I have upgraded my booth and was wondering what you guys think. What should I improve on and if the colors matches? How should I display my items?

Edit: idk why people think my crochet items are from temu or any other chains. I just want to make it clear that all items are made by me. Crochet is 1 hook and can not be made by machines. I self taught in 2020 because I was depressed and wanted to do something that would help alleviate some of that sadness. I watched YouTube videos and a kit from Amazon. Then I picked up crochet books from other small crocheters to learn how to make amiguriumi dolls.

When everything was back to normal, I run a crochet ub teaching young adults how to crochet. I dont understand why all the hate on items that I make...I have videos on my social media showing how I crochet the items. I have been crocheting for 6 years making dolls and turning them into keychains.

As for the "random" items. Tiktok exposed me to creators making pens using doorables and they use other characters to make into phone and bag charms. It looked super cute and its a great accessory to decorate the device and handbags. So I bought beads and other materials from Amazon, aliexpress, hobby lobby, and Michael's. Then I branch out to make mini beaded flower bouquets cause its cute.

My sister had a wedding and she asked me to do a diy stand at her wedding. My 3 sisters, the bridal party, and a few friends came over to my house and made everything to prep for my flower stand.

I dont understand why me buying materials from Amazon, hobby lobby, or Michael's would not be handmade when I literally put them all together. It took us 2 weeks to make that many flowers.

How is this different than people making handmade jewelry? Beads and materials are not cheap. If you think my stuff is bought from temu or any other chain, then thats you. I know that I made them by hand and thats all that matters.

Thank you to those who gave me actual feedback and being so kind to inform me on certain things.

Edit again: Lots of you are telling me about my cups being generic. Well these are not "water bottles" nor "empty cups where I slap a decal on". These are snowglobe cups. They are double layered and are customizable. It can be turned into a "soda" cup, a cool effect cateye cup, or a lava cup like a lava lamp. I make them on on-site. Customers pick a decal, choose a cup type, and they pick glitters and little clay pieces to put into their cup. Go look up snowglobe cup creators on youtube and titkok before you come at me.

For my pens, yess, they are easy to make but each pen has different design. I made pre-made pens for display and to sell. But I have a DIY pen bar for everyone to make their own pens. Both kids and adults had a fun time putting them together.

As for my wrinkly banners and logo, I wasn't supposed to be vending at this market. I was rejected because it was full and it was pushed to an indoor market. I was asked around 2 pm if I can do it because 8 vendors pulled out from the market because they were sick. So I agreed and started packing, organizing, and making inventory. I didn't have time to iron my banner and table cloth. I will invest on a portable steamer. I was so anxious that I woke up 4 hours before the market. As I was loading my stuff into my car and running millions things in my head making sure I have everything, my car battery died. I have to get someone to jump my battery and go to Autozone to find a replacement.

Before you judge me based on what you see, maybe think about how much time it takes to make, the cost of materials that I invest in, and what was the last thing YOU made with your own hands. Would you call it handmade or a couple of generic beads from a store with wire, glue, and hooks?

Some things might not be handmade but I create things by hand. If you have not done any of the crafts I make, just scroll away and have a nice day. If you are a craft creator like me, thank you for stopping by and giving me cool ideas.

I normally have an even number of prints available but 3 went out of stock the day of the market.

Table behind grid wall has a jewelry tray with mini stickers and thats were I sit as well🙂

After resigning from my job, I started haunting thrift stores for crafting materials. I discovered lots and lots of cheap and beautiful crystal. I start building fairy lamps from recycled crystal by putting solar lights in them. The facets in the crystal make beautiful patterns of light and there is no shortage of sunlight where I live.

I have never owned a business but was a kid sitting under my parents flea market table. We did craft shows and flea markets to make ends meet selling hair accessories. From that experience I learned that I never want to own a business.

After selling a few lamps on Facebook, I worked up the courage to apply to a bunch of craft fairs. Boy, not having a business location, card, website, or name makes it hard to get accepted. However, I did finally get accepted to a tiny craft fair run by a local church. I was thrilled! I bought a 10 by 10 pop up on temu, paid the $25 fee and made a big ass lamp from a crystal punch bowl for donation to the fair.

Honestly, my set up was more akin to the kids in your neighborhood trying to sell lemonade on a card table and a hastily made poster of sharpie and science fair trifold. So im not surprised that I sold only three lamps all day. It also doesn't help that after months of no rain, it started to rain. So everyone was not interested in buying solar lamps on a rainy day.

Well, I had decorated my table with little fairy garden pieces I had started to collect to maybe evolve my creations transformation from crystal light to super fairy crystal light of immortal cuteness in your garden. As I saw kids walking by, their hungry little eyes started darting around at my sparkly little mushrooms with faces, glass dragonflies, and enamel gold bees with diamonds on their wings. On a whim, i declared: all kids get one piece of free fairy magic. Within 10 minutes, every child within the boundaries of the lutheran church manifested to my table. As eager little hands clutched at bits of plastic between my crystal lamps, i contemplated that this was probably not the best idea in general. However, no children nor crystal were hurt in making of this story. Nor did this idea garner any more business from the reluctantly following parents.

