A Neon Silly Monster Birthday Party

We chose the theme "Neon Silly Monster Party" for Trey's birthday.  How's that for adjective overload!?  Our middle man turned three this August and I'm just now getting a chance to tell you about it!  (But the party was super cute, so maybe you'll forgive me for being three months late.)  

I get asked all the time how I plan my parties, so here's a little behind-the-scenes, hopefully this former event planner can pass on a few tips that might be helpful for you...

When I get an idea for a party I jump on Pinterest first to see what other people have done.  I get the best ideas for color schemes and special touches that way, then I put my own spin on it.  In this case, there were plenty of monster parties out there, but I wanted it to be so colorful that my camera would scream for mercy!  (My Silly Monster Pinterest Board)

I always sketch out what I want my focal points to look like.  It helps me because I am so visual.  From there I can write "to do" and "to buy" lists.  I usually shop my own house first after I decide on a color scheme and that's when I found some neon pipe cleaners and glow sticks... it went crazy from there!

One pack of neon poster board became place mats and thank you notes.  

My sister-in-law owns a cookie business and they make the most amazing sugar cookies.  Usually sugar cookies look pretty but taste gross and are so hard you might just chip a tooth... not so with Southern Sugar Bakery!  These cookies taste even more amazing than they look!

She has a tiny projector and can project any image on to the cookie... custom logos, monograms, even Lilly Pulitzer fabric!  You've got to check out their Facebook page for more pictures.  (They ship anywhere in the world!!)  The cookies really took all of my meager decorations up to another level!

On to the table... lots of layering going on here.  It's a yellow table cloth, my poster board monster place mats, and the runner is just some wrapping paper that I liked folded in half, easy peasy!

 See what I mean about those cookies stealing the show!?  I know!

The cake was so much fun to make (and eat)!  It's just a ton of piped orange icing piled up in heaps on top and the eyes are blue dum-dums with peach rings wrapped around them.

There's the party animal right there, our silly monster three year old!  (Looks like my camera finally gave up on all of that neon!)

::Craft Show Mini Series:: How to Prepare

The idea of setting up a cute little retail space to peddle your wares is a romantic idea, but it is a daunting task to make that sweet little space work well for you and make you some money!

You've got to think about more than just pretty colors.  You've got to put your big girl pants on and set up a bank account, order a point of sale credit card swiper, figure out pricing, collect sales tax... UGH!  It's enough to make someone stop right there and forget the whole thing.  But don't!  You've got a great idea!  People want and maybe even need your item!  You can do this!!

I am no pro at this.  One thing I've learned is how little I really understand about all of the red tape involved in setting up a small business.  But what little I understand I'm happy to share!

Find Your State's Department of Revenue Website
Every state is different, so I recommend starting by visiting the Department of Revenue website for your state.  There you will be able to check and see if the name you have chosen for your business is available, see what licenses and permits you may need, register your business to start accepting sales tax, and later you may even be able to file and pay your sales tax through that site.  Once you've registered you'll get your tax ID number.

Set Up a Bank Account
Research the banks in your area.  The bank I chose had a free business checking account and very low minimum balance.  Check about the fees associated.  If you're just starting out it might not be best to open an account right away.  I just found book keeping easier when my business transactions were separate than my personal transactions. To open the account you'll need a few documents to verify your business registration.  Check about those before you go.

Decide How You'll Keep Your Books
I recommend checking out Outright.com.  It's easy and free accounting software that automatically syncs with Etsy and your checking account so you don't have to think about transferring all of those transactions one by one by hand... yuck!

Order a Square
I've said it before, but the Square is the BEST way to accept credit cards!  NPR has a fantastic article about it here.

Decide On Your Pricing
That's one thing I can't help you with.  I also can't promise that it will be anywhere close to easy to figure out how to price your items.  Most people agree with this formula:

Price of Materials Used + Labor + Expenses + Amount You Want to Profit = Wholesale Price

Wholesale Price x 2 = Retail Price

Set Up Your Booth

I recommend setting up your booth at your house first.  I set mine up in my garage and it helped me work out so many kinks ahead of time.  You may only have a couple of hours available to you on the day of your event to set-up and what you don't want to be doing is wasting that time running back and forth because you've forgotten something.  I worked out the traffic flow of my booth and I had plenty of time to tweak it over the course of the week I had it set up.  What did I want my customers to see when they walked by?  (Note: Candy on the end of the table makes little ones stop at your booth, just sayin'!) I was able to "shop" my house for different display pieces before heading out to the store and it helped me in packing my car too because everything was in one place.

