This November I am doing 2 Craft Shows ~ drop dead right?!  Well, I am.  My daughter is on the company troupe in dance and oh my golly ~ it's going to be an expensive year.  So ~ everyone is doing fund raisers left and right.  Well, I live in a small town and EVERYONE is busy doing fund raisers so I needed to think of some other ideas as well.  hmmmm.....

Enter my good friend Debbie. Debbie had mentioned the possibility of exhibiting at the annual craft show here in Salina called See and Sell ... so long story short ... I weaseled my way into her booth.  {smiles}  Okay ~ she really didn't mind.  After all ... it's so much more fun with more than one!  And then we asked our friend ... Danelle Johnson (YES!  THE DanelleJohnson of Art Warehouse) if she wanted to join us.  (Ok ... that was a shameless plug ... but seriously ... Danelle Johnson!  She's incredible!)Danelle's daughter and mine dance together so she and I are in the same fund-raising boat.  So ... Debbie, Danelle and I are doing See and Sell in November.  So I'm in craft show frame of mind now. 

Enter this project.  I'm starting with 'stuff' I have.  I have TONS of these wine bags that I buy in bulk at Sam's Club.  I have LOTS of hot chocolate ... my family devours the stuff!  And I had chocolate covered peppermint sticks.  Add my favorite snowman set, a snowman soup poem and some tea staining.  Wallah! Here's what I ended up with:



This snowman took the longest (by far) to color but it was night work in front of the tv so no big deal.  I punched some scallop circles and stitched them on.  I was afraid to bring in my sewing machine thinking it would take so much more time but it didn't.  Just don't look closely at my sewing around circles!



Here's what one looked like without tea staining.  It's okay ... but I think my craft show market will appreciate the tea stained look more.  Oh ~ I did color these with my Copics.  And ~ I tea stained them AFTER coloring!  Your Copic ink isn't water-based so it stays where you put it!  WAY cool!



This one is my favorite ... AND it was the EASIEST to color!  {big smiles}



I only did a few of this little guy.  He didn't work great in my circle punch so I just made squares.  I thought this one could work for a man ... ????!



I cut the bottoms off of some of the wine bags and then ran them through my printer to print the saying on.  (The bottom wouldn't go through my printer).  I got 3 sayings on 1 bag.  I didn't use the back side of the back because of the seam.




And here is what is inside each bag ~ I'll have these sitting beside my Snowman Soup basket at the craft show so customers can actually see what's inside each bag.



I'm planning on charging $3.  GASP!  Hey ... it beats walking around town, door to door, asking for cookie dough orders, collecting money, turning the order in, collecting cookie dough, delivering cookie dough door to door and then trying to track down people who aren't home.  Don't get me wrong ~ I LOVE the cookie dough!  I eat it straight from the tub raw ... YUM!  But everyone in town is selling it.  So I'm using what I already have ... I just have to stay focused, work on and finish one project at a time and THEN move on to the next.  Easy right?!

My pricing/show strategy is this:

1.  I'm not going to recoup my time and if I charge for it ... I'm not going to sell anything.  Therefore, do everything I can in my spare time and during my favorite tv shows.  {smiles}

2.  Price to sell.  The last thing I want to do is bring this stuff back home with me!  I thought about charging $3.50 for these, HOWEVER, would that cause someone to pause, think and then walk away to think about it some more.  I want to capture that person while they are in my booth and I want to price it with the current economy in mind.

3.  Make things I would buy.  Seriously.  It's KILLING me to sell this stuff!  And SOOO cheap!  I'd rather save it and give it all away as gifts.  However, if that were the case ... I'd never finishing making anything.  That's why I have closets full of cool stuff. 

4.  Make the most of the opportunity.  In addition to See and Sell ... Debbie and I decided to sign up for another craft show right before See and Sell.  CRAZY right!  Go figure.  We each have sales goals so we are strategically mapping out what we are selling, how much we need to create to sell (to reach our goals), how much we need to sell to break even, etc...  WOW!  Most importantly ... we are creating items with materials we already have ... this is key for both of us!  And we're crafters ... we have STUFF!

So here is my first project.  I'll post more as I complete them ... and spare you all of the background information next time!   

Happy Paper Crafting!

Mischelle