My First Craft Show pics!!!

This last April was my very first craft show that I participated in. At the show, my friend Deanna took some pics with her camera for me. Yes, it's been awhile since April, but it's better late than never. So here are the photos. The pic above is me with my creations.

The white case in the photo above displayed my Artful Pen collection. I recently purchased an acrylic displayer for my pens. I bought it for $10, at a Hallmark store going out of business. What a bargain! I don't have a pic of it yet.

When I look at these pics, I think of all of the ways I want to improve the "merchandising" of my work. Since my first show I found some new display fixtures from a couple of local gift shops going out of business. I'm so glad that I was able to find a tabletop spinner to hang my hand-made pins on. It will look so much better than having them just laying flat on the table. I also found a nice floor spinner to hang my Petite Purses on. Yay! Click here to see the pics of my Petite Purse display spinner.

Up near the top center of the photo stands my Bride and Groom Recyc-a-lite penguins, that I customize. Below the Bride and Groom are my Recyc-a-lite bunny and chick sculptures.

The framed print is a giclee print of one of my watercolors. I had a raffle prize basket with some Easter treats and a Recyc-a-lite chick sculpture.

I was fortunate to have three helpers for my craft show booth. Unfortnately, it was not too busy, so we didn't have too many customers to wait on. In the photo above are Pat, Renee and myself. Renee was looking at my necklace that I was wearing that my sister, Sue, made for me. And my third helper, Deanna, is taking the photo of us.

Here's one of my Recyc-a-lite Chick sculptures!!!

And here's one of my favorite pics of my Recyc-a-lite bunnies.

A couple of my Recyc-a-lite penguin sculptures.

And last but not least, my ladybug sculptures.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my first craft show pics. My second craft show will be at the end of November and I'm hoping that my "merchandising" skills will be more effective then. I'm busy getting more pieces done for the November show. Talk to you later! :-)

My Shampoo Bottle is Morphing into a Cat!

I have a habit of collecting things that are unwanted in hopes of making them into something wanted. Some people may call these "unwanted items" trash, junk, or garbage; but I call them objects of potential and possiblities. Empty shampoo bottles and other misc plastic bottles have been one of my current "possibility" projects. And yes, you can see even my cat Tiggy opened one eye to catch the exciting transformation of a shampoo bottle turning into a cat. :-)

When I come to the point of throwing away an empty container or some type of object destined to be tossed away; I think, "What can I make this into? How can I use this item for any of my projects?" Sometimes a "garbage" item makes a useful aid/tool for working on my projects and others play a vital role in the object itself. This is an important role for my cat sculpture. Without the empty bottle, where would my cat sculpture be? It wouldn't be, is the point.

The first photo shows the back of my cat sculpture where you can see the "uncovered" part of the sculpture. The next photo shows a cat trio made with bottles of various sizes. Currently, I'm working on five different cat bottle sculptures and I'm trying to vary the "styles" of my kitty cats.

This photo shows one of the styles, where I used polymer clay for the eyes and I will use some PaperClay to sculpt a nose for the sculpture. This kitty cat is the largest of the five and the first one that I started working on. I used some aluminum foil and a styrofoam ball to sculpt the legs and the head. And then I used some Paper Mache medium to cover the entire body.

And look at this my kitty cat, Tigger, was so exhausted after all the Shampoo Kitty sculpting that he needed to take yet another "cat nap." Ahhhh...the life of a cat. I hope you enjoyed finding out about my cat shampoo bottle project. One thing I need to think of, is a good and unique name for my bottle creations. Any suggestions? Nonetheless, I hope you go and see what items may look unwanted but hold a world of potential within. Talk to you later. :-)

My 1st Craft Show Experience

Well, I survived my first craft show last Saturday. My friend Deanna helped me get all of my last minute things together on Friday. Thank you, Deanna! :-) We had to leave by 6am on Saturday morning, so we packed up most of the items on Friday night.

How successful was the show? Well, in terms of selling things, it was not a big success. Nonetheless, I did sell 2 of my chicks, a Petite Purse, and a Scottie dog pin. One good thing about doing the show is that I was able to meet two other Etsians exhibiting there. I was able to chat all things Etsy, etc with them. And from doing the show, I could see people's reactions to my work and people were able to see my work "in person" vs. seeing it "online." Near the end of the show there was a woman who mentioned to me that she's been thinking of organizing a craft show in the Delafield area and she was interested in having my work at the show.

Another good thing is . . . I have a little bit of craft show experience to learn from and draw upon. Plus, there's the fact that all of the proceeds from the craft show organizers went to the MS walk/run. If I wanted to be "facetious" I would say that I could've brought a TV tray to display my work on since I sold only a small fraction of what I made and packed up to bring to the show. It was a lot of work to do, but as you can see from above, there were plenty of good "non-monetary" things gained from doing it too.


This is the Scottie dog pin that I sold at the show. Hurray! :-)


I mentioned that I sold a "Petite Purse" at the show. What is a Petite Purse? Some of them are photographed above. I just added a few Petite Purses to my Etsy shop, Lilly Bug Boutique.


The yellow "Petite Purse" above is one of my favorites. Yellow is such a cheerful color. :-) This yellow one is posted in my Etsy store as well as the blue one shown below.


Petite Purses are perfect to tuck in a little gift, such as one of my pins or magnets. I tucked my little froggie pin into the Blue Petite Purse.


Please hop into my Etsy shop to see my products. Thanks for visiting! :-)