My First Show! Part I.

This past Saturday, the 13th, was the very first time I participated in a show. Now that it's over AND I survived it, I thought I'd share what led up to it and how it went!

What it was: A vendor show, not a craft show. This was hosted by our local middle school PTO in an effort to raise money for educational opportunities for middle school students. Table space (10 feet) was a mere $35.00! A friend of mine who sells Southern Living at Home shared this opportunity with me and I registered the day I found out about it! (about 6 weeks ago).
There was a large variety of hobby, craft, and home based businesses from Sewing Lessons to Mary Kay Cosmetics to Silpada and Pampered Chef!

What was I thinking?! I was thinking, WOW, local exposure for only $35.00. Wow! I can try and sell some items I have been storing and haven't gotten around to listing, yet. and wow, what did I just do? I've got to get busy!

A month before; Since I had a lot of stock made, I spent time going back over everything to do a quality assurance check! Then, I started on my tags ( I make individually typed tags on labels and attach them to decorative paper ). These are then attached to the piece of jewelry with an inventory number and finally a price. All of this (the name, inventory number, and price is recorded in a notebook). Each piece is also all photographed.

Two weeks before; I needed to work on my booth display. I had already bought an easel, a large (2x3 white board), a table cloth but knew I needed to put it all together in a mock display. At this point, it was too early to do that but I did start pulling things out that I could use.....a couple of metal baskets, two wooden displays for bracelets and necklaces, a white leatherette bracelet display, and some other items.

You see I wasn't a complete novice. I had a little experience as I had been a featured artist at a shop that I had jewelry on consignment last May at an open house. However, it was about this time that I found out what kind of competition I would have! There were to be about 20 vendors and 4-5 of them featured jewelry! Okay, I'm getting nervous now!

One week before; I finished all the inventorying, photographing, and recording. About this time, I had my husband set up my table (the exact one that I would use) in our family room. For the next several days, I arranged and played with my display! Finally, the day before the show, I was set. And so , I took it all down, packed it up, and gathered everything I needed (or thought I needed in a couple of totes)!

By this time, I was kind of in a bad mood. Wow! What a lot of work! And making my bad mood worse was my nerves! I knew this was only a small local show but I was nervous!

How would I fair?
How stiff would the competition be?
Would I be organized enough?
Would the event be a success?
Would I be satisfied with how I did?

All these questions and more were swirling around in my head!! I have to admit, I lost more than a little sleep!
This is where I will leave you for now....Stay tuned for part II, coming in a couple days!