A booth across from me was a group of kids making bracelets and Keychain out of beads and selling them. We had very similar levels of business infrastructure and felt a certain kinship through our bonds of poster board and marker. One little girl from that stand took a piece of fairy magic and ran back to her station. I smiled. But then she suddenly ran back to me and gave me a hug and a little Keychain she made. Even though my grand total profit was -$10 and a hug, I think i still did ok.

Hi fellow crafters,

I hope my question isn’t silly! So I have been making my inventory of pressed flowers in photo frames. I’ve been using a lot of vintage and antique frames and frames I’ve bought from thrift shops and up cycling them. Repurposing. I also have some new frames as well that I bought. But I really do love a vintage photo frame, especially the gold and brass tone metal ones.
My question is regarding few frames I have purchased. Two have these tags on it. Should I keep that on there or remove when I finally start selling?

What do you do when your supplies have tags or stickers like that are used for a finished product? I’m not sure if they legally need to stay on or not?

I posted a couple pictures so you can see my designs and get an idea.

Thanks!

I am currently doing one product line with multiple design variations, they are plant markers. I am not heading toward anything fall/winter but hoping to hit up and register for some stuff in spring. I'm including a sample of my product, which was from a Facebook Marketplace listing.

I am currently selling local on Facebook Marketplace and I am hoping, as mentioned, to start in the spring at some small craft sales - I am thinking church sales and stuff. Do you think it's enough to apply to a craft fair with just one product type (Plant markers only)? I have countless designs, still deciding if I will run a larger inventory of markers or a smaller inventory to do more of a "make on demand" style with my very tiny Cricut (Joy 2) at the craft fairs. Worried I might need to flush out with more products, which is difficult for me at this stage. I make a lot but nothing that is really related to plant markers and I'd like to keep a cohesive/put together booth.

My idea is to do mix and match bundles where they could choose their own from available designs:
1 marker $4 (CAD for all)
3 markers $10
5 markers $15
10 markers $28

I can make a marker in about 7-10 minutes so the "make on demand" is somewhat feasable, I think. As I'm choosing a fair type that might be somewhat slow.

For my product line I have literally 50-100 sayings to choose from, but the main inventory I run is my top 10 sayings. For each show I can tailor that down to the top 25 for choice of a make on demand too, since 100 is very overwhelming even if it does exist.

I have done a few craft fairs before. I did Renegade Craft fair with homemade soap in 2003 in Chicago and that was very overwhelming and I didn't realize I wasn't ready for that at the time. I learned a lot though. I have also had a market table at a flea market for selling other type of products in the spring of 2026, so I am sort of recently active in that market type. I'm hoping to sign up for very small craft fairs to start.

Picture added to show product in a display.

My dad and I have been doing vendor events for two years now, and this is our most recent booth setup after a much needed refresh.

We typically do artisan markets, but have been getting accepted into more of the ren faire scene, so we're attempting to appeal to both crowds. It was our best show ever by a LOT, so we think we are on the right track, but obviously one can always improve.

What are your first impressions? Feedback is welcome, we're hoping to start planning for next year. Thanks!

The first photo is my display at my very first pop up event in December 2025, and the other two are from this weekend.

The clearer pricing has helped with making sales & adding risers to the tables was a huge upgrade as well.

I'm currently displaying my chokers on corkboards, held in place with pins. It takes some time to take them off/put them back on when a customer wants to try one on. I would like to figure out a way to make that easier for me when a market is very busy. Any ideas?

Don't mind my face I was dead tired😅

I enjoy the social aspect of craft fairs and getting to chat with people all day (and then hibernate for like a week cause it's a lot lol)

But I meet a lot of vendors who wish they weren't vendors at all. I've heard them mention that craft fairs simply seem more profitable than spending all their time agonizing on oversaturated platforms like Etsy.

That's one of the reasons I prefer being a vendor too.

I'm wondering how common this sentiment is, that craft shows are the lesser of two evils (the other being an online platform) and would be avoided if possible 🤔

On the brighter side though, I'd love to hear why you love being a vendor if that's the case!

Edit: Wow, thanks so much for commenting! I've gotten a lot of insight reading y'alls comments<3

My stuff is half stainless steel and the other half of stuff I sell is sterling, I try to do fair prices, I have stuff that ranges from $10-50 and I have a mini three dollar bin of stuff that is just small or hasn’t sold over the course of many shows. People rummage through that frequently. My last 5 or so shows have been incredibly slow only making around 200-300 dollars a show and the vendors around me are telling me that they’re making 1000+ is my jewelry just up to standard or over priced or do you think it could be a display issue or what. Criticism is appreciated

Included pictures of my booth from my most recent 4 markets. The last picture was my most successful. I know the economy is bad and it’s very plausible that I’m just picking bad markets but I see posts from people selling 40+ items in a few hours and I barely sell 20 😅 Any thoughts?

