How did the first Market Day in Des Moines go? I’ll tell you!

I’ll have more later, but here’s the quickie recap.

Here’s a photo from Kelly

Here are some photos from Steph:

I got to Market Street Media Foundry a lot later than I wanted to because all the roads downtown were blocked off for the Dam to Dam race. 

I was pretty flustered, so with the addition of caffeine I was kind of all over the place trying to set up. I had no idea how I wanted to set up or what to do…and I was one of the first people there. Fortunately the people next to me got there pretty early and started setting up, so I figured out what to do by watching them a little bit.

Steph came to help, which was a huge relief since I was so flustered. She helped wrap things and take the change for me … which was awesome!

My biggest and fastest selling item was crayons — which I made last week on a whim and haven’t had time to blog about them or post them on craftster. Needless to say, I’m buying a few boxes of crayolas and a few fun muffin pans to make some crayons for next time (July).

I had a lot of people walk by who were interested in the dishes, but then seemed to be scared off by my Slipknot/Korn/Megadeth shirts. I almost sold my Megadeth shirt, but I just couldn’t let it go, so I talked the lady into buying an Iowa State shirt instead. I think I’m going to price the Megadeth shirt a bit higher because it’s mostly hand-sewn (which is why I couldn’t get rid of it!).

I sold a lot of all my designs, except the cereal cereal bowls and the flowers on fiestaware. Otherwise, the musical flowers, tea time with gram and the birdies and coffee interested people about equally.  I had a few comments about how it’s sacriligious to paint on fiestaware and one lady who swore I had fake fiestaware (does it matter? I’m painting on it anyway)…but otherwise, no negative comments.

After Steph left there was this really adorable older couple (think: early 80s) that came through. The old man asked me “what’s chiming about tea cups?” so I had to explain that it’s just my name. Then he went on to tell me about a Peanuts mug he had that had a little guy in the bottom that said “I love you” that you only see once you’re done drinking your tea/coffee. That was such a great idea!  I’ll have to keep that in mind. It was fun talking to them and I love cute little elderly couples.

I met a bunch of my twitter peeps I hadn’t met in person before…which is always fun. Shane Reiser met me, then randomly came back about 20 minutes later with a matching light yellow dish set and pitcher.  Awesome!

Things to remember for next time:

1. make a few copies of my “catalog” so maybe people can take it with them — do doublesided to save paper
2. discount some of the designs that didn’t sell last time (cereal bowl, flowers on fiestaware)
3. do a few more of the colored pieces — lava flowers sold well and a lot of people liked the bright tea cup
4. do a lot of crayons!
5. have 2 places for business cards
6. have a sign about custom designs
7. have a few non-t-shirt rock shirts (tubes, corsets)

That’s all I can think of for now. I think things worked out pretty well. The only thing I think was kind of iffy was when I was writing receipts. I wish there was a faster way to do that. I might have to come up with something creative there.

I’ll be listing everything I didn’t sell on Etsy early on this week. I’ve got 2 months until the next Market Day so hopefully I can sell a few pieces between now and then.

That’s all for now. A few people took photos, so when those pop up, I’ll be posting them.