Dreama's Place
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Primitive, Country and Rustic
Craft Show Tips
Craft Show Tips
Display Ideas
Primitive, Country and Rustic Craft Show Display Ideas, Antique Wood Bottle Crate
Use antique wood bottle crates to create an eye-catching display for miniatures and other small items. You will need to brace them on breezy days at outdoor shows. Warning---Customers will try to buy your crates!
Packing Tips
- Foam egg cartons make packing and protecting small items easy. Also, see Ornament Storage Tips.
- Place your flat wire products between sheets of corrugated cardboard to prevent bending.
Inspiration
- Keep journals. A few minutes of downtime at a show is the perfect time to write a few words and phrases. Make notes about the show---your products that sold well and which ones did not, the weather and customer requests. Use them later to decide whether to set-up at the show again and what to pack. Jot down ideas for new projects or updating old ones. Review your notebooks to see what you have accomplished and refresh your memory about projects. It can give you just the boost you need to create more.
- Spend an evening surfing the web. Enjoy viewing what others are doing or talking about, answer a question on a forum or learn a new skill or technique that you may apply to your own projects.
- Pack a camera. Take pictures of displays that catch your eye. Pick the features that you like best and use them to modify your own set-up. Always ask permission first.
- Review common objects in your home that you may use for displays. Really look at your things as if they belonged to someone else. Ask a friend to help.
- Shop a yard sale with displays in mind.
Build Your Business
- Collect email addresses. Make up a flier on your computer that lists your website name, if you have one, your email address and featured products and services. Ask your customers to add your email to their address books so that your messages will not be sent to their junk mail or trash folders. Develop another form asking your visitors for their email addresses and other information. Invest in a few clipboards to hold your forms and keep them in your check out area. Keep your customers up to date on new products and where you will be showing them.
Primitive, Country and Rustic
Craft Tips
Craft Tips
- Torn fabric strips are the primitive answer to traditional ribbons. Make a scissor clip at each selvage edge and tear them off with quick ripping motions. Decide the width of the strips that you need and make clips in one edge of your fabric. Grasp the fabric on each side of the clip and rip the strip from the body of the fabric. Remove stray threads. Strips can be treated with fabric stiffener, if necessary for your project.
- Save time when using white glue in a project by not applying from the bottle. Place a small amount in a jar lid or on a coated paper plate. Dip your small items in the glue and stick to the base.
- A hair dryer will set glue and paint faster for certain projects.
- Wrap pliers with tape before bending wire to prevent possible scratching.
- Foam meat and produce trays make great paint or glue pallets.
- Complete projects with rounded bases more easily by using foam egg cartons as stands.
- Before tin punching a can, fill it with water and place it in the freezer until it is frozen solid.
- Fit tin punch patterns to your project easily. Measure the base that you want to punch, omitting the top and bottom rims. Use your measurements to draw an outline on a piece of paper. Choose a pattern that fits the outline or re-size a pattern by hand or copy machine until it suits your project.
- Make at least one copy of your pattern before you punch it. Punching may render it unusable a second time. If you like the finished results, you have a backup. If you do not like the finished results, make adjustments to the copy.
- Laminating your pattern front and back with clear packing tape will help it resist condensation from the freezer.
- Painter's tape makes a good choice to attach your pattern to the base because it leaves less adhesive behind and allows for easier manipulation.
- Use different sized nails or drill bits when tin punching a base to achieve your desired effect. Some objects within a pattern will look better punched small, while others will have more impact punched with larger holes.
Instructions are intended for adults. While you are free to complete as many projects as you wish, you may not claim our material as your own. Please see Terms and Conditions at
shop.dreamasplace.com.
shop.dreamasplace.com.