the morning after the craft fair

yesterday, i participated in the sugarplum craft fair. it was my first craft fair in (seven?) years, and i'm so glad i did it. it was by no means a perfect day...but it was a nice one.

the weeks before the craft fair were packed. i hadn't given myself enough time to finish everything i wanted to finish. i poured so much time into the products, but it never felt like enough. as you can tell from my previous blog posts, i wasn't really sure what i wanted to put in the fair. many of the items i started a few weeks ago didn't go to the fair with me. about two and a half weeks ago, i started to develop a vision and a flow. i stopped blogging, tweeting and pinteresting (and honestly, socializing in real life) and spent all my spare moments painting, which was awesome - but how much more awesome would it have been with a clear vision six weeks ago?

to be honest, my friend carmen's wedding was last night, and i had fretted a little bit about doing a craft fair and then going to a wedding on the same day. so i didn't really start until my decision to do both was certain. it all worked out, and her wedding was beautiful!

anyway, i was a painting machine who didn't sleep enough for the past couple of weeks. i plotted every evening's tasks, and then on thursday night, there was a crazy wind storm, and the power went out. so i lost that evening, and went to sleep because there was nothing else i could do.

i stayed up really late friday finishing a few pieces (thursday's tasks) and pricing and packing, and then - on the morning of the craft fair, i overslept - about two hours longer than i intended. luckily, i was all packed, and it really just meant i had less time to perfect my booth space (which was simple anyway), and that i would be eating concessions for breakfast, which turned out to be fine, too.

traffic was steady. feedback was great. observations of booth visitors were interesting (there was one particular item that people held and turned over 100% of the time, i noticed). i made enough sales to cover my booth fee (which is better than losing money), and most importantly, i painted things that had been sitting idly, unpainted, and i'm getting back into this part of creating again. then, at carmen's wedding, i met a relative of a friend who was gifted with a pendant i made. our conversation made me eager to create more and restock my etsy shop. and this morning, i am making pendants again. i feel a delightful motivation.

have a marvelous week!