Catonsville Arts and Crafts Festival 2012

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
That pretty much describes the Festival for me this year.
The thwart-hog continued to plague me all weekend with such highlights as Kinkos closing early and an injury in the wee hours of Sunday morning that left me hobbling on one leg, but with the awesome, amazing, indispensable help of Kate P i managed to be setup on time with product displayed in fun and creative ways.
It was kinda hard to photograph the booth as it was in partially in shadow all day, but here are some pics to at least give you an idea:


Hello! Welcome to NikCo on location. Come right in; it is nice to see you.

Please excuse me for not getting up; i have a hole in my foot.

The ReWearables earrings looked even better than normal as Kate grouped them by color family. I had intentionally made pieces to try to fill out and balance the color selection and her display on my handy dandy expandable screen benefited from that decision.

It is hard to believe, but it looks like i need more purple.

My music tree made another appearance for bracelets and the more delicate necklaces; all the other necklaces were spread across various tables.

New for this show was a line of earrings called Quirkees; made from modern glass and lampwork beads they are all fun, whimsical accents like hearts, stars, owls, seahorses, penguins, turtles, ice cream cones, etc. that i put on the old frame display (the original shadowbox display design was one of the things cut due to thwart-hog).
Closer pictures will be on the Etsy site (opening October 10, 2012!).

I was able to do a few theme specific Quirkees displays, including the Breast Cancer pink ribbon earrings (though the pieces are supposed to be on the ribbon instead of the glass in front of it; thwart-hog!), winter-themed earrings on a wooden filigree tree, Halloween earrings on a wooden wreath (this was going to be a gourd stack statue (cooler than it sounds), but you know, thwart-hog),

and both Orioles and Ravens earrings in the team colors on custom-made flags, shown here with the card basket and memo pad racks.



Sales were disappointing; there was a lot of foot traffic, but i noticed most people weren't stopping at any booths so i don't think it was just me. People who did stop and look at my pieces often made a purchase.Thanks to the incredible generosity of Reggie from Objects Found i didn't have to pay for my booth rental or insurance so at least it wasn't a financial loss.
I appreciate all of you who stopped by to say HI and support my fledgling dream, as well as you out-of-towners who sent well wishes

A very special thanks to Kate. I almost gave up and cancelled the whole thing at 4:30 Sunday morning when the thwart-hog sent me crying to my bed, bleeding profusely and unable to stand on my right foot, but i knew she was coming at 7 to help so i pulled myself together. Kate did almost all of the loading, unloading and setup herself with me giving instructions from my chair. She also carried and fetched all day, fighting the wind to keep displays upright and pretty. She didn't leave my side except to get us lunch. Without her help i would NOT have been able to be at this festival this year and would have missed my first goal.
Thank you seems insufficient for your contribution, Kate. Jason did the whole group a tremendous favor when he married you into the family.

There are a few little shows on the horizon, but the next big goal for NikCo is the re-opening of my Etsy store on OCTOBER 10, 2012!
Watch for announcements and updates.