The 2007 Crafty Bastards Festival, Washington, DC
September 30, 2007

(Originally written on October 2, 2007)

Last Sunday I had a really good day working as a vendor at Crafty Bastards. I not only managed to sell my thrift-shop-Barbies-turned-fairy-dolls but I also managed to sell much of my jewelry. After trying to make and sell original jewelry, I finally hit on the right combination of price and presentation and I managed to sell quite a few necklaces. I'm really happy about that because I was pondering giving up on making jewelry entirely but I now feel vindicated. On top of that, I even had one person tell me that of all the vendors at Crafty Bastards, she felt that my table was the best! That's cool hearing something like that.

It was a very bright sunny day with warm--not hot--weather and low humidity, the perfect combination to encourage people to come and visit. And they came in droves. I was very busy for much of the day but I didn't mind because I was selling things. I'm glad that I got my husband to help me because I would not have been able to take any breaks otherwise (especially to go to the bathroom). I managed to look at a few other booths and some of them were memorable.

One was m3this guitars who made guitars from wooden cigar boxes in both acoustic and electric versions. He even made amplifiers from wooden cigar boxes as well. His guitars were like works of art and, when he demostrated one of them, they had a wonderful sound quality. I overheard tell someone that he makes his guitars to order and they start at $700. If I had the money, I would definitely buy it. That guitar would inspire me to take it up again on a more frequent basis than once in a while when the mood strikes me.

The other one was The Dog Spot, which had a variety of cool dog-related toys and treats. My husband and I have discussed flying back out to Phoenix next month to visit his parents and they have a dog so we ended up buying these special peanut butter dog cookies--two of which were shaped like mailmen and two were shaped like cats.

The most memorable booth was the one that was located right next to my own. Throughout the day I had several people walk by and say that it was appropriate that my table with the Barbie fairy dolls was placed next to that other booth because they also sold Barbie-themed products. I heard so many people tell me this that I had to look next door to see what they were talking about. This booth was shared by two crafters--The Candy Thief and Margaux Lange. One of them specialized in taking Barbie dolls, chopping them up into pieces, and making jewelry out of them. I know that an ultra-sensitive Barbie fan would be turned off by this but I have to admit that the jewelry was pretty unique, different, and well-made. (You can even order it online.)

Another memorable booth was a very large one that was staffed by Etsy.com. I've mulled over possibly selling my handcrafted stuff through Etsy but after talking to a few Etsy members in person yesterday during one of my breaks, I'm definitely going to take the plunge. What I love the most is finding out that it is far cheaper to sell through Etsy than eBay.

I took a bunch of photos. The vast majority of them were of my own booth mainly because I've changed the layout of it from previous shows. (Click on any of the photos to see a larger version open in a new window.)

Here's the entire booth as it was just prior to the start of the festival.

The big difference is that I decided to leave my Volks Dollfie Dream at home this time because I wasn't sure if I would even have room on the table for this doll. (I had been using her at previous shows as an attention-getting device.) With the change in the booth layout and the increase in inventory, I realized that I needed more table space than ever before. I improvised by using my suitcase and a box as mini-tables. As you can tell from the photos, I decided to use Crafty Bastards as an opportunity to unload a few leftover photozines from Artomatic 2007 a few months ago. (I actually sold a few zines.) As for the "NO LEAD" promo sign, that was in response to the recent news about all those recent recalls of toys made in China that were painted with lead paint. (That sign worked since I sold a few dolls to parents.)

The biggest change I made was in how I displayed my necklaces. I used to display them on a cork bulletin board that was perched on an easel. While I got onlookers, I got very few sales. The bulletin board eventually fell apart and I was looking for an alternate way of displaying my necklaces. I hit paydirt when I was walking around Ikea and I found these jewelry display trees for $5 each. Those trees did the trick because I hit a new personal record in selling the most number of necklaces at this festival.

Some more shots of my inventory. In addition to my Barbie fairy dolls, I sold postcards based on my photos of those dolls. I also sold photo magnets--some were based on my Barbie photos and others were based on different types of photos (mostly of animals and flowers). I sold a few postcards but, for some strange reason, I didn't sell a single magnet even though I priced them at $3 each.

This was the first festival where I was able to accept credit cards. Only two people used credit cards to purchase my stuff out of all the sales that day but having a merchant account is still handy for the occasional shopper who wants to buy from me but doesn't have enough cash in the wallet.

Here are the jewelry that I made out of my own photos baked into polymer clay that I call photojewelry. The smaller ones sold far better than the bigger ones so I will definitely focus more on smaller pieces in the future.

This is one of the giant puppets that made an appearance at the festival.

Here is the festival's official mascot, Crafty Bastard. He carried a microphone around along with a speaker that he carted in a wagon. At one point he briefly interviewed me, which was kind of nice.

Here's another one of the giant puppets that roamed the festival.

This man is the only sour spot about the festival. Towards the end of the day I began to hear some guy with an amplified voice talking about Jesus and how we all need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. At first the amplified voice was off in the distance but soon this guy came closer to the fairgrounds and I realized that he was speaking with a bullhorn. He introduced himself by saying "This is your preacher" then began this rambling sermon on why everyone should believe in Jesus. He rambled on and on and, well let's say that his preaching style is not conductive to convincing many people to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior.

If that wasn't enough, he began to sing. His singing sucked far worse than his preaching. Everyone present at the festival were treated to the worst versions of America the Beautiful and Jesus Loves Me that I've ever heard in my life. He also sang other songs that I didn't recognize. Or maybe those songs were ones that I would've recognized but didn't because he butchered them beyond all recognition. In any case, his singing would violate the Geneva Convention Accords outlawing the use of torture.

The worst thing about this guy was that he was perched above my vendor booth and he was a distraction. The entire vendor area, which was filled with people throughout the day, emptied out in a hurry during this man's reign of singing terror. (It's kind of hard to adequately describe how bad his singing was without an audio file. It was just as grating as scratching fingernails on a chalkboard.) If this guy hadn't stuck around, I probably would've gotten a few more sales. But, thanks to him, most people didn't want to browse my table (or any of the other vendor tables in that area) for too long because his singing voice drove most people crazy.

Apparently someone connected with the festival attempted to bribe this man in an effort to make him go away. I heard the man refuse the money through his bullhorn, saying "I'm doing this out of charity." CHARITY?!? It figures that the festival would attract someone who wasn't interested in money.

At one point some people were actually filming this guy, which pissed me off because I felt that it was encouraging his disruptive behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being on YouTube.

Salvation finally came when a DC police officer (seen at left) arrived and escorted this man away. The festival grounds filled up with people again after he left but it was still a smaller crowd than earlier in the day. I didn't sell any more items since that guy showed up.

Here's my booth at the end of the day. I managed to sell quite a few things, which I'm glad of. All in all, it was a good festival profit-wise.

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