Bohemian Mermaid Palace

 Ever since my first time selling crafts at a festival (circa 1995), I knew immediately it was for me. The energy, the direct contact with customers, talking about my work... and just the excitement of putting myself out there. It was electric. I felt then, and still do, that when I'm selling my work at a show I am my best self. It's so much fun! But it's also a ton of work. Physical, mental, emotional work. Which also feels good in its way, but may not be for everyone. Here I will lay out some of the pros and cons to consider when you're deciding if the craft show life is for you. Pro: Good Fun   Oh man. There is plenty of good fun to be had while vending at a festival. In fact, many of my friends think I have the best job ever. Well, I do. There are bands to hear, beers to drink, neighbors to visit with, customers to say nice things to you... oh and money to be made. All kinds of fun times. I mean, it is a festival. Most everyone is having a good time and l

Part 3 of a series of posts I'm calling (5 Steps to) Get Started Selling at Craft Fairs . Read Step #1: Find Your Shows and Step #2: Booth Display . Marketing Materials   Even at the dinkiest of shows, you have the opportunity to get your name and your work out into the world. I think it's the most basic marketing requirement to have a card to give out to your customers, with your contact info and what you make. People will see plenty of other booths throughout the day. If they are interested enough to buy your work or ask for a card, give them something to take away that will keep you in their minds long after they get home. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it should be a good reminder of what they saw in your booth, and where to find it later. My big 3 I have 3 marketing items I always give out in my booth - flyers, business cards and hang tags. I print all of them with my computer on card stock. You can get fancy stuff printed online fo

  I talk to a lot of artists and craftspeople, many of whom have Facebook pages for their businesses. I'm always a little surprised that they don't do Facebook ads. I think to most people, the whole process is pretty mysterious. I don't claim to be an expert, but I can say after some trial and error... they are cheap to run, very easy to point at your specific target market, and have served me pretty well.  Cheap you say? Yes. When I run an ad before a sales event, ie craft show, I usually spend $10-$20 for a week. The cool thing about FB ads is that you set your own daily spending limits. You do need to check that number each time you edit your ad, it will default to some ungodly number automatically. I believe the trick to keeping the cost down is to choose the Pay per Impressions option. This charges you each time your ad is shown 1000 times. Usually less than .50. Hey now! I did try the pay per click, and I found they only showed my ad a few h

    A lot happened I guess while I was away from my beloved blog. In November I opened a tiny store front in downtown Eureka, CA. I guess it was about a year before that when I started fantasizing about it... a place where I could sell my goods between festivals, even in winter when I usually pack all my stuff into boxes and get sad. A place where I could have some tiny bit of self discipline and a regular schedule to my work day. Something my husband thought I could never put up with... being tied to a thing like a schedule. Haha that is what I run from in normal day jobs, it's true.  But this is mine. That's the difference. This is all me, my place, my work... even my schedule. I dare say it's the best day job ever. Well, because it's not a 'day job' it's just my job. I love it.  It's still growing of course... I chose a location that is a little off the main shopping drag, but there is a lot of fun stuff happening in my neighbor

Something fun happened to me because of this little blog... are you ready for this?? My goofy yet popular tutorial for making Beer Can Hats got the attention of one fabulous author in Portland. "Author of what?" you may ask, "A book about making stuff out of beer cans? Yeah right!" Yeah. Right!  That's exactly what happened. The lovely and talented miss Shawn Gascoyne-Bowman asked me to contribute a couple hipper variations of my crochet can pattern to her book Beer Crafts . She even put one on the cover! I am famous as hell now. Or soon will be, so get ready. But seriously... this book is SO stinkin cool! So many creative projects that I can't wait to make. Far beyond your old