Art Star Craft Bazaar

After a miserably disappointing trip to Northern Liberties last weekend to not find the Philadelphia Independent Craft Market’s show (seriously — the address that was given led us to a padlocked theatre building with no signs of life anywhere), we tried again to have success this weekend.  Last time we went to the Art Star Craft Bazaar it was a much smaller affair on a blocked off coupla blocks in Northern Liberties, an up-and-coming hipster neighborhood that’s seeing a lot of changes.  This year it was down at Penn’s Landing, an admittedly more “legitimate” venue for a craft fair.  It.  Was.  Huge.  And also, I think, catered to a larger segment of the populati0n.  Not only tattooed hipsters with their babies dressed in goth onesies, but straight-edge looking people as well.  Parking last time cost nothing, and was just on a sidestreet.  Parking this time costs  flat rate of $13 or $17, depending on which lot you wanted to rape you.  We were trapped.  Penn’s Landing is a generic name for a number of waterfront sites.  Not knowing which one it was, we couldn’t park across the I-95 bridge (it cuts right near I-95) and park in the neighborhoods of Philly.  The waterfront area is full of pay parking lots, expensive restaurants, and old boats, some of which are expensive restaurants.  You get raped for parking no matter what.  So Mr. Apron convinced me to suck it up and just pay to park.  Actually, since he was driving, I didn’t have much of a choice.  Oh, and we brought the dog. 

This thing was huge!  I can’t even know for sure how many vendors, but I’d say 150 – 200, easily.  It was a bring-your-own-tent event for the vendors.  Each display looked like it belonged in the windowfront of an Anthropologie store.  Coordinating tablecloths, customized hang tags and labels, people processing credit cards — these were legitimate businesses.  Compared to my library craft fair, this was the big time.  It made me feel small and amateurish.  Like maybe why am I even bothering to try to do another craft fair when my booth won’t measure up?  I don’t have an EZ-up tent, I don’t have 25lb concrete weights to hold the tent down.  I don’t have labels or a sign with my as-yet-undetermined business name.  I wouldn’t know how to go about learning to process credit cards.  My displays rely heavily on luck and safety pins.  And my tables would be borrowed from my current crafting area. 

We sat down in a piece of shade so the dog, who had heretofore been lying down in the  middle of vendors’ tents to grab some rest, wouldn’t pass out.  And so we wouldn’t get heatstroke.  Mr. Apron and I talked about how I was feeling.  He said I could choose to make this about comparing myself and my crafts and my abilities and where I am in selling my wares, or I could relax and enjoy it as a consumer.  Or I could do both.  Everything we do that ties into my interests (early music, crafting, dogs, architecture, Balinese gamelan, clothing design) doesn’t have to be about unrequited dreams and abilities, about things I could do if I spent more time, money, energy, education on them.  I do get sad when we go to a music or theatre performance.  They remind me of how little I’m doing those things in my life.  When I was in college, music took up easily three evenings a week (9 hours) and at least as many hours of classtime, plus any practicing I deigned to do.  In high school, I was in maybe 2 plays a year as well as a pit orchestra or some other special activity (examples include performing Mozart’s Requiem with the local Mormon church, and playing with the Mayo Clinic orchestra).  And now?  I maybe sing a little Gilbert & Sullivan with Mr. Apron when I’m helping him rehearse for one of the 5 plays he’s done in as many years, and I listen to him playing banjo.  My bassoon sits in the basement, my clarinets next to me in a milk crate, plaguing me with familial guilt, as I come from a very musical family.  I used to recall with glee all the instruments I was proficient on — clarinet, bassoon, piano, recorder, (early music instruments:) dulcian, viola da gamba, krumhorn — or could play passingly — bari saxophone, folk harp.  Now I’m embarrassed at how low my skill level has fallen.  I’m overwhelmed at how much work it would take me to play well again. 

I guess the craft fair stirred up those feelings in a less-extreme way today.  I know I’m never going to be a professional craft artisan, making a living off of my etsy shop and schlepping to craft fairs up and down the eastern seabord.  I don’t want to, either.  I want to do enough crafting that I still enjoy it, not so much that I think of it as a business.  I don’t want to think of my art pieces as commodities.  So when Mr. Apron said I could do both — look at it with lessons to learn as well as fun for shopping — I needed to hear it. 