Prepare Your Mind
Prepare yourself mentally by thinking through a sale.  When someone hands you an item and says "I'll take it" what do you do next?!  My process was:
1. Write up a paper receipt with the retail amount, tax and total (the paper receipt trail was key to doing inventory at the end of my show)
2. Accept cash or credit card
3. Stick item in a gift bag with the receipt, my business card and my enclosure card (read my post about branding for more on these things)

You'll also want to think through some talking points for each of your items because you'll be saying those things a gazillion times all day... Why would you buy it?  What do you love about it?

The best thing you can do for yourself mentally is to get some good sleep before the show.  Relax, you'll do great!  You're so prepared!

UPDATE:  Here are the links to all five posts in this mini series:

The First Step... Designing your "Feel"

Designing Your Booth

Branding like a Pro for Cheap

What To Bring

How to Prepare

::Craft Show Mini Series:: What To Bring

So I thought I would finish up the Mini Series that I started a while back about what I learned doing my first craft show.  I put in SO many hours of preparation and I would love it if you are able to benefit from some of my research.  Here's where we've been so far in this series... click on these for the full post:

Designing your "Feel"

Designing your Booth

Branding (like a pro for cheap!)

Today I'm going to hit on "What to bring" and then I'll finish out this mini series with my tips on how to prepare.  Let's do this!!

There are a gazillion and one lists out there for what to bring to a craft show and you'll probably want to check those out if you're doing an outdoor show, but most of this will cross over.  Mine was an indoor show with the option of electricity provided.  I opted out (dumb!)  Lighting is so key to creating warmth and highlighting certain items.  I didn't think I needed it, but looking back I would definitely get it next time.

I had a giant clear plastic tub with my supplies, this made things easy to find when it got busy.

Inside my big tub I had two smaller containers... one for personal items:
-Lotion
-Mouth wash or gum
-Advil (You'll thank me after you've been standing for hours!)
-Brush
-Small mirror (What if that salad you ate for lunch is still stuck in your teeth.  The horror!)
-Hair tie
-Protein bar (or meal replacement bar)
-Tissues
-Chapstick
-Hand Sanitizer

One for "office supplies":
-Glue (for fixing any merchandise that breaks!)
-Pens
-String
-Scissors
-White out
-Duct tape
-Rubber Band
-Hammer
-Calculator (even if you have one on your phone, still bring a hand held... trust me!)
-Business cards!!!
-Tape
-Price tags
-Square credit card reader
-Phone
-Sharpie marker

I also brought a roll of paper towels and a trash bag for spills.
-Custom Order Forms
-Picture album for custom order ideas

-Inventory List

-Cash Box

-Gift bags

-Sales Receipt book

-Cash

-Signage

And I brought a project to work on during the slow parts of the show.  It was fun for me to be able to demonstrate how I make my scarves and it got people involved.

Wear a name tag with your logo!  It's a great way for people to associate you with your brand and to make you look professional!  I also recommend making a credit card sign so people will know that you'll take plastic!  That was a HUGE selling point for me!

And on the credit card front, I would highly recommend using the Square credit card reader.  They will send you one for free, it is easy to use, there is no up front fee and they just charge you a small fee per transaction.  Read all about it here.

This is my little sales station.  I have my cash box, calculator, Square, inventory list, receipt book and my gift wrap stuff all together.  It was a life saver to have all of this stuff in one place and quickly accessible.

This was my custom order form.  My customers liked being able to flip through a small photo album of the things I made to get ideas for different color combinations if something had already sold out.

What am I forgetting?  Is there anything you can't live without at your shows?  Please share!

UPDATE:  Here are the links to all five posts in this mini series:

The First Step... Designing your "Feel"

Designing Your Booth

Branding like a Pro for Cheap

What To Bring

How to Prepare

::Craft Show Mini Series:: Branding like a Pro for Cheap!

Hey My Friends, I hope you've had a wonderful weekend!  Ready for our next little chat about how to rock your first craft show?  I'm no pro, but I would love to share with you a few tips I've learned about branding so that you can make your craft show booth (and online shop) look like you spent a lot of money hiring someone to make a cohesive brand... when in reality you've spent next to nothing!

Let's get started!  If you're not already familiar with Picmonkey.com, you'll want to check it out... it's a totally free photo editing website.  You don't have to download anything on to your computer or sign up for annoying emails.  Next, read Jill's fantastic tutorial about how to make a resource like this site work for you.  Following Jill's tutorial and Picmonkey.com I was able to create all of my branding materials.

To create my logo I set up a Pinterest board and began pinning anything I liked... colors, shapes, font, feel, etc.  It was a nice way to start a daunting process, I basically just combined a lot of the ideas I liked and here's what I came up with:

I used my logo in this collage (the collage is another feature Picmonkey offers).  About two months before my show I sent my friends and family an email save the date and included the following two pictures.  (Surprisingly, I got a lot of orders even before the show started by doing this!)  I wanted those close to me to know that I was planning my first craft show and what I was going to be selling.  

