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

Craft Fairs And Art Projects – 2008

After retiring a few years ago, I looked around for interesting things to do to occupy my time. Besides the regular chores around the house and the honey-do list, I wanted to try something different from the work that I did for 40 years. Although I enjoyed a challenging career in public school teaching and administration, it was time to explore other interests.

After trying a few different hobbies, I tried my hand with decorative painting. The local AC Moore store offered some lessons in Acrylic Painting that you might have seen on PBS Educational TV with artist Donna Dewberry. She has the painting technique called One Stroke Painting, where one loads a paint brush with two colors of paint and in one stroke with the brush, a two color line is painted. With one stroke you blend, shade and highlight the image you are painting. This is quite different from regular painting where you paint one color and then wait for it to dry before you paint the next color to highlight and shade and blend. You can see some of her painting ideas at the link …..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyi-Y2ATjoA

With a few lessons I was painting flowers and leaves and fancy bows on art paper. The class then graduated to projects where you painted on decorative home items which were made of wood, glass or slate like a wall plaque, bird house or wine glass. Some of my friends and family liked the items that I painted well enough to even buy some.

With a little encouragement from my family, I tried my first craft fair held at the local church. At a church fair, you paid a small fee for a table in the church hall and displayed your items. Surprisingly, I sold many items and even took some orders.

I have been doing craft fairs now for about six years and enjoy meeting people and talking about my art work. Some people even want custom work done with special colors or designs. I have painted custom designs on furniture, custom mailboxes and custom wine glasses for a wedding. You can see some of my decorative art items which I displayed at a recent craft fair at the link ….
http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/ApplefestFair11108?authkey=qy-P4Ta6Kxs

The fall is the busiest time for craft fairs where people buy gifts items for the Christmas holidays. At most craft fairs vendors will sell items cheaper than at department stores or antique shops. However, it is hard to beat the prices you find at the Christmas Tree Shop where all of their items come from China where a million gizmos are made and they sell for pennies on the dollar. On the other hand, items sold at craft fairs are reasonably priced, are special, one of a kind, are unique, made by local craftsmen and normally signed for authenticity.

When people would ask me about the things that I painted, I first showed them a few photos and later decided to make a catalog and eventually a web site that you can view anytime from home. You can see my web site at the link …. http://markscrafts.com/

Comments are always welcome. Do you have a craft hobby?
Send me an email at …… markryan82@comcast.net