[ craft booth prep - finale! ]

SO TODAY was day 1 of the show and so far it's been a great success! After some heavy rain last night, I was relieved to find my booth intact (the weights held it well). So all I had to do was put up my sign, and fill in with stock.

I decided to create a fabric panel as a backdrop to my sign since most of my back wall was going to be blank (there was space behind my table for 2 chairs). I stapled some fabric I had on-hand to a 2"x2" frame which was tall enough to tuck in under the roof frame to hold it in place. Then the sign was hung with wire from the roof frame as well. It really helped to fill in all that blank white space and made the sign stand out.

I ended up having to open the back corner of the tent wall just for some air flow since it was so hot with the sun shining directly at the booth. When there was a breeze, some gusts were enough to blow bags off the shelves so the little display easels had to be wired onto the shelf units to keep them in place. Luckily the shelves were wire mesh so it was easy to feed wire through the holes. I also used cable ties to attach the shelf units together and wired them to the tent poles to keep them from blowing over (or onto people!)

A mirror leaning on one of the fabric-covered wine crates on the table made it easy to see how a bag would look when worn. I put a few heavy items behind the crate to keep it from shifting.

I grouped the Vintage Series bags together and arranged most of the other bags by colour to make it easier on the eye and tried to keep the display to mostly 2 bags per shelf so each one could be easily viewed.

The old window frame is working well for the floral brooches. It was simply wired to the shelf units through the mesh in behind it. The brooch tags are hung with paperclips through the mesh.

My dressform mannequin stands outside of my booth to display a bag and brooch and can be seen from a distance. I occasionally switch up the bag that she displays.

All in all, I'm pretty thrilled with how it all turned out and got quite a few lovely comments on it. I'm looking forward to the rest of the show this weekend and am praying for no rain!

lisa