Craft Show Recap: "Country Bayou"



Me and my soaps before the show

I hope you aren't tired of my craft show posts, Wonder Turtle friends. I've been doing a lot of them lately - three this month alone. (For the locals, my next craft show is the "Santa's Workshop Craft Fair" at the Navarre Conference Center, FL on November 20 from 9-4. See the "Events" tab on my Facebook Page for more info.)

Last Saturday was the "Bayou Country Craft Show" at Niceville United Methodist Church. We had a fantastic day! (By "we" I don't mean me and my other personalities - at least, not this time. I mean me and my mom, my booth buddy.)

My booth was in the main gymnasium area. We set up the day before, which is something I used to not do. I used to worry about leaving my stuff overnight, but it's rare for any mayhem to occur and it certainly takes a lot of stress out of getting ready the morning of the show. I might wait until the morning of to set up if the show is farther away and just hope that there aren't any surprises.

Shoppers were already starting to arrive while we were taking care of the finishing touches on my booth. I took this to be a good sign, hoping that perhaps it would be a busy day! I had heard good things about this show, and this was my first year participating. I missed it last year for some reason.

I managed to sneak off before the show officially started to visit the Pumpkin Patch. The Patch didn't open until later in the morning, so I was able to walk around and get some lovely pumpkin pics! I remember my dad carving a pumpkin one year when I was little. He cut out rectangles for the eyes, stuck toothpicks into the edge of the rectangles, and then stuck the rectangles on either side of the pumpkin for ears. With its sharp-toothed grin, our pumpkin looked like a Gremlin. It was awesome.

I had scrambled all week to restock my table. I had a good day the Saturday before at Shalimar's Holly Fair and needed to make my table look full again. It's funny - I can take 150 bars to a show, but it never looks like that much once I get it all on the table.



My table at the end of the day


And, boy, was I glad that I had my table fully stocked ... one of my dear friends stopped by and bought 25 bars from me for Christmas presents! (Thank you, dear friend! I won't mention your name in the extremely unlikely event that one or more of your friends may see this post and possibly have their holiday surprise ruined.)

 My dad stopped by, too, and it was very nice to see him. (I should have asked him to pick out a pumpkin so we could make a Halloween Gremlin again.) Thanks, Dad!

I also saw some neighbors at the show and a high school teacher that I had not seen in over 15 years. It's fun to bump into people and catch up.

It was very busy almost all day, and lots of folks turned out for the show. I was up and talking to people most of the day. I love when shows are busy - it is so much more interesting. Days get very, very long when things are slow.

I had an energizing and rewarding day. And when I got home, I was surprised to find an email from someone who had been at the show and had bought a bar from me - she wanted to let me know how much she loved her soap! I thought it was so sweet of her to take the time to contact me, and her kind words really made my day.

Plus, I bought more cupcakes at the bake sale at the show, and I managed to get them into the house without destroying them this time.

Great success!

Thank you to all of the organizers and volunteers at this year's Bayou Country Craft Show. Thank you also to everyone who came out and visited Wonder Turtle Soaps! And thank you to my mom for being my booth buddy again!