My Renegade Craft Fair day is over and I’m still wiped! It was a lot of fun and a ton of work to prepare. The day started off a bit crazy weather-wise, but we made it through and it was not only a good learning experience but a great success! I think next time I might try for two days to make all the work worth it, but here’s the low down…

We arrived around 8:20ish in the morning after pulling a near all nighter to get things packaged up. (I had what seemed like a billion snafu’s getting everything ready… including a printer melt down) My friend Kristin was amazing and helped me finish the final touches and stayed with me the entire day of the fair. Thanks K!!

I had the sweetest booth buddy, Ashley of Poko Jewelry. She brought a tent that we could both share. The fair opened at 11:00AM but around 10:30 while we were setting up shop, the skies opened up and it started to rain. Along with that, big gusts of wind threatened all of our tents and I had a moment of thinking everything would just blow away and we’d have to go home. But around noon the rain stopped and by 1:00PM the sun was shining and the park was packed with happy shoppers.

It was so wonderful to meet people in person and be able to share my work in a public setting for the first time. I just wished I had more sleep from the night before! My NYC cards flew like hot cakes and got lots of laughs which was fun. Everyone seemed to have a favorite print and it was interesting to see what people liked best. My city dogs were definitely a hit, along with anything flamingo. And I’m sure national donut day had a thing or two to do with the popularity of my donut illustrations =) I made notes of things people wish I had, like the Eiffel Fleur print on a journal or the NYC illustrations in an 8×10 print.  It was great to get instant customer feedback so I can prepare for next time!

Overall it was a fun event (with great food!) and I definitely want to go back to the Renegade Pop Up Shops another Saturday this month so I can experience it as a shopper. It’s a wonderful opportunity for artisans and makers and I can only hope I get accepted into the holiday show later on this year! Thanks to everyone who stopped by my booth and for all the wonderful feedback. It gives me a boost to keep moving forward and figure out my next move!

Hope you have a wonderful sunny start to your week, I’ll be posting my latest products that debuted at the fair in my shop shortly. Stay tuned!!

~Joanna <3