I’ll be participating in Austin Craft Riot a week from Saturday. It’s a great handmade show full of all sorts of goodness. Texas crochet peeps @ObeyCrochet and @Love_evol are both going to be dropping by the show.
If you’re in the area, you should too! 
Maybe watch my booth long enough to give me a bathroom break?
One of the features of this handmade show is that the first 25 people through the door each day will get a grab bag of free handmade goodies. Yes, that’s right. FREE handmade items.
Admittedly I do have mixed feelings about the words “free” and “handmade” going together in the same sentence, but it does get people in the door and it is fun to win things. Plus there will be raffles for handmade items donated by Austin Craft Riot team members as well, which helps us pay for things we need to continue to put on awesome shows. Soooo, it’s all for the cause and part of the expense of getting a booth.
Donations for door prizes are always a bit of a quandary for me, since as a crochet artist who likes to use high-end materials, my overhead is already pretty high before even considering a donation. Not to mention I cannot compete in volume of production with someone who strings beads. Last year’s crochet magnets still took a lot of time to make, not to mention materials I don’t normally stock. Which also means time away from making what I can sell. (And additionally takes time away from other causes near and dear to my heart.)
This year I’m donating a hand carved shawl pin for the raffle cause, thanks to Jimbo’s guidance and encouragement at Crochet @Cama (which I have yet to make). Below are samples of the handmade freebies I put together for the Austin Craft Riot goodie bags. (Click the picture to get the slide show to play.)
The tags? They came from Avery’s Design & Print Online. I had to tweak the layouts, as the template does not allow you to change the size of the tags. I needed these in a hurry, so I just moved all the text over and trimmed off nearly an inch of red from the tags after printing so they would fit the plastic bags I’m using. I only needed 15, so I justified speed over cost of ink. I wouldn’t recommend this for a mass amount of product. Still, take a look at the Avery tools and it should give you some ideas if you’re getting ready to do shows and are debating on how to tag your goods.
For more help and ideas on doing shows, you might like to read my article “About Doing Craft Shows: Observations, Likes and Advantages.” I still haven’t written part 2 for it, but perhaps I will for NaBloPoMo.
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