Tis the Craft Faire Season  

      By Marci Seither 

       Tis the season...the season for mistletoe hung above doorways, homemade fudge, and Holiday craft fairs.  I think people respond to craft fairs in one of three ways. There are those who would rather have a root canal than endure being pulled from one craft filled booth to another. Then, there are those who wouldn’t dream of missing their favorite craft filled extravaganzas. Last but not least, are those who are addicted to the smell of hot glue guns and get an adrenalin rush from adhering price tags to the 450 tole painted ornaments they hope to peddle. I fall into the third category, this is one of those things my husband wishes had come up during pre-marital counseling, but never did. Then again, neither did the hunting thing so I guess we are even. I come from a long line of crafty women, and it appears that I have passed the art-sy gene to my youngest three entrepreneurs.  

     Last spring our 11 year old son Scott, 10 year old Amy and Jack who is 7 started making soap to pay their way to summer camp. With the arrival of Christmas and the need for extra spending money they decided to come out with a holiday line of soap. I made the call to inquire about booth space. It was their first craft fair. I found a box of beeswax in my craft closet that could be rolled into candles so thought I’d sell those as well. 

      At 6:30 a.m.  I loaded all our boxes into the car. At 7:30 we headed to the Alta Dutch-Flat school gymnasium to set up. By 8:30 everything looked great and we were ready for the first rush of cash carrying customers. At 10:30 Scott made a trade with a local farmer who was also waiting for a rush of customers. By 11:30 Amy was negotiating for some earrings two booths down and Jack informed me that he was famished and needed a hot cocoa and a dish of nachos.  

      By 12:30 we had sold four bars of soap, three gift bags, two candle sticks and a partridge in a pear tree. I began to think of how far behind I was on laundry. The kids were stoked that we had made enough money to buy the chili-dog lunch specials. 

  At 1:30 Jack asked if he could go to the playground with two of his friends, Amy came back with a pink scarf she had traded soap for and Scott was talking to the local knife maker.  

   When 2:30 rolled around I began to wonder if we should have come up with a different marketing strategy. I should have sold the bees-wax candles as Amish numchuks and the soap as the ultimate “day-spa” experience. It would have been cheaper to give the kids the twenty bucks they each needed for their Christmas shopping. I could have written our Christmas letter, wrapped gifts and baked a batch of gingerbread cookies, or better yet, taken a nap! 

      At 3:00 we began packing up our still full boxes along with the pink scarf, a glass bowl that I traded for, and a 10 pound bag of mandarin oranges. I wondered if the kids thought their mother was a nut for dragging them from the comfort of their beds to spend the day at a small town craft fair. 

     As we made the short drive home, Scott counted out the money in the sewing basket we had used as a cash box.  

  “$124.50!” He announced. 

   “But..”I stammered trying to not dampen their enthusiasm. “We started out with one hundred dollars!” 

   “Oh well, that still leaves us with twenty four dollars and fifty cents. That’s good.” Scott replied. Jack, who still had nacho cheese stuck to the front of  his shirt, and Amy, who admired the way her new earrings sparkled, agreed. 

    I quickly did an evaluation of the day. Craft booth -$20.00, supplies - $150.00, food-$18.00, time spent with kids and teaching them how to make something with their own hands-priceless.