My First Makers Market

I DID IT!!

Recently I had my first Makers Market vendor's experience.

It truly was memorable.

How I Got In

One of my friends from church asked me back in September if I would join her in doing a little makers market that some of the ladies from church throw every year. I had no idea about it or even how to get in contact with the ones who throw the event. Luckily one of our other friends asked to join us and she was the one that got us signed up. Getting signed up happened at the beginning of October so I had a month to get as much product pumped out as possible.

All that Transpired in October

I didn't get done as much product as I wanted. October ended up being a very busy month for me at work and in my personal life. There was so much happening that I barely had time to illustrate. I had work, birthdays, doctors appointments, rehearsals, bible studies, family gatherings, decorating for Halloween, and Halloween.

The Bible studies and rehearsals do take up about 6-8 hours of my week, and that's not including the time it takes to work on the bible study homework (I'm in two different ones) and the alone music practice. I'm not complaining about all I have going on, I love what I do, I just wish it all hadn't bunched up so hard during October.

In the end, I got the product I needed to get done for the first day of the boutique. Then that night I worked on some more products for the following day.

Day 1

On the first day of the boutique, I had no idea where to set up. When I asked around I found out our booth was split in half for a walkway. It was a little annoying during set up because people would bump our stuff but we made it work!

To be honest, I wasn't expecting to make more than a couple pity sales. However, I did manage to make more total sales than my friends did and I was completely shocked by it! I didn't make more than them, but my items were priced much lower than theirs. I was pleased with the turn out. Some lady even spent $50 on bookmarks!

According to the other vendors, this year's first day was much slower than previous years. I must say, that I was thankful for the amount of people that came by because I wasn't overwhelmed by it. It was a good manageable amount of people.

Day 2

Not much difference in this day but we did start earlier. Day 1 we opened to the public from 1-6 pm. Day 2 we were open from 10am - 3pm. There were a ton more people and I got to talk with people that liked my products. They were all so encouraging!

On this day I sold more than I did the previous day and it was nice! There weren't any big sales like the first day, but I did sell enough to make more than the previous day.

My family even came out this day to support my friends and I. It was great to see them all.

Towards the end of this day, A lady and her daughter got to talking with me about how I make my stickers. I explained to them the process, where I source my materials from and how I got into making stickers. They were really sweet. The daughter is also an artist and does more edgy work than I do. She was also interested in making stickers with her art. It was great to be able to share the love and knowledge with someone else!

At the end of day 2 we helped pack up and pick up everything. All the tents, tables, and chairs. They told us to block out 2 hours for cleanup and we did it in 1. I was proud of us for doing that. Then it began it drizzle! They were expecting it to rain during the day, not at the end when all the protection had gone away. God was really blessing us with good weather!

Final Thoughts?

I am so glad that I had this opportunity. I'm grateful for the money made because it was exactly what my husband and I needed to get through the next week. God provides in ways we may not understand or expect, I'm just so thankful that He does.

I would definitely do this again with my friends. I even suggested that we sign up for another even in Spring/Summer! They are on board with it. I just need to do the research for us so we can get signed up and prepared.

It was really encouraging to see that there are people out there who are willing to spend money on my creations. I have yet to make any sales online, but this experience has given me hope!

I hope that this was encouraging to read for your own endeavors or just a nice "sipping some tea" kind of read to relax with.

I pray you are brave enough to take the leaps you're debating on taking!