Craft Fairs

Well it’s that time of year again for Craft Fairs. Although they pop up now and then all year, the fall is the peak time for the Holiday Fairs. Some are small gatherings held at a school or church and others are larger, held at the big auditorium.

The largest fairs around are the Castleberry Fairs. You can see a calendar of events at their web site http://www.castleberryfairs.com/index.php
In Wilmington, MA where I live there are several Castleberry fairs held during the year at the Shriner Auditorium just off Rte. 93. The fairs attract over 300 crafters that sell their wears including jewelry, knitted clothing, toys, hand-carved sculptures, glassware, paintings, yard ornaments, wind vanes, pottery, jams and jellies and other assorted items.

I prefer to sell my crafts at the smaller fairs since the entrance fee (table space fee) is smaller at about $40-$60 for a 6x10 foot space. The Castleberry Fairs charge $300 for their table space.

My craft involves decorative painting on wood, glass, metal and slate. I purchase blank items at discount stores and then paint a decorative design on the item. For instance I paint roses on wine glasses and then resell the painted glasses individually or in sets for $5.00 each. I also paint on small wood stools, end tables, metal buckets, clay pots, wood signs, mailboxes and I have made wood clocks.

I start my painting at the end of summer and continue through December, restocking items that I have sold or that have been custom ordered. Recently, I sold a few end tables with flowers painted on them. A customer then asked if I could paint a seaside scene on the end tables with seagulls which she wanted to give to her mother as a Christmas present. It generally takes me about two weeks to do a custom order when it’s mixed in with the other jobs.

This year I only signed up for a few fairs. They are/were at Tewksbury High School, Woburn Son’s of Italy, St. Thomas Church in Wilmington and Austin Prep in Reading. The older you get, the harder it is to lug all the painted items back and forth to the fairs. I have about six big rubber maid boxes filled with all my painted items. After carrying them all out of my basement and into the SUV, I then carry them all in to the fair. Each trip takes an hour. After, it takes another hour to just unpack them and set them up on the fair table and shelves. I then have the reverse job at the end of the day. That is about four hours of lugging boxes and another six hours selling items at the fair. Oh, my achy old bones.

Each year I try to paint something new. This year I got some roof slates from a good neighbor and cut them down into 8x12 inch slate welcome signs. I then painted various items on the slate and sealed them with a Poly Acrylic Sealer. The slates came from an old house which was built about 1850 along the Middlesex Canal. Although the slates are reused to patch old slate roofs they can be also used for decorative purposes.

On some of the slates, I painted some scenes of the ferry boats that were horse drawn along the Middlesex Canal in the late 1800s. You can see some photos at the links below.

You can also see some other photos of the Applefest Fair at Tewksbury High School and those items at my web site. Just click on the link below……

Applefest Fair ….. http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/Applefest11610#

Web Site ….. http://markscrafts.com

My next fair is on Saturday, (10AM-3PM), November 20, 2010, at St. Thomas Church, Villanova Hall in Wilmington, MA. 01887. Come checkout my decorative paintings.

Comments welcome ……… markryan82@comcast.net