Summer Art and Craft Fairs or 'What to heck am I doing?"

Am I crazy? Am I nuts? Will I even sell anything? Why am I spending all this money? Why am I doing this to myself?

These are the things I keep asking myself. These are the woes of the first time craft fair participant. I got swept up in the frenzy of a wonderful group I belong to - The Central NY Etsy team. They are having a couple group shows and I am doing one of them. I am also doing one show all alone - Ack!

Reality then sunk in! OMG - I have to have a tent and table covers to the ground and something to hang art on and I need merchandise! I have been frantically ordering Giclee reproductions, backing board, cello bags, display solutions and on and on. I am gobbling up resources giving tips on how to run a great booth and what you need to take with you.

Now that I got that off my chest - I have discovered some great sites with solutions for the artist - even the cheap artist. I know many use peg board and create their own displays. This summer my husband did not need another project so I looked to the web to find me the perfect and reasonably priced art display. I found these grids walls at ABC Target. They are free standing and at $58 for a Z shaped set of 3 walls they were also affordabe. I have seen these in use - My friend Cathy uses them to display her lovely cut paper artwork. I got the idea from her for these grids - Thanks, Cathy!!

I also needed a magnetic board to display magnets on. I turned to my good friend Amazon and found a nice looking large black framed magnetic white board from Board Dudes for $24.

I am not a seamstress by any means so I had no intention of making a table cover that looked nice and fell to the ground as it is recommended ( covers any boxes and other stuff the customers don't need to see). Tablecloth Designs to the rescue! They carry tons of sizes and offer custom sizes too. They make everything to order - even their standard sizes, but I had my order in 2 days for under $40.

I hope this isn't getting too boring, but I wanted to give a shout out to these companies. One last resource I want to mention. I get my giclee prints from iPrintFromHome.com. I love these guys. The quality, color and packaging is ourstanding. The turnaround is super fast and they are very professional! I have only ordered gicless, but they have a large range of products,
including canvas prints. They also offer promotional services for their customers. You can list your upcoming shows on their website and they will also include them in their newsletter that has a large circulation. I could go on and on, but I won't (too late!).

Thanks for reading my rant - let me know what experiences you have had with craft fairs. I would love to hear them.

New Watercolor and a frugal tip from the Cheap artist!

This watercolor was inspired by the beautiful Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. They have gorgeous ceiling displays and this is one of them. Can you say Vegas, Baby! The delicate paper parasols just screamed to be painted in translucent watercolor. You can find this in my etsy shop http://artbylmr.etsy.com.

Being a starving artist, I am always looking to save a buck. I was in Kmart the other day looking for storage bins since we artists have so many supplies everywhere. They have bins that stack, slide and everything else that run 6,7,8$ or more. Just next the the bins there was a pile of white dishpans that cost less than $2. I snatched some of them up. They are a good size, have handles and are solid which is sometimes better than the sides with holes.

Just a little hint from you friendly neighborhood cheap artist!
Thank you very much.

New ACEO

I try to get at least one ACEO done when we go to camp for the weekend or longer. This time I did this colored pencil piece of a crystal vase and flowers. I wanted to work on reflections in glass and I hope to do more like this. This new work is for sale in my Etsy shop. http://www.artbylmr.etsy.com

I didn't have much art time this trip - still gettting things opened up. We got the dock in, set up the screen house and picnic table and various other chores. Now we are ready for company! Any takers???

Catching up!

Hello! It has been too long. Things have been crazy! Summer always is. Last week my Mom had a breast biopsy. I went 'home' to be with her since she is a self-proclaimed wimp. We were all very relieved that it turned out benign. She is still sore, but cancer free! It was a wake up call that my Mom is getting older. Most people that meet her can't believe that she is 73. She is a little dynamo and very active. I hope I am as spry when I get that age.

I missed my featured week at Top Artists Directory last week. It is still up so you can still take a peek. http://topartistsdirectory.blogspot.com/

I tookl down my show at the library and really felt a loss after doing it. I sold 3 paintings so it was a success! What a great feeling to have people like your work enough to shell out their hard earned money for it.

Back soon with more news and photos.