Show: Old Town Shawnee Craft Fair

This past weekend I had a booth at the Shawnee Old Town Craft Fair in Shawnee, KS. This was only the third craft show I've ever participated in -- and each time I've been in a show, I've completely changed my display! This was also my first outdoor show, and I loved it. The weather was perfect (about 70 degrees and partly cloudy most of the day) and the crowds were huge! I snapped some photos of my booth before the show started; take a look below to see some details of my display...




So before I show you everything, I have to tell you how awesome my husband is. I woke him up at 6:15 am on a Saturday to come help me set up. Not only did he help me with the canopy, which is definitely at least a two-person job, but he took orders from me for the next hour on how other things should be set up and where they should go. Then, he hung around until lunch time (I think this partly had to do with the taco food truck across from my booth, but still!) and helped out with the first half of the show. AND he came back at the end to help me pack up. In short, he rocks. Here he is hiding behind my sign with his coffee as I snapped pictures of the booth:

So, about my display. At the past two shows I had done, my biggest issue was with displaying my scarves and cowls, as well as my hats. I'd tried having them on a shelf, and I'd tried hanging them on a room divider. Neither option really allowed people to browse through and see all of the different styles. One of the benefits of last weekend's outdoor show was that my canopy allowed me to hang all of my scarves. I hung dowel rods from the canopy with twine, and then filled these with the scarves and cowls on hangers. This worked out great, because shoppers felt free to flip through the hangers and even try on the items they liked!

Another popular part of my display was the holiday corner. I set up a mini Christmas tree (this was actually the top third of our Christmas tree, since I didn't have a mini one!) and hung some knit mitten, stocking, and Santa hat ornaments from it (these are coming soon to my online shop!) I also displayed my knit pumpkins and Christmas Mason Jar centerpieces in this corner.

One part of my display that stayed the same was this shelf displaying some Mason Jar Centerpieces (I did paint and distress the shelf, though). Also, you can tell that this picture was taken before the show started, since there are still a lighter and tea lights strewn about!

A third new part of my display was this crate shelf that I used for a lot of my knit accessories and home decor items. I'm planning a DIY tutorial for this shelf to appear on the blog soon!

This show was a great success! I had a lot of sales and handed out tons of business cards, too. I'll probably make a few small changes to this display for my next show, but overall I loved the way it was set up.

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend too :)

-Megan