Yay! This crafter uses quite a scrumptious color palette! She has a holistic approach when setting up her booth at fairs. Her setup reminds me of a charming, vintage bookstore, and I know I would be at her booth for a very long time! I love these pastel shelves that are rounded at top!!
Paper Pastries creates a delightful assortment of paper goods, and stationary. I am very excited to share one of the most unique crafty setups I have EVER seen!! She also has vended at some larger shows and also trade shows, something that a lot of us do not get the opportunity to do. And she is well worth it!!
She was great to tell us a bit about her crafty successes, and we get to learn a little bit more about how she thinks!! Here we go...
1.) Please introduce yourself...
Company: Paper Pastries
Name: Margaret Haas
General Location: Los Angeles
Website/Contact Info:
www.paperpastries.com/
paperpastries@gmail.com
2.) What form of art/craft do you make? stationery
3.) When did you start vending at Craft Fairs? Were you
successful at first?
My first craft fair was in July 2009, Renegade in los angeles.
I got a lot of positive feedback and what I made over that weekend blew my online sales out of the water.
4.) What is/was your favorite Art/Craft Fair you have ever
attended/vended at and why?
My favorite craft fair was indie mart in Nov 09.
I was worried because it was outside, in san francisco, in november. The weather made all the difference.
It was sunny, so tons of people came out for it, there was great food, and beer, so shoppers were happy.
The organizer was so happy to be running this show, that made it better for vendors and shoppers.
I knew she had done a lot of prep work too.
5.) What was your least favorite Fair to attend/vend at?
Why?
The art-a-faire in huntington beach.
It was poorly organized and definitely not advertised. Not my kind of crafts.
6.) Who tends to be your target audience? What tends to be
your best selling item(s)?
Women are my target audience, most of them have been from age 20-50.
Best selling items are the i left my heart in cards, address stamps, pencil sets, and stationery sets.
7.) Do you ever do marketing for your upcoming shows, or do
you leave it to the Show Coordinators? If you do promotions,
how do you do them, and do they seem to work well? Do you
ever do giveaways at shows? Give out lots of business cards,
etc...
I blog, tweet, and tumble about upcoming craft fairs. It can't just be up to the organizers to do that.
From this, I have gotten a lot of family and friends to come to shows, but I'm not sure how many others.
Every show, I make sure to have tons of business cards on hand, and to have my mailing list available for sign up.
8.) Have you ever helped put a show together or run a show?
Which one(s)?
not yet
9.) How have Flickr, Etsy, Facebook, etc helped you expand
your crafty business?
I would say that flickr has exposed a lot of my products to an audience that otherwise might not have seen it.
10.) What do you think the difference is between an Art
Show and a Craft Fair? If there is any difference...
At an art show you can buy a painting, photograph, or illustration at a craft fair you can buy all that plus a scarf, card, ring...
11.) If you wish, please list your upcoming shows for 2010
and beyond.
march 6th- los gatos spring boutique at the history club of los gatos
march 13th Listen, Taste, Touch & See - A St. Patrick's Evening Arts & Crafts Fair! 4-9pm 1313 n. miller st anaheim ca
march 14th Pink parlour festival santa anita race track
april 24th + 25th unique la
july 24th+25th renegade la
12.) Any words of advice for people who do not think their
setup is as good as it could be? What is your most
successful layout for a table or booth. Be as general or
specific as you want.
You need to brand yourself.
it could take a month or a year. It could never be done. Before you buy anything for your setup, you should ask yourself- what does this say about my brand? how does this fit in? Am i buying this because its cute or because its cute AND works?
also, don't have this set idea in your head about how it needs to look- you need to be able to set up your display and product in a 10 x 10 space or on a 6x3 table.
13.) Any closing remarks?
I am so lucky to have been able to start this business with such a supportive group of friends and family.
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