Keep in mind when you're creating a brand that you want every touch a customer has with your business to include your logo or at least the "feel" you're trying to create.  Some of the places a customer might come in to contact with your brand are:

• Shipping materials
• Gift bags/packaging materials at your show
• Business card
• Enclosure cards 
• Online shop header
• Blog header
• Thank you notes
• Name tag at the show

My Etsy shop banner:

Here's my most favorite tip!  I ordered a stamp with my logo from Rubber Stamp Champ (right now they have free shipping on orders over $10!)  This is the one I bought and I upgraded to laser rubber since I knew I would be using this sucker a ton.  

I'm very pleased with the rough texture of the stamp, but if that's not the look you're going for you can always order a smaller size.  

I used the stamp on my business cards.  I bought simple business cards from vistaprint.com.  They were blank except for my blog, email and Etsy site addresses printed on the bottom corner, then I went to town stamping them.

I also used the stamp on some round printable stickers (Avery 5294).  Yes, you could just print from your computer directly on to the stickers and that would save a lot of time, but I liked the imperfect texture of the stamp, so I went that route.  Those stickers were used for my packaging, gift bags, gift wrap and my mailing materials.

And here I am modeling both a stiff smile and all of the branding in my booth.

I've said it before, but it's a good time to say again how important signage for your booth is.  Make a sign and put it up high enough that your shoppers can see it even if the booth is packed.  I made this sign by printing my logo out on computer paper, tracing the design on to freezer paper, then using the freezer paper stenciling method to print my logo on to a piece of fabric that was stretched in an embroidery hoop.  Lots of steps, but it's worth it because I'll be able to use this sign a ton.

Last but not least, my enclosure cards... I whipped up this design on picmonkey then uploaded it to either snapfish.com or shutterfly.com (I can't remember which) when they were doing their penny print deal.  I got 200 of these for $2.00 plus shipping!  Score!

I love that every one of my customers will have a pretty picture of my product along with all of my contact information if someone asks them where they got their scarf or if they decide to order another color in the future.  Oh, and to save time I stuffed one of these in each of my gift bags before the show started.

Whew!  So there are all of my branding on a dime secrets.  I'd love to hear any ideas you might have.

UPDATE:  Here are the links to all five posts in this mini series:

The First Step... Designing your "Feel"

Designing Your Booth

Branding like a Pro for Cheap

What To Bring

How to Prepare

Shower games they'll actually enjoy playing!

One of the questions I get the most is, "How can I make the shower I'm throwing special?  Do you have any good game ideas?"

Shower games are tricky.  As a general rule I don't usually enjoy playing shower games because I've found that a lot of them are either:

A) way too time consuming (when people really just want to enjoy a fun, relaxing afternoon and then hit the road) or 

B) they are gross (like the ones that make you eat baby food or guess what candy bar is melted in the diaper... yuck!) or 

C) they are distracting (like the game where you can't say a certain word or the person who heard you say that word gets to steal your clothes pin).  Come on, that's annoying when you're trying to have a conversation with someone.

My favorite games are SUPER simple and incorporated into the unwrapping of the gifts (to keep the party moving!)  

Baby/Bridal Shower Bingo is a great game!  Each person is given an empty grid that's five squares by five squares with the center square being the free space.  Before the gifts are opened each attendee will fill the empty squares with things that that person thinks the mom/bride will open.  This can be as general ("blanket") or as specific ("engraved silver cup") as you want to be.  The hostess will need to offer up  some ideas to keep things moving because inevitably people will not be able to fill the whole grid out by themselves.  Give them a couple minutes to fill out the grid then start the opening of the gifts.  As things are opened the attendees will mark them off on their grid.  The first person with five squares in a row marked off will yell it out "BINGO" and get a (good!) prize!!  

Free printable for the grid I use is HERE.

Another great game that I've done as a bridal shower game, but that could easily be changed into a baby shower game, is "How well do you know the bride?"  Each attendee will get a sheet of paper with lots of specific questions about the bride and they will fill it out.  (Make the questions as specific and obscure as possible, it's more fun!) then the attendees are given a very short amount of time... say, two minutes to fill it out.  The key with the short amount of time is that people will put their first gut response to the question and these end up being really funny! Then the hostess reads out the answers and the attendee with the most correct responses wins a (good) prize!

Free printable with sample questions HERE.

