A few weeks ago our preacher's wife, who is an ob-gyn, mentioned to me that her practice was having a launch party to introduce their new name. They planned on having local businesses come, like a business fair, and she was sweet enough to include me! She thought it would be a great opportunity for me to show off my hats and make some contacts. And I would be sharing a space with two ladies from church who do craft fairs regularly so I'd have two great resources for my prep as well as two awesome people to hang out with the day of! Why not?
 |
| my set-up. professional? maybe messy is more accurate... |
Of course, as is my style, I made things overly complicated for myself. I worried needlessly about getting a federal EIN, whether I needed to apply to collect sales tax (nope) and fretted that I wouldn't have enough product done to make it worth while. I ordered business cards and made a slideshow of past work to be running on my mac at the table. I even got a card reader that hooks up to my iphone so I could take credit card payments! And I crocheted. Morning, noon and night I crocheted. Whenever I had a spare moment, I was covered in yarn. I didn't sleep much, carried projects with me every where and my husband began to complain that I wasn't doing anything else. But, like I said, I wanted this opportunity to be worth my time! By the day of the launch party, I had 17 hats ready to go!
 |
| toddler bucket hat-SOLD |
 |
| 4 + bomber hat |
 |
| baby chunky beanie with brim |
 |
| toddler beanie with brim |
 |
| 4+ beanie with brim and bird embellishment |
 |
| 4+ beanie with bird embellishment |
 |
| newborn shell stitch earflap--SOLD |
 |
| toddler shell stitch beanie-SOLD |
 |
| baby owl earflap-SOLD |
 |
| 4 + owl earflap-SOLD |
 |
| toddler two-toned earflap |
 |
| baby puppy earflap |
 |
| toddler puppy earflap--SOLD |
 |
| baby bear eaflap |
 |
| baby bunny earflap |
 |
| baby chunky beanie |
 |
| baby chunky beanie |
Was it "worth it" in the end? Depends on your definition, I suppose. I only sold 3 hats. (Interested in one of those still available? Shoot me an email!) But I covered all of my yarn costs so I wasn't out anything. And getting that many hats ready gave me the chance to try out a lot of different styles, patterns and embellishments that I might not have been able to try otherwise. All in all it was a great learning experience and I'm really glad I did it!
