Hand of Man Craft Show, Oct 19, 20, 21

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was a vendor at the Hand of Man Craft Show in Peterborough, Ontario.  The above is a video clip that was made by CHEX TV to promote the event.

This is the sign that was outside the door enticing people to come in.

Before I went to the event, I had a request that I write a blog post about my experience at this show.
I must admit this was a very long show, and I was very tired when it was over, but the experience was worth it - even if Christmas is 60 some days away -people were not really in the Christmas mood.  I must admit, even I wasn't ready for Christmas music being played all day long for 3 days. 

Why was the Christmas show so early?  It's a matter of availabililty of the facilities.  Usually this event is later in October close to or on Halloween - that's when people start thinking of Christmas shopping.  But others had booked this building - so the Guild had no choice but to be hold the craft show earlier.

But, I met a lot of people, including other vendors and potential customers. There were almost 100 vendors there and some of the art work was stunning!!  I felt honoured to be among them and share this experience.

I sold a lot of cards (and not just Christmas cards) and other gifts, got new customers and students for my classes - and got contacts for other shows. At these shows it's not always the selling that is important.......

Here is a picture of  the main table in my booth.  There are 2 more side tables.

Tomorrow I`ll post close up pictures of some items that were on my table.
I hope the above information is what people were looking for.  If not, feel free to comment, ask questions etc.

A Leaf Tree

One of the things expected of vendors at craft fairs is to decorate not only the table but the booth.  For days I have been wracking my brain as to what I could make for the center of the table.  Then a light bulb went off!!
I had been given an umbrella stand with metal spines with clips on the end - to attach cards for display.  However, when I put my cards on it they were too heavy, and they overlapped each other.  So I nixed that idea.
Suddenly this morning it came to me - make it into a fall tree by attaching fall coloured leaves to the clips.  This is the result:

All the leaves were die cut using the Autumn accents die, sponged, & spritzed.  I did put artificial leaves behind mine as the backs of my leaves were Very Vanilla (never thought to sponge the back)
The base was made by first covering a wreath ring with 1 1/4" striped chocolate chip grosgrain ribbon and then hot gluing leaves all the way around the top.  I tossed in some loose leaves in the center to cover up the metal base.
Here's a close up:

What I particularly like about this "spine" tree is that I can place display items under it and they can still be seen.
Here's a close up of the base (I took this one outside).  You can see why I threw in some loose leaves in the middle.

So, what do you think?  Do you like my centerpiece?