first show of the year.

i always try not to make the craft shows i participate in into big productions that stress me out. they are, in and of themselves, a bit stressful just because, as an event, there is so much preparation for them... packing up, loading, unloading, unpacking, displaying, pricing, selling, loading up to bring home... and it seems to take quite a bit of work no matter how laid back and low-key you try to make your display.

well, not this weekend but next weekend, i'm going to be in a show that i've done before, but this time i'll be selling almost exclusively supplies. i'm trying to sell some of the bounty that i so unexpectedly inherited from my mom when she passed away in january. because she had so many, i'm only selling about a third of what i saved (what wasn't given to charities and craft ministries) and it's all things that i felt like could be packaged neatly as supplies, a project kit (where most of the pieces are there, you just have to put them together and maybe add some of your own embellishment), and of course, fabric. getting it all packaged (even simply) and priced in time for the show has been an incredibly big project! i'd say even at this point, i'm probably only roughly halfway finished.

the craft packs and project kits awaiting their labels:

scrap packs from cutting all the fat quarters:

and, of course, more fat quarters than have ever been cut at once ever:

in fact, i had never cut a fat quarter at all before, so it took me a little while of avoiding the project to finally get started and find out that it's really not that hard. very tedious to do this many at once, but not at all hard. what is still hard is not wanting to keep all of my mom's fabrics, even though as i cut up this whole tub of them, i remember that i have two more in the garage that i do get to keep. it's hard to go through because it all smells like her. i'll definitely be happy to be done measuring, cutting, rolling up, and tying!

i am excited about the show, though. this will be the second time i've been in it, the first being back when it's lowly name was the crafter's flea market. now it's called the designer's downtown market, and it's a really good show, relatively inexpensive with an almost guaranteed turnout. if you visit the link, you can see me on the vendor list to the right with a link to my etsy shop! call me a novice, but that's still really exciting to me! i'm also excited because they posted their show schedule for the rest of the year, and i think i may try to do the september one with my product instead of supplies. what's one more craft show at 7 months pregnant right? i'll probably skip the november 29th one, since, although on my birthday, it's also the day before my due date. probably not the best idea!

so if you're local to the raleigh/triangle area, be sure to stop by! it's a really great show with lots of variety. i promise you'll see something new there. and hey, if you're in need of any fat quarters, i'll be there!