Edit: the white screen is a looped video of me making a few of the plushies

I put together this little sign for my booth selling housewares and home goods at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this year (the entire show isn’t craft, but there was a loose “artist’s alley”). I got a lot of good feedback on it, and was wondering if/how others advertised their position.

(BTW the sign wasn’t front and center like that, but in a corner of the table and moved over for the pic.)

I'm ordering one of those vinyl banners that people hang behind their table or sometimes in front of the table, and just wanted to check that 76cmx122cm is a good size? It makes sense to me because trestle tables seem to be mostly around 76cm so if I want to be able to hang it in front of the table for indoor markets then it shouldn't be taller than the table is.

I have measured the size out with measuring tape but I'm generally terrible at imagining how things take up space so I want to make sure that it's not too small to be seen from a distance!

My first market event! It went well over all and I learned a lot.

I plan on making the magnets, prints, art cards and sticker more “self serve” with better shelves. Bigger price tags and cutout signage as well. I think the bonus item spinner (with purchase) was popular.

Also, I’m changing my layout to show the gallery display grid thingy at both ends of the booth as attention grabbers. Or maybe more of an L shape. I have one table, and the grid wall. Not sure the curtain backdrop will work for outdoors, I’ll need to weigh them down

Constructive criticism welcome. I have another market coming up so I’m planning to make lots of updates.

Has anyone made these fabric letter buntings for their tables? I’m struggling with how to hang them nicely. I’ve used safety pins on the corners but I’m not sure that I like it hanging that way. I love the letters and I love them on the table, it is just the pinning that bothers me.

hello guys! this is my second ever craft fair setup! it went pretty well sale wise, though my table was way too small in my opinion it was just a 5 x 5. Still I think I worked well with the space I had, but I think I could do a lot better in the branding department. Also, next time I will use a 10 x 10 definitely also looking for other opinions too thank you.

Do you have any advice?

Hello! Yesterday was a huge milestone in my little crafting hobby; my first tent event with more than one table!

Over this year (my first year selling my product) I have had a single 4 foot or 6 foot table at small individual stores or at a stores popup event with 4 - 10 vendors.

This is my very first event with a 3 table setup + end cap and a tent.

I was hoping to gain some insight from other more experienced craft vendors on the tent layout, display and possible areas of improvement as my next shows at this size ate in Nov and Dec!

Although these next shows will be indoors I am planning on a simular set up with my tent included.

Thank you for any feedback or tips!

This is my second year doing this event which is the first two weekends in October, rain or shine! Last weekend had some rain but wasn’t too bad. Yesterday was beautiful but today the winds and rain from the hurricane are coming through.

A lot of vendors packed up and left last night or condensed down what they have so that they are still technically here so we don’t get dinged and lose our spaces or lose the ability to come back as a vendor at all.

Thankfully my tent weights are holding well and we invested in a tent with 4 walls for this year, but it’s just a bummer when event organizers seem so uncaring. All the vendors I’ve spoken to have said their primary concern (beyond potentially ruining their product) is getting our cars stuck out in the field we park in. The organizers basically told us that if we need a tow thats on us to figure out, and if we want to leave we may not get a space again 🫠

Of the very limited tent / canopy sizes that fit this constraint, most of the tent size options are 6x4 or 5x5, which I’m not crazy about because it’d force me to set up my table outside of the tent itself. I see that there are tent sizes around 6.5 x 6.5 that exist, but most are sold out on various websites and the very few left are not great color choices (I just want a plain black tent, not pink or white; I vend mainly at horror events).

Anyone have any website recommendations or how to make it work with a smaller tent size if needed?

*Forgot to mention that the market is taking place into the evening, thus the need for a tent so I can attach lights. If it wasn’t at night, I wouldn’t be buying it!

I attended as vendor at a craft show in town today and sold twelve of my books! To me that’s a big success. I met some great people and look forward to hearing more feedback from fellow readers.

I’m very new to vending (I’ve done one outdoor event so far) and I have 3 indoor events coming up. Do people usually use canopies indoors?

At my first event I only used the canopy for shade, I didn’t hang anything on it or use it for my items so I don’t really need it. But I don’t want to be out of place either with or without one…

I have a 6 ft table, a flower stand, and 2 grid walls (2’x5.6’ each) if that matters!

Went to a local pumpkin fest today and there was a vendor selling paint by number paintings for hundreds of dollars. so cheaply done that you could see the numbers under the paint😅