Preparing for My First Craft Fair!

In planning how best to approach this new venture it occurred to me... with a business centered around handmade items, what better way to promote my creations then by participating in a craft fair?

Well, my first fair is very quickly approaching and is now only a month away! My mind is now racing on how best to approach the fair. Do I concentrate on having ready made product available for purchase? Do I concentrate more on my custom samples and have less actual inventory on hand? How many "sample" products do I bring? How can I draw enough attention to my table without taking away from my actual products?

My banners and business cards have arrived and with a few more images I'll have a brochure to order. In order to help me decide my focus as far as product to bring to the upcoming show, I'll be posting a couple of polls on my Facebook page. If you could take a moment to answer it would be greatly appreciated!

To thank you for your input and support, I'll be offering $5 off of every order over $50 placed from August 1 to August 10 if you comment below the poll to show you responded!

I'll have more blog entries to come as I prepare, and will also have some product "sneak peeks" on Facebook to show you some of the products you can expect to see at the show. Here in Halifax we have an amazing community of very talented local businesses and artisans, and the fair I am participating in marks the second anniversary of one of those very businesses. It looks like it will be a very fun day for the whole family with games, prizes and face painting too!

Here are the details!

Hope to see lots of faces, familiar and new, at the fair!

The Kinks of a New Business

This past week I tried to hold my first giveaway on Facebook. The day before the draw, a caring friend and fellow mompeneur brought to my attention the fact that Facebook has some pretty tight rules on their promotion guidelines. If I simply shared a photo and told people to like my page and share the photo as so many promotions did, I risked losing my business page. It was a risk that I just couldn't take.

By this time I had already been circulating the photo for several days and was quite excited to see that many people had shared the photo and were eager to enter the contest. Thanks to the third party app that Facebook required me to install though, my draw did not have any entries and I was quite disappointed by the outcome.

So, I'm going to do this a bit differently. To make up for the confusion that surrounded the first draw, I am going to enter the names of those who shared my giveaway photo and have liked my business page into a random generator and hold a draw for the $25 credit to Memorably Sweet. The draw will be held on Wednesday night to allow me time to sort through the entries and find an appropriate name generator.

I'll also be launching a new giveaway on Facebook too! When I hit 100 likes on the Facebook page for Memorably Sweet Arrangements, a name will be randomly drawn from everyone who likes the Memorably Sweet Arrangement for an additional $25 credit! I will be posting the winner of each draw as a status on the Memorably Sweet page, and I will also be posting details here.

So there it is, my first kink as a business owner. I can only hope that it is the worst that happens. Please bear with me though as I settle into this new journey. I may not have gotten it right the first time, but I'm trying to learn from it and make this next giveaway much more successful!

The Creation of Memorably Sweet Arrangements

When I gave birth to my son in 2012, I received a gift that infertility had made me doubt I would ever receive…a diaper cake. It was three tiers high with tiny rolled diapers, toiletries, booties and a stuffed bear at the top. It sat on display in my living room for several weeks until his transition from newborn size diapers meant that it was time to unroll the diapers and put the gift to use. 

 I took several pictures which are now in his baby book and my mother and I spent some time carefully deconstructing the cake so that we could use each and every element of it.

Fast forward to a year later. My son was now toddling around the house and exploring every bit of life that he could. The memory of the diaper cake and the thought that had gone into celebrating our sweet boy had stayed with me.  Knowing that we would have a large expense coming our way if we wanted to grow our family again, an idea sparked for me.

What if I could make my own diaper cakes so that others could share a sweet memory like mine by receiving such a thoughtful gift? It would also allow me to put aside a little bit of money to help grow our family again and give my little boy a brother or sister some day.

I set about making a Pinterest board of ideas and inspirations that others had made. I was in awe at the creativity and time that went in to the examples that I was seeing. I saw tiny washcloths made into sweets, animals and flowers. I saw alternatives to diaper cakes using clothes, blankets and various baby needs. I was enamored to say the least.

I didn’t want to stop at just babies though. My own struggles with infertility had left me knowing that there are so many other events in life worth celebrating. You tend to learn to celebrate the small things when you are faced with a struggle that can be so self-consuming. So, I looked at “towel cakes” which would allow me to also expand into bridal celebrations, housewarming gifts and even day to day things worth celebrating… a university student embarking on their new journey; a simple beach day; or even a gift meant to pamper you and let you know that you are thought of.

I told a lifelong friend of my idea, and to my surprise she placed an order for a wedding towel cake for the very next weekend. In my excitement, I was sharing with friends at work the opportunity and a co-worker asked for a diaper cake for the exact same day as the wedding towel cake.

I had four days to complete them. I had never actually tried to make a diaper cake or a towel cake, but I decided that I WOULD give them a gift that would provide a sweet memory to the recipient and that I could be proud to say was my creation. I brought the diaper cake to work that Friday and she was thrilled with the end result. The towel cake was delivered that night, and my friend was elated. My first projects were complete, they were a success. 

And so Memorably Sweet Arrangements was born.