Craft Show Booth Design
We just attended the 2016 Heart of New Mexico Fiber Gathering, held this year at Wildlife West in Edgewood, NM. Although I am fairly experienced with craft shows, this festival was only the second time we have been a vendor at a fiber festival. Our main business goal was to network and meet other fiber people and I'm happy to say that we were able to do that, and make a little money besides! In fact, all our fleeces are sold this year and we won't have to store any! For me, the main goal for this festival was to have a nice looking booth and I think I accomplished that as well. I always like to look at the displays of other craft vendors, so I thought I would show how I this one together. Here are the pictures. It was a fun weekend!
Our brand theme is rustic country with wire, barnwood and burlap for texture. Country colors such as dirt brown, denim blue, brick red, sand and sage green inspire our theme. As I back away and look at the pictures, I think I need larger letters for our farm name sign. I would love to be able to afford real denim for the table cloths - perhaps someday.
I really like the wire baskets hanging on an old fence post as a display for our Finn wool roving. I made cotton lined burlap bags to hold the roving.
These wooden crates have worked very well to add height to the flat table. I "aged" stained the new wood with a mixture of steel wool and vinegar. The red wire basket and tiered display stand were purchased items. The tall wood hanger is a DIY project from a weathered 2x4 and an old hook.
I love the versatility of these "half-pallets." I purchased them at Michael's craft store and I can use them flat, stacked, front or back. I made the "T" display from iron gas plumbing pipes. I mounted the pipes on a piece of old barnwood to hold steady. This was not an inexpensive project, but it is perfect for displaying my crocheted wrist distaffs. The wire in the back is from an old rabbit cage. I knew I would find a creative use for it someday! The other wire panels were purchased on sale at Hobby Lobby's in the spring - with this display in mind. It's always good to plan ahead. The metal tray is an inexpensive pig feeder pan from Tractor Supply. I also found inexpensive burlap bags there to line my trays and crates. Because we are a real farm, I'm trying to use real objects when I can. That just gives a little more of an authentic country look to the whole. Using elements with differing heights and varying mass and texture is a good design principle. So, I've got the tall, thin, rough, smooth, chunky, delicate - all differing and mixed together. Yet still feeling countryish, I hope.
Here's what the display looks like with some of our products: felted wool hotpads, coasters and boot/shoe buffers, collage kitchen towels, moth sachets, crocheted wrist distaffs for spindle spinners and inexpensive spindles for beginning spinners. We have a few handmade niddy noddy's in this picture. You can also see those fabulous Watson Multishears (sheep shears) displayed as well. I had a bunch of felted wool dryer balls, but they were sold by the time I took the picture. Yay! It's good to have a few different sizes of baskets and trays so that you can rearrange the inventory as it sells. This way the booth doesn't look sparse by the end of the weekend. I used clothespins and thumbtacks to attach signage to the various pieces of the display.
We were fortunate to set up in a corner spot at the festival. This allowed us to "spill over" just a bit and angle the fleece display. There are two old barnwood boards laying atop two stained crates. We have a third board to build it up when there are more fleeces, but these were the only two left at the start of the second day. I like how the structure of the display allows me to rearrange as the inventory shrinks.
So it was a pretty good weekend, but I'm exhausted. We're doing it all again in another month at El Rancho de las Golondrinas in Santa Fe. This next show is not a fiber festival, rather it is a craft show that focuses on traditional crafts of New Mexico. Thank goodness wool craft and spinning fits that theme. I've got to get busy with more inventory.
