Fairport Canal Days

I participated in Fairport Canal Days the first weekend of June. It was a huge success! I met a lot of great people, sold some merchandise, and got a good feel for how booths are. 

Here are some pictures from the event. 

My husband, Eric, was my savior in the weeks leading up to the event, as well as the day of.  He took my crazy ideas, and helped me make them happen. The day of, he was "johnny-on-the-spot." If something didn't work or look right, he fixed it. Thank you!

I was able to get this booth at a very low cost because I qualified for the "Young Emerging Artist" category. In my section, I won an award for best overall booth. I was so thrilled!

My sister, Jessy, sat with me and helped me all day on Sunday. She also was a huge help. It was also just a ton of fun to hang out with her. 

I offered a free raffle the entire weekend. Because of it, I have a lot of names that I've been able to follow up with. 

These shutters were an idea i had to display the invitations. This picture isn't great, but they looked really cute in person. The invitations were strung across like a clothesline. Making the shutters happen was quite a bit more work than I thought it would be. 

I first had to track them down. My booth space was quite wide, and I was back to back with another vendor (notice her tie dye sheet), so I wanted them to act as a divider. I found the shutters on craigslist from two different people. Because they were from different sources, they didn't all match. Some were taller than others, and they were all different colors (dark green, white, dark red). 

The first project was to make them all the same height. Eric had the idea of cutting a chunk out near the top, and then gluing the top piece back on the bottom. The result was seamless. 

The next project was painting them. I hired (a few bucks and lunch) my brother, John, to help. It took two full days to scrape and paint both sides of 8 shutters. Most of them needed 3 coats! He did a fantastic job and I wouldn't have finished without him. Unfortuanely, I don't have a picture of him painting, but here is a picture of him looking sharp at his school formal.

Then, Eric hinged them all together. They came out just as I hoped they would!

Overall, people seemed to really like my work. I'm excited to do some more smaller craft shows to sell the rest of my inventory, as well as bridal shows in the fall. 

Which reminds me, does anyone have any suggestions of smaller craft shows happening this summer and fall?