Have you ever noticed how awkward it is for the mom/bride at some showers to carry the conversation while she's opening each gift?  "Oh, more Desitin!  Thank you, baby's butt will sure be pampered thanks to you all!"  Rather than have the shower conversation be all about the gifts I like to have the conversation focus on the sweet relationships between the people there.  One way I like to do that is to have the mom/bride choose a gift to unwrap then either have her share how she knows the gift giver or have the gift giver share how she knows (or a funny memory about) the mom/bride.  It's a sweet way to take some of the pressure off of the mom/bride to speak the whole time and the gift-givers leave with full hearts because they have learned a little more about their new mom/bride friend!

Now let's talk prizes.  Prizes are the best way to get your guests' competitive juices flowing!  Make them good, no dollar store chotchkies please!  One of my favorite prize gifts to give is a Starbucks gift card.  Have the barista give you an empty, clear plastic, grande-size frappuchino cup with a few coffee beans in the bottom of the cup.  Insert the gift card then put a little bit of tissue paper in the top with the lid and straw... great presentation for a simple gift card!

Oh, and here is a link to all of my parties with lots of shower ideas thrown in. 

Having a sit-down meal at your shower?  Here's a way you can incorporate a simple question for each person.  Give people a minute to read their questions and think about it while they get their food then as everyone is eating, go around the room and answer your question.  What a sweet way to get to know the other important people in your friend's life!

What are your thoughts on shower games?  Am I too harsh?  Maybe you're one of the weirdos that actually likes guessing what candy bar has been melted in the diaper... ugh, come on, that's just nasty! 

::Craft Show Mini Series:: Designing Your Booth

If you missed the first post in my Mini Series, check out what I think is the key first step in getting ready for your first craft show... Designing your "Feel."

After you have a plan of action it's time to design your booth. To do this well you'll want to keep a few things in mind:

Who will be there in addition to your target audience?  Kids?  Weary husbands?  Do you have something for them to make their stop easier?  Think: candy, chairs, etc.

What will people do in your booth?  If they have more things to do they will spend more time in your booth.  More time in your booth = sales!  In my case, I wanted them to be able to try on scarves and have a place to relax or place custom orders.  

I made a fitting room of sorts with a few scarves on hangers so people could try them on and so I could show off the different ways to wear the scarves.  This was key!  I was able to up-sale a few people who were "only buying for a friend" or who may not have bought one, but folded when they felt how warm and soft they really were!

I also made sure that I branded everything they looked at (more on that later).  I had business cards and my scarf enclosure cards at eye level encouraging people to take a look at my blog as well as my Etsy shop.  

Don't underestimate the power of your packaging!  My packaging did double duty as display, protection of the scarves and easy wrapping for gifts.  I ordered these boxes from PaperMart.com and was pleased with them.  They ended up being about $1 each, shipped to my house.  That's expensive, but you've gotta spend money to make money.  Also, don't underestimate the power of lighting and fresh flowers.  There's just something about fresh flowers that's cozy.

I made my sign using freezer paper stenciling.  It was really easy to do and added a lot of impact to the back wall of my booth where your eye would naturally land when you were walking by.  Plenty of people make the mistake of putting a sign on their tablecloth.  The problem with that is when things get busy you can't see your sign, so make sure that sucker is up high enough!  People need to know who made this stuff!

As much as I would have liked to have had personal conversation with every single person who came in my booth, it just wasn't possible because of how busy it was.  There were a few points about my products I wanted to make sure people were aware of, so I made little talking point bubbles and placed them around my inventory.  This one reads "Each of my paintings are one-of-a-kind.  I do not sell prints, so you can be sure you have an original piece of art for your home."

You get the point.  There's an adorable shop in Raleigh that does this beautifully, Ornamentea.  I got the idea from them.  My tiny little laminating machine got a workout before this show, I'm telling you, that was money well spent!

One other recommendation I have when designing your booth is to think about the future.  Maybe you'll sell out of a certain color (hopefully!)  I had a color board with my yarn samples so people could place custom orders.  I had quite a few custom orders placed for baby hats and I'll show you the order form I made up in another post.

Loved these tiny chalk boards to show the prices of my inventory! (Michaels' dollar bin.)  I found this much more effective than pricing each individual item.

Finally, think about the questions people will ask you and see if you can answer them before they are asked... what's your name?  Wear a branded name tag.  Do you take credit cards? Show a laminated list of the cards you accept (I used the Square... loved it and I'll tell you more later.)  Do you gift wrap?  Have branded bags at the ready.

Here's my little workstation at the show, tucked away and out of sight with everything I needed.

Branding is my next post in this mini series, I'll show you how I did it all myself and on the cheap!

UPDATE:  Here are the links to all five posts in this mini series:

The First Step... Designing your "Feel"

Designing Your Booth

Branding like a Pro for Cheap

What To Bring

How to Prepare