Setting Up A Booth For A Festival

The first thing we do when we get to a festival is find our designated spot.  Then we start hauling all our stuff to the site.  We have tables, tent, jewelry displays, sign, and other things needed to make sales during the day.  Oh, and a cooler with some drinks and food.  (Food can be expensive at the fairs and festivals, so we try to bring our own).  The above shots were taken early in the morning when we were at San Clemente for their annual beach festival.

In the picture above you can see the festival tents down on the beach where they will hold races, surfing contests and more.  The vendors, like us are up on a bluff overlooking the beach - really a perfect place.

Here are a set of pictures showing Steve setting up the tent and securing it to construction bricks.  We have found that one needs to have weights to attach to the tent legs to hold the tent securely in place.  You never know when a strong wind might come up and want to blow the tent away - especially at the beach.

After we get the tent up and the tables in place, we set out the jewelry.  Placing the jewelry and displays takes some time and we are always changing where we put things depending on table placement.  So we find it takes about 2 hours to set up everything - tent to jewelry.

After we are all set up, then it is time to check out the other vendors or get coffee or just walk around as we'll be stuck in the tent once the people start coming.

Art fairs and festivals are a lot of work - setting up and tearing down after the show - packing and hauling, but they can be lots of fun too.  The advantages of going to festivals is that one can show your work, get known by people, pass out cards with your business numbers and websites and of course, sell the jewelry.  I like to think of ourselves as jewelry gypsies.  Here are a couple pictures of some of our new sea glass jewelry pieces.

Ways to Promote Your Jewelry

As you've read in this blog, we've been selling our sea glass jewelry at art fairs and festivals. We've also been selling them on the web at Etsy. Etsy is a large website that hosts stores for artisans, suppliers and vintage sellers. Etsy is an easy way to get your product for sale on the web as they provide the website, simple steps to get started and also a check out/buying cart. I would recommend Etsy to artisans just getting started on the web. You a can see our Etsy store at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Okay, so we are on the internet, but how do people hear about us? Find us? Well, at festivals, we give out our cards which list our Etsy site. We list our site on all our emails underneath our names. This is advertising and a way to promote our sea glass jewelry, but it isn't enough to just be on the internet. The internet is HUGE, so we have to do things to promote our site. First, we joined liked minded sites to promote our Etsy store like Facebook - you can see my Facebook page of Sisters Jewelry Design at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sisters-Jewelry-Design/328818121698 there you can like our page and tell others about us. Also I joined a site that promotes Etsy artists called "We Love Etsy," http://etsylove.ning.com/ This ning site gives you a home page where you can talk to other artists and/or advertise your work with pictures and comments - like - "hey, look what I just created." We also pay for a small site on Handmade Spark which is a marketing service for people on Etsy. What I like about Handmade Spark is you can find everything we are doing in one place, ie., blogging, shop, twitter etc. You can click on this following url to go see my site on Handmade spark -http://www.handmadespark.com/myspark/SistersJewelryDesign

Here is a badge they give to you to put on your sites then you click on the sign and off you go to my advertising site. There are other sites to promote your website/store on the web and just a few are Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Handmade Artist Hangout and more. You can twitter about your jewelry - promote your work! There are so many ways to promote your art on the web even this blog is a way for me to share and PROMOTE our sea glass jewelry.

You can spend hours promoting your work on the web or you can hire other people to do it for you. You can spend money on Google ads, we haven't done the ads yets because I want to have a website first. Hours and money can be spent on advertising.

We've also tried a few unconventional ways to promote our sea glass jewelry. My sister Shirley belongs to several charities and is often called to help decorate or set up an auction, a dinner, a lunch. Recently, she was involved in a charity where you buy a table and invite friends. Well, often when you buy a table at an event you can decorate it the way you want! Shirley decided to do a center piece of sea shells and our sea glass jewelry. Here are a couple of pictures of the table (sorry about dimness of photo).

Note how the sea glass necklace on a card lays over the napkin or is tied around a star fish.

One man at the table did take a necklace home by mistake - his wife called Shirley the next day to say they had her necklace. Our jewelry wasn't for sale at the event, but everyone at the table got a good look at some of our pieces. You never know when someone needs a gift and will remember something they saw recently - like our sea glass jewelry. You can also contribute a piece of your art to a charity for auction which is a great way to promote your product.

Another way, we advertise our jewelry is by having it in a case at Shirley's Travel agency. The case filled with jewelry sits on a side table and above the case hangs a picture of sea glass jewelry. Sometimes, someone takes a look and/or even buys a piece. Here are a couple photos of Shirley's set up -

The above ideas are just a few ways we are trying to promote our sea glass jewelry. It is an ongoing learning process. We'd love to hear from you readers if you have any suggestions.

Stay tuned as next we tackle creating our own website!

Quartzsite - Rock and Gem Show

We just spent two days in Quartzsite, Arizona - a dusty, flat place that has for most of the year a population of about 200 people, but in January of each year it becomes the third largest city in Arizona. January is when vendors from all over the world descend on Quartzsite to sell their wares which range from beads to bananas. There are three venues, one right in Quartzsite on the main street behind a huge metal building called Gem World, then if you go down the street and cross over the over pass you'll find two more venues which are so big all you see are tents for miles. The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells. We were looking for beads and jewels to use with our sea glass for necklaces and bracelets. There were so many bead sellers our heads were on swivels - looking, looking, looking.


There were tents and awnings and booths and some metal buildings for the big sellers. There were people selling giant slabs of rocks, crystals, marble. There were tool sellers, fashions, roots, nuts, silk, tribal treasures, jewelry, opals, paintings and more. And in the middle of all the aisles, there were food vendors selling all those greasy and inviting foods with thousands of calories like corn dogs, home made potato chips, carmel corn, burgers, lemonades, and everything fried you can imagine. We had hot dogs and fried onion rings and French fries and a stomach about 20 minutes later. When we went back the second day, we had sandwiches from a deli before hitting the vendor area. Here's Steve with a corn dog for breakfast that first day. Later, he ate a burger. What can I say? Men are always hungry.

The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells and they have had this event for 32 years at Quartzsite. Some of the events there are as follows, just in case you want to venture over there - Rock and Gem Show - January 1-10; Sell-A-Rama - January 15-24; Art & Craft Fair - January 29-February 7, 2010. If you want to visit or even sell next year you can contact the promoters at tysonwells@tds.net.

Across the highway is another venue called Rice. We didn't get over there. Shoot, two days and we didn't even see all of Tyson Wells. It was fun and exhausting and dusty. Quartzsite is the desert so it is dusty and in this area very stark. We found wonderful beads, crystals, turquoise, glass beads and more so the two day trips were a success. A two hour drive from Palm Springs so another two hours to get back home each day which was tiring. You're probably thinking why not stay over night? There is no place to stay in Quartzsite unless you have a tent or RV. We saw hundreds of trailers, rvs, tents and camping sites all full of people. But we don't camp or trailer so that's why we did the drive each day. Just a few of the beads we picked up. If you work with beads and semi-precious stones, you'll want to go to the event next year - it truly is amazing. And the prices are so low compared to sites on the internet or those large catalogue companies. Great deals and savings.

This last shot is of us - two sisters tired yet still smiling at the end of the day shopping in Quartzsite.

We love making sea glass jewelry and finding natural stones and crystals and beads to use in our necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Here are a few shots of pieces we've created with some of our finds.

Please visit our website on Etsy to purchase Sea Glass jewelry hand made by Sisters Jewelry Design - http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/