This past weekend I sold at my first handmade show! In case you missed my many updates, it was the bi-annual Handmade Cavalcade (holiday edition) put on by the New York Etsy Street Team. I think I made a good choice making this my first show since all the vendors were extremely supportive and friendly.

The finished mural!

The days leading up to the event were pretty exhausting, despite my best efforts I still had ridiculous amounts to do and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning the last few nights before Saturday.

Saturday morning I arrived way too early, greatly overestimating traffic. No surprises setting up, I even had time to run grab a pastry for breakfast.

Here’s how my display ended up. I never actually got around to putting the whole thing up in a practice run at home, but everything functioned as I hoped.

See the cash only sign on the right? That was my major mistake of the day. Luckily for me, right after I had finished setting up, one of the other vendors came over and recommended that I ditch the sign and grab a Square reader to accept credit cards. I had a smart phone and someone had spare readers, so I was able to download the app and set up an account on the spot. Good thing, almost a third of my sales were credit card, several from people who had no cash on them.

The booth! The stand on the left was a major headache to set up (I made it stand up with shelf brackets nailed/screwed into the bottom on each side) but I think the height was worth it.

I was at the end of the lane between handmade light switch/electrical covers by Lu and gorgeous handwoven scarves and blankets by Jean of Fiber Dance Weaving.

The decorations were minimal but I think the crystals turned out well –I watched them stand at the tippy top of a very tall ladder to put them up!

I also added some new items exclusively for the show. There were some new card designs, plus day planners (above) and snowflake gift tags (below).

I’ll be adding them to the shop soon once I have time to take nice pictures.

I couldn’t walk out without a bit of shopping –I picked up these lovely coasters by Wishbone Letterpress.

I also did some card swapping with the incredibly talented Ursula at Pepper Press.

Overall it was a really great experience, and I learned a ridiculous amount. I don’t have time to prepare for another fair this holiday season, but I’m looking forward to see what comes next!