Well that’s it! I went and did it. I had my first craft fair! I was in a room off from the main entrance so it was pretty quiet, and there was another soaper at the coffee morning that was right in the entrance way, but for my first time at a compound coffee morning, I’m glad it was quiet, and didn’t want it to be really busy which some coffee mornings are. As it was quiet, I only sold a small amounts of soaps, but I made a tiny profit so I was really pleased at that.
Last night I just couldn’t sleep at all and I was up till late getting last minute things done. The ink on my printer decided to run out whilst I ws printing off all my labels and as it’s illegal for women to drive here, and you aren’t allowed to walk out of the compounds, I couldn’t just pop to a shop to get something, so I had to wait till the evening, but the shop didn’t have any black ink, so I had to change the colour of everything to a really dark purple just so it would print out.
I printed out some business cards 
and also some sheets on how I make soap as although many people don’t bother checking the labels when they buy soap that is commercially made, for some reason, when it comes to handmade soap, they examine the label and don’t understand why Sodium Hydroxide is on the ingredient list , (despite the fact that that’s the only ‘chemical’ sounding ingredient, whereas a lot of commercially made soaps are full of chemical ingredients). So I thought by writing a little bit about how soap is made, might make people understand a bit more.
Along with my soaps and cards, I also had some Christmas Stockings that my friend Sao Silva (clickable link) in Portugal made. She’s made me many more items, but I’ll be showing them later on when I get ready for my next coffee morning. I really love them. They feel all ‘satiny’ and have a lovely fluffy white top. Sao has also lined the inside as well so they are really well made :-)
Whilst I tried to be as prepared as possible, you never will be fully prepared for what to expect and it really is a huge learning curve.
Here is a little list of what I learnt:
- Know your product – I had a few people ask me for recommendations based on their skin type which I wasn;t expecting, but it was really nice in some way as it meant people trusted me.
- Have a REALLY big sign that makes it clear that you made the items – a lot of people were really surprised when they found out I had made the soap. It seemed like they thought I had bought it at first, until I started talking to them about what oils I had used and so on. They were very surprised and when they realised, they were genuinely interested and bought the soaps, asked for business cards, and so on.
- Don’t let your table look too busy with too many different types of items – Not only did I have soaps and Christmas items, I also had cards and little Halloween treat boxes. In hindsight, this actually made it difficult for people walking past to actually see what it is that I make as the table was just too busy. Due to this, i’ve decided to focus on soaps. I’ll still sell some seasonal items like the Christmas things, but i’ve decided to leave my cards out of the picture and just sell them as I normally do which is by request rather than at the Coffee Mornings.
Although I was worried to start with that I wouldn’t even sell one item, I’m really pleased I took the plunge and did it. I’m now ready to move onto the next one! :-)
Karen X
