The booth takes shape

The booth is built! Now it acts as a sort of second studio for organising the pricing and packing.

I solved the problem of how to display wall mounted work by covering peg boards with burlap and suspending them from the rails. The loose weave of the burlap makes it simple to insert hanging hooks. Here's a picture showing the set up.

I visited winners, the Canadian version of TJ Max and found these wire candle holders that double beautifully as an funky pendant hanger the photographs not as well as it looks in real life..

Craft Booth Table Height

 The standard table is great for sitting at but it's an awkward height for displaying your work. People have to sort of bend over. I found this excellent solution to rising your table height. Roll out the pvc again! I cut pvc pipes to 24" lengths and slid them over the table legs.  The tables are now at a comfortable height for people browsing in my booth!

Booth Backdrop

I finished the backdrop for the booth in spite of my cat Shadow's "help". I purchased some silky apple green tab drapes which slide onto the upper dowel bars. I had to haul out my sewing machine to hem them. I left a  2" inch allowance on the hem so I can slide a dowel in the bottom of the drapes to secure them. All of the pvc connectors are held in place with some Plumbing Goop. 

The drapes before hemming and ironing.

Tabs on the upper dowel

Art Cards and Booth Building

Today I got to work organising art cards for sale at the show. I have several that have always been good sellers and I'm adding a few new ones including "Tea By the Sea" which was a 5x7 canvas that was sold at the Legacy Gallery last year. The cards are all printed and cut and  ready for gluing and putting in cellophane sleeves.


The next project was to construct the main section of my new booth. I am finicky about colour in my booth and I consider a coordinated backdrop to be essential. The drapes provided by the event display company are usually a grim grey and I plan to pump up the colour volume. My booth is an 8x10 corner so I only need to make two "walls". Instead of lugging  heavy grids to the show, this time I have decided to go light and simple. Using pvc piping and wooden dowels I'm making a frame from which I'll hang silky drapes. The structure will be supported by 3 market umbrella stands. I have a plan for displaying "hanging wall-art".  More next time! 

PVC Connectors and cut pipe hold the wooden dowels

Weighted Market Umbrella stands  hold the structure  securely.

The Inspiration Point for my New Booth

I've been considering a major redesign of my craft show booth for a very long time. I have surfed all over the internet for ideas. One site I discovered in Flickr is Show Me Your Booths-  a massive collection of thousands of pictures of booths and stalls from all over the world. Check it out- it's an addictive site to visit for anyone who is involved in craft show booth construction! I also spent a long while Googling  Jewelery display images and found this one at  Cut Out and Keep Craft Tutorials. I'm not actually making a jewelry stand altho' it would be really funky- especially for anyone with a steampunk motif.

I am using the connection concept in a larger scale for my display stands. More tomorrow!

Prepping for a Show

I will be in the Gifts for Myself and Others Show from November 12- 14 this year. We'll be doing set up on the 11th. I'm in overdrive getting work ready and as usual I'll be setting up my booth in the dining room before heading to the show. This way I can practice putting the set up together and noodle with display ideas. I always hope this will be stress reducer on the first day of the show but you always can come across weird unpredictable  problems on show day!

I blogged my booth development a few years ago and as the set up is completely new this year I plan to do the same again this year. My first decision was to get rid of the metal grid screens I've had- they are heavy and much too  burdensome to set up in a hurry. Check back soon to see the light weight alternative method I've come up with!

Today's pictures are of some of my new resin and silk pendants- the colour matching exercise is about as much fun as anyone can have without involving chocolate or martinis!

EnergiZing News!

My friend Georgia Ferrell is co-owner of Artemesia Gallery in Westport Ontario and on Saturday she sent me a message that one of my new fiber pendants has sold there- that's the first one! I sent some to Side Street Studio here in Oak Bay and I was so pleased to see some displayed in the window.

Getting back to colour seems to be the right move for me- one of my favourite pieces ever- my very colourful "She Could Only Choose One" was selected for the Sidney Fine Arts Show.

I also had two emails from galleries asking if I'm still making Muses- it gave me a bit of a bug to do a few new ones. This is Anjou- I made her last year- I love the pear concept and I have an idea for a much larger version. I'm feeling very energised!