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you attended this event last year as a spectator or a participant,
we’ll venture to bet that you had a great time. Last year,
hundreds of Portlanders attended our handmade holiday bazaar, where
we featured twenty-six local handcrafters who made a gorgeous range
of paper goods, hand-knit treats, baby sweets, jewelry, bath and
body products, and all sorts of gifts perfect for everyone on your
list.
This year,
while our space hasn’t expanded, our weekend has, and the
Ella/Posie Handmade Holiday Bazaar will happen over two days, with
different artists participating each day. We had to turn many of
you away last year due to lack of space, so we're hoping that by
spreading people out over two days we'll be able to include more
people and give everyone a bit more breathing room!
Thank you for
your interest, and please let
us know if you have any questions that aren’t covered
here. We’re looking forward to a fun afternoon for everyone
involved, and are dedicated to providing an opportunity for as many
of you as possible to showcase your unique, handmade work.
Participation
requirements are much the same as last year:
You must be available the day of the event, for the entire time.
We’ll set up between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. to make sure that
everything is ready for our customers to start coming in at noon.
And of course we won’t want you to start taking your display
down until the event is over, at four. That would look bad, and
you would disrupt customers and other participants, so please
make sure you are available for the whole day.
We are trying to include a whole range of easy, creative gift options
for our customers, so please make sure that your products are handmade
by you and that you have everything tagged
with prices, and care info, if applicable.You will also be responsible
for handling your own transactions, so please bring shopping bags
for your customers' purchases and money to make change, and decide
whether you are willing to accept personal check and/or credit cards.
It gets very, very crowded at these events, so if you've never sold
stuff in this way before, be prepared to keep your transactions
as simple as possible.
You will be set up among the living-area vignettes of the home decor
store, Sofa Table Chair (our neighbor). We’re looking to make
our event look more like a house party than a craft fair, so the
setting is quite casual—you’ll
have sofas, tables, and chairs to use, with everyone getting a spot
about 3x3 feet of table space. If you need to bring any small
display materials with you, please do so, though keep in mind that
you will not have access to electricity or room for anything big,
or anything that would block access to anyone else. In order for
this to work, everyone will need to co-operate and be a bit generous—if
you need less space, please let us know so that we might make room
for someone else.
We plan on providing hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows, some
scrumptious snacks for our customers, and we’ll all just hope
and pray that it doesn’t pour rain like last year and cause
a flood in the showroom. . . .
The cost to you for participating will be
$50, and we will not take a percentage of your sales (ick).
With that, you will receive postcards to send to your family and
friends to let them know that you’ll be showing your wares
at our event, and that you want them to come and support you. We
will also be sending word to our Portland customers (upwards of
1,500) and will be hoping for a bit of publicity to advertise our
event to the general public. But this is a low, low budget event—the
only kind we’re able to do, really—and we rely on good,
old-fashioned elbow grease and hard-work, along with the electricity
of word-of-mouth buzz to bring people in the door. So please spread
the word and encourage people to come and see what you’ve
been up to, crafty girl! We are very proud of the caliber of our
artists and, if the compliments we heard last year are any indication,
we are sure to have a ton of repeat customers.
In order to be considered for
participation, please email Alicia (posie@teleport.com or click
here) and let her know who you are. Then, you’ve gotta
show us what you do! (If you participated last year and intend to
do the same kinda thing, please just let us know. Preference won't
necessarily be given, but you don't need to cart your stuff over
to show us, either.) We are shooting to have a range of mediums
so that our customers have many options for their Christmas shopping.
That said, we can’t have too many people doing the same thing,
so the sooner you get your stuff in to show
us, and the sooner you can get your entry fee to us, the better
chance you have at being selected to participate. We will,
we promise, make every possible effort to include as many of you
as possible, but the space is limited by four walls, so . . . get
in line quick, girls! You can stop
in the shop and show us a sample or two, or send us jpeg photos
to view, or point us toward your web site—whatever will give
us the best impression. If we like what we see, we’ll let
you know and send you a form to fill out and return, along with
your check.When you return the form, please tell us whether you
prefer to participate on Saturday, December 4 or
Sunday, December 5. We can't guarantee you'll get your wish, but
we'll try to accommodate everyone, and as always, you have a better
shot at it if you respond early. The deadline
for all entries has passed, and we now have a waiting list.
This is a first-come, first-accepted sorta thing, so please don't
dilly dally because we hate to say no.
That about covers it, but if you have any questions, please call
Alicia at 503-231-7674, or email her at posie@teleport.com.
Thanks for your interest and enthusiasm! We know this is going to
be a really, really fun afternoon!
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