Quite honestly, I don't think I was ready mentally or physically to do this so soon after Grandma's passing. I can't lie and say I'm healed. I'm not. I miss her every day. I think of her all the time. But I had already committed to being there and I don't think she would want me to let people down or let myself down. So I forged ahead. My sister in law Patty, who is the crafter of the family, came over to help me design my table. She threw a beautiful table together in all of five minutes with things I had and things she brought over. I never could have done this. I'm just lacking the crafty gene. I took photos of the table from every angle so that come show day, Nick and I could recreate it as best we could since Patty was unable to attend.
Thursday I made candy. We decided on milk chocolate covered pretzels with fall colored sprinkles, milk chocolate covered pretzels with chopped nuts and then more chocolate drizzle, dark chocolate covered pretzels with espresso chips, and caramel pecan turtles.
On Friday, I baked. We decided on peanut butter brownies and red velvet cupcakes. At the last minute I decided to add in cheesecake brownies. All of these are tried and true recipes.
Saturday is show day. We need to be there early to set up for a 10:00 am start. We got there a little after 8:30 am. The venue was small but very nicely put together. We found the spot that was reserved for us and started bringing in our supplies and product. By 9:15 or so, we were done setting up.
Some things didn't work out. For instance, Patty had brought us some black aprons and then used a tracing pencil on them to trace my logo and then left them for me to paint. Well, as previously mentioned, I am missing the crafty gene and the aprons were a disaster!
There were several others there selling food products as well. One lady near us had a braided bread with cream cheese filling. And a very nice man was selling nutrolls. I asked him if it was a family recipe. He was an older gentleman so I wondered what his story was. The recipe was his mother in laws. His wife used to make it and 3 years ago she taught him how. Two years ago, she passed away. To honor her, he makes the nutrolls and sells the at farmer's markets and craft shows. It was so moving and the nutroll is outrageously delicious!
The morning had a pretty good flow of customers and my last minute addition of cheesecake brownies turned out to be the best idea I had. I ended up selling out of them! I have about five peanut butter brownies left. I sold merely two cupcakes. My products were beautiful, if I do say so myself, and priced to sell. So I don't really know why they didn't. People were buying $6 cream cheese bread (she sold out) and $6.50 nutrolls (almost sold out) all day but I didn't sell out of $1 brownies and didn't come close to selling out of $1.50 cupcakes. Candy sold very little too. These shows are so hit or miss. There's no way of knowing how much you should make.
But many people took cards and/or brochures. And it was kind of fun actually, made so our new bud, Lily, who had the table next to us. Lily is a rep for Tastefully Simple. We laughed and joked around all day. So that made the day fun. Hey how can you miss when you make a new friend! And the venue provided both breakfast and lunch for the vendors at no cost. I thought that was a really nice touch.
Each show is a new learning experience on what to do and what not to do. Maybe by the next one we'll have people fighting to get to our table. And I know just how to make that happen. I just thought of it too late this time. Next time, my table will include the chocolate fountain!
1 comment:
Your table looked great and your food, of course, looks fabulous!!! I loved the nutroll story. It sounds like it was a great day and you made a new friend - that's even better.
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