Craft Show Display Distress

When I first started selling my jewelry I was lucky enough to have access to a gorgeous artist's loft in Boston.  Surrounded by other artists, having a sale was as easy as opening the doors and hoping I had enough inventory to last me through the weekend.  The first year I found a roll of tar paper 4 feet wide, I hung it horizontally, drew swirlies on it with a silver sharpie an hung my jewelry right on the wall.  Everyone responded to it, all of the men had to touch it to see what it was made out of, and the women noticed how sparkly the jewelry was against a matte black background. (tract studio lighting everywhere didn't hurt either!)  Over the course of the three day Fort Point Open Studio event I. sold. everything.

Crazy happy sales continued three times a year, four years in a row.  I started doing other Boston shows, and they rocked. (except for the one in July, in a parking lot, with my friend who had yet to find out she was pregnant and was WAY cranky, that one sucked.)  And then I moved to Austin, Texas.  It's a crafty mecca.  I love it, but I've been here for 5 years and I'm still out of my element.  Especially when it comes to designing a successful and eye catching craft show display.  I have no idea what I'm doing, and in 3 weeks I've got my first show of 2011.  (2011 being *THE* year, so this has to be *THE* display, no pressure.)

My mom bought me three bifold doors with slats from the Habitat ReStore, I feel like I can do something with that.  I've got a ton of vintage serving pieces from my Boston shows, I know I can do something with those... and yet I'm afraid that when I put them together my display space will look like a little girl who put on every article of her favorite clothing and none of them match.

So- last night I started looking at every picture in the Flickr "Show Me Your Booths" photo pool.   It's an awesome resource and I highly recommend that you take a look- there are definitely some "what not to do" photos but there are tons of brilliant and beautiful booths out there!

I do feel inspired but I wear black for a reason, it matches with... black.  And blue jeans.  And white, if I'm feeling fancy.

I'm going to be turning my kitchen into my pretend craft fair space this weekend.  Here's hoping I don't mix too many stripes with polka dots (though if I were a felty crafter I could do that and add some owls and bric a brac and it would look adorable.)

I'll take pictures of my attempts!