I did look at the other people selling baby onesies and compare prices.  I charge $10 or 2/$18 for potato-stamped onesies.  People today were selling them for as much as $25 and $30.  Granted these were appliquéd, so they took more hand-work, but even the screen-printed ($$ for start-up, but cheap per-piece costs) ones were$20.  The jumpers I sell (well, hope to sell) for $22 and $25 were going for $35 today, for an almost identical product.  I guess this is what you can get, or have to charge, in the “big time” of craft vending.  Maybe those prices would be way out of line for an elementary school or library craft fair, where you’ll see more crocheted doilies and plastic canvas angels than screenprinted tees with skull-octopuses and art prints of a very sinister-looking little red riding hood. 

On the whole, people loved Finley.  They pet him, commented on his unusual “beauty”, and even crawled under tables to get to pet him (adults did this).  He got some sample doggie cookies, and one man even gave us his tupperware from his fruit salad (dumping his fruit into a ziploc bag) so Finley could have a drink of water.  Someone asked us about our grooming choices for him (laughable right now with his full “mop” ‘do), and only one person was afraid enough to shriek and back away hysterically.  ‘Cuz he’s really intimidating.  Yup.  I bought something, too.  Not something like what I make.  I make a point of only buying things from craft fairs that I could not make.  It’s a head-band with a huge felt 3-D flower placed jauntily, so as to resemble nothing so much as a 1940s hat.  I chose the yellow one, as it seemed more vintage.  Mr. Apron bought something, too.  It’s that little red riding hood print I mentioned.  It’s pretty dark, probably more similar to an original illustration from Grimm Brothers than a modern Disney-fied cartoon.  But it’s awesome.  Just enough whimsey and fun.  In the end, I’m glad we went, even if we paid $13 to park, even if we were roasting in open sun for 2 hours, and even if our purchases were pretty pricey.  We supported independent artists, and bought things you can’t find at Costco or the GAP, no matter what you pay for them.

I Spy Bags

I wrote yesterday about the Craft Fair, and how many adult-like people asked me “What are they?” about the I Spy bags.  Aside from having no signage and having one woman repeat after me, “Ice Pie?  You mean you put it in the freezer?”, it occured to me that my readers (are there 2 of you yet?) might not know either. 

I shall illuminate.  The classic I Spy game is based on one person naming an object in clue form, “I spy with my little eye, something luminescent, radiant, and electric” to which the other person, upon scanning the room, says, “Is it a lightbulb?”  Kids probably say, “I spy…something blue” and then stare directly at it, waiting for you to name the dog’s water dish, while you give chase, naming all the other minutia in the room that is blue.  An I Spy bag is also a hide and seek game. 

I fill a 9″x9″ pouch with doll beads (PVC pellets) and 40-someodd small dollar-store toys (baby shower supplies are choice, small plastic animals, GI Joe figurines, party favors, hair clips) and junk-drawer mess (paper clips, bread tags, binder clips, foreign coins, buttons, puzzle pieces, bottle caps).  Then I seal it up and attach a tag listing the contents.  Here’s what my bags look like:

An I Spy bag

You can see I attached a laminated tag with a picture of all the contents.  My contents tags have a word list on one side, and a picture map on the other side.  I love the pictures because pre-literate kids can match what they find to the pictures, or go looking for an item on the card without needing a grown up to read it to them.  “Mom what’s this?  What’s it say?  Mom, what should I find next?  Mom?  Mom!”  Here’s what a picture map looks like:

I Spy bag contents

The grid is an added “feature”.  Kids can challenge themselves or others to find all the items in box 7.  They’re grouped in some sort of order, by farm animals, round objects, vehicles, buttons, or beads. 

Here is the value:

Waiting in a doctor’s office, sitting quietly in church, riding in a shopping cart, enduring an endless car ride, children can entertain themselves quietly, with no lost pieces, no noisy buttons, and no need for adult support, even for young kids. 

