Craft Fair Prep and Jitters

Spring is in the air up north here, and so is the start of the spring craft fair circuit! Well, it's not so much of a circuit as a few off shoots, then the most epic farmer's market north of Prince George. Terrace is hailed as the largest market in the northwest and has bragging rights to delicious food, eclectic music, and amazing produce and crafts every Saturday May through October! It's always a lot of fun to attend. :)  

The first fair of the season is in Kitimat this Saturday April 13th. I'm participating with a few other ladies and splitting table fees four ways. The fees are pretty reasonable, but the spring fair is notoriously half as bustling as the winter one - probably due to the lack of huge consumerist holidays *cough*xmas*cough*.

I love doing the Kitimat fairs mostly just because I get to go visit my parents (that's where they live) and hang out with them the night before. It's just a hop, skip, and a jump away (aka 45 minute drive which is piddly after city life) but there's something about road driving that just makes my husband and I lazy about doing it.

I look at craft fairs as a way to improve and grow. You really learn a lot by doing different areas, and it's interesting to see how potential customers react to the items you put out. I found in Kitimat, people went bananas over my felt items...which I had honestly kept in a bin for the 4 year gap there, and put them out just to fill up some space on my part of the table. Prince Rupert it was more about the pokemon, and in Terrace all my geeky bookmarks sold!

Each time I get more and more prepared, and it feels wonderful! This time I had about the same amount of items, just more quality than quantity. I spent a more time and bought even better material to make the pillows and wall hangings and feel real durn guuuud about it!

The only thing I should have done a little bit better was to finish an item before starting a new one! Simple right? haha. I have several almost done bookmarks and cross-stitches that require finishing touches, and the fair is in less than one week! I can get 'em done, or at least have one or two to work on during the event but still.

For all my crafters out there, in what ways do you want to improve as a crafter generally? Do you rock out at markets too? How do you prepare for that to make sure you're not scrambling? Share your wisdom! :)