, wish me luck, Brandy needs a new pair of cute summer shoes!  I'll do a post later on how the show went with photos of my hopefully visually stimulating table.