Encouraging Art And Craft Show Results, First Order Received. Long.

[Tallbald]

I've been waiting for a local gun dealer to return my call(s) for an appointment to show him the laminated belts I create and that he has voiced a desire to maybe carry in his store on consignment. But, for whatever reason, he hasn't called this week.

I'll try to set the scene below for a regional craft show my wife and I participated in yesterday with encouraging and enlightening results.

Yesterday my wonderful creative wife and I attended the first of about six art and craft shows we participate in yearly. A small show of only 16 vendors, some sellers were cosmetics dealers, pre-made and remarked imported "stuff", and one large diecast toy car seller. So maybe 10(?) booths of handmade arts and crafts were there. The show was held in a small neighboring community that like so many small towns across America, is trying to preserve its heritage and economic viability through interest-generating street festivals and events. We like small town venues, and prefer the atmosphere of their events to the large "mega-shows" held in bigger cities than ours.

My wife buys parts locally and online, and designs and creates costume jewelry under her own name. She reworks silverplated table ware into jewelry too. She and I share a 10 foot by 10 foot booth, and my leather art takes up a small portion of the display space.

Since I had not heard back from the gun dealer yet, I decided to display and offer for sale eight belts of various lengths and design at the show. Each has been tagged clearly with size to center hole, leather color, thread color, hardware material, and price. Many folks stopped to browse, and several bought some of my wife's art. We both have our cards available in holders on the table.

My belts were hanging from the frame of our canopy, with a table display of heavy duty belt key ring holders. Those who closely examined my belts had wonderful things to say, and I watched their reactions to the price tag to see if I could gauge their thoughts.

Toward the end of the show, a young lady and man stopped in to see our display. The girl was interested in my wife's wares, and the gentleman was closely examining my eight displayed belts. My wife and I are retired nurses and very much at east talking with strangers. I began telling the gentleman about my belts, how I create them and the work that goes into making a deceptively simple item like a belt. He was interested, and asked me why I have two rows of edge stitching instead of only one. I shared with him my thoughts about the additional strength and visual interest of double row stitching, and drew an analogy to the double or triple row stitching used at stress points in rugged outerwear. He voiced further interest and I talked to him about how I cut blanks myself from hides with a strap cutter to order, laminated them a bit oversized, trimmed them to final width, edged them with a hand tool, cut them to shape and length, sanded edges, dip dyed the blanks, conditioned them, buffed them, sewed and finished them. I also discussed the merits of my solid brass and stainless steel or nickel plated hardware too. This man was genuinely interested in what I was saying. Very rewarding for me. Both he and the girl with him took our cards.

They returned about 30 minutes later. The gentleman said to me that he has never been able to find locally a belt of the high quality that my art exhibits. He asked if I would be interested in making for him one to his needed length. Of course I said I would. I don't yet have a completed order form (not finalized--my fault) so I wrote down what he wanted exactly. He took my paper and wrote down his name and contact information for me. He lives in my town too, and I told him my turnaround time and that I would meet him in town to deliver it when it's done.

Now. Because the lady who was with him and I talked about where she works locally in customer service (a manufacturer of a product I need and use for my crafts) and she gave me her card, I felt secure enough to offer the gentleman with her wanting the custom belt the opportunity to examine what I make for him before exchanging any money. This will NOT be my routine because I realize I could be setting myself up for problems. But to me this was an extraordinary situation. Truthfully it was my first true, custom belt order. I'm excited and enthusiastic. I'm also very happy to learn of another LOCAL supplier of goods I need for my artwork.

We will be participating in another, larger but rather local show very soon. By then, I will by then be sure to have my order form ready and available. I will also have a better way to hold my belts up for display. I will also have more than six business cards, because I ran out yesterday which surprised me. I also now know I need a more secure way to carry my belts in transport to the shows, rather than simply laying them flat across the tops of containers loaded in our SUV. I'm thinking that a padded, full length zippered rifle case would do nicely for all but the longest ones. They can be had here in the fall at sporting goods stores for like $10 each during promotions before hunting season.

Thanks for taking time to read my story. Yesterday was an unexpectedly rewarding day and I wanted to share here. Don.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Tallbald

[Ferg]

I can relate to your story and possible results.

You may be interested in a somewhat "short" recollection of my wife and I work in somewhat the same direction.

Almost forty years ago we went to craft shows in our state mostly. Some small and some large. Basically we starved. On returning from one show our car was losing oil. We stopped at an old dilapidated service garage, bought two quarts of oil for $.95 each and hoped we had food for the evening when we got home.

Attended a very large Christmas show in Indianapolis where we done quite well. On the way home we visited a shop owned and run by folks of a religious order.

We manufactured wooden products mostly and had some leather products thrown in along with my wife's Art. We presented the folks with some of our wooden wall hang-ups. One early morning we were awakened by the phone ringing. It was a representative of the "Order" asking for 350 of a rainbow we made, he needed them the following week. We told him of course we could do that. We didn't have enough material to make that many nor the money to buy more. Went to some friends of mine who happened to work in a lumber yard. We made a deal to buy material and pay within 30 days.

To make that story short, we made 5600 of those rainbows for that company for that Christmas Season alone. I built machines to make the rainbows. The spray painting of them was more of an endeavor than we anticipated.

We visited a Very Large Craft Show in Cincinnati, Ohio. A man and his wife were making Puzzles. The puzzles were of children's name, numbers, and alphabets.

I told my wife we could do that!

We had a lead on a large over arm jig saw that a public school was selling. Bought it for $100 if I remember correctly. We made our first puzzles on that saw. We were lucky enough and ignorant enough to think we could make a living at making puzzles. Had a 2500 square foot store front for one Christmas Season, we done pretty well but not great. We sold the puzzles for $7.95 each with a child's name. Folks remarked they were too expensive.

In the almost 39 years since we made the first puzzle, we have semi-retired, still manufacture 15,000 of the name puzzles at Christmas. Our list of past and present companies we have and still do business with, includes, Pot-Por-Ri, Sears, J.C. Penny, Childcraft, Neiman-Marcus, Harry & David, Horchow, Current, and the list goes on. We have been very fortunate. Our days even now require 14 to 15 hours of work in our shop seven days a week during the Christmas Season. We spent many nights into the wee hours developing ideas for new products. Our workforce peaked at over 20. We now have our woodshop added to our beautiful log home my wife and I built. I still work with leather in our youngest daughter's bedroom, she flew the coop three years ago. I have three industrial sewing machines, a skiving machine, hundreds of leather tools and knives along with about $6000 worth of leather inventory. I have equipment to transfer photos/images onto leather and most every other material. I have a Stained Glass shop. I am presently working on making my own Steel Rule Dies. I write almost all the computer programs for our business. Have my own Hobby Greenhouse that we grow several thousand plants for our landscape and still maintain a 1/4 acre vegetable garden.

I write this not to brag of our successes and failings but to encourage anyone who truly wishes to have a home grown business and enjoy it as we have, can do it if you really have the desire to work harder than you can possibly imagine.

Also: I will be 82 years young this coming January. Have so many things I want to try. Maybe I can get some of them done if I live to be 100. lol

ferg

[leatherman54]

Your post set me back on my heels, in a good way. We are at the point of releasing the fire bellows of the Internet, birthing a website to (we hope) blow on the embers of our business and make the transition to "retired". Seems you are where it looks like what we envision as our carrot. Kudos to success! Watch for your birthday to be 83 years and 4 months - that's one thousand months, a milestone to be feted!