Therapeutically, I can see speech language pathologists using them to build vocabulary, practice articulation targets (imagine a bag filled with just /s/ words!), follow directions (“Find the pig, then the dragon.”), teach language concepts (“Where’s the big round bead?”), or use them as a reward for doing other work.  I also work with occupational therapists, so I now understand the value of an I Spy bag in this field as well.  First, they’re weighted.  They provide sensory feedback to kids who crave it.  They also require manual manipulation to move around the pellets.  You can use one hand to strengthen it, or both hands to learn coordination.  You can squeeze it, poke it, shake it, etc, trying to find the objects and you’re not even thinking about therapy.  I received an e-mail today from a woman on craftster.org who made one for her 4 year old who has vision challenges.  With her I Spy bag, she is working on tracking, visual discrimination, focusing, matching, and never realizing it’s therapy. 

Did I mention how awesome these things are?  I think they’re worth far more than the $18 I’m offering them for.  I just need to figure a way into the market.  I know it’s a great toy.  Kids do, too.  Their parents just need to realize it.  And then pay me money for my creations.  And then all will be well in the world.

The Craft Fair

Today was the 2nd annual Library Craft Fair.  Last year I went as a spectator, and said to myself (of the presenters), “I could do this!”  I nudged Mr. Apron and asked him to remind me about what I said at some later point in time.  He did, and I sewed my pants off these last few weeks, and lo and behold — I did it!  My first craft fair.

Here (if I figured out how to imbed a picture in my blog — wordpress makes things complicated) is my setup. 

I offered”I spy” bags (pouches filled with tiny treasures to locate), zippered pouches (like a coin purse), potato-stamped onesies, retro purses, reversible tote bags, sock monkeys, and baby jumpers.  I actually sold 2 onesies, 2 sock monkeys, 3 zippered pouches, 1 I-spy bag (stock), and 1 I-spy custom order.  The funny thing is, my mother-in-law works at the library, and has a tote bag similar to the ones I brought with me.  My mother made it for her as a birthday gift, and she received so many compliments (and covets) that the Library Ladies begged me to make and sell some.  No one bought them.  Alas, I digress.

I had many positive interactions with adults and children, inviting the kids (who were constantly being told “Don’t Touch”) to come and play with the I Spy bags.  Teens were interested in the zippered pouches but spent an inordinate amount of time with the I Spy bags.  People in general gave me good feedback about my wares, lamenting they did not have babies to buy for.  (Though one grandma about to buy a jumper for her almost-3-year-old was told abruptly by her 5 year old grandson, “She never likes anything you pick out.”) They were impressed that I made everything myself and seemed to be drawn to the colorful (if a bit chaotic) table, even if they did not buy anything. 

I learned many things today. 

Here is a short list (oh, how I love lists!):

• Cluster all baby items together.  I think many people thought all my stuff was for babies, so they didn’t even see all the lined tote bags.
• Use more signage.  I got many “What is this?” questions about the I Spy bags.  Kids were quick to figure them out, but adults need help. Other things which did not scream, “I Am A Tote Bag!  Buy Me”! need signage, too. 
• Play up the therapeutic angle of the I Spy bags.  My friend the fellow SLP bought one to use in therapy.  Adults remarked they’d be good for OT (yes, I agree).  Parents can often be Wolves (see post “Girl Crush”), and don’t see the inherent value of quiet self-entertaining play.  Next time I’ll emphasize the language and occupational therapy uses. 
• Figure out how better to display the jumpers and onesies.  I like the clothesline idea, but it was shaky at best, and the jumpers were just pinned to the tablecloth, making them inaccessible for people to fondle. 
• Make signage to make it clear I am not just making baby clothes.  really.  Make more adult clothes to emphasize this point.

All in all, it wasn’t a resounding success, but a good first try.  My friends came to support me.  Mr. Apron stood/sat by my side.  I sold some things.  I took a custom order for an I Spy bag.  I gave out many business cards, which will hopefully turn into business!  I may be so inspired as to give it another go at the upcoming Philadelphia Independent Craft Market fairs this spring/summer.

Have you done a craft fair?  What have you learned?  What would you buy?  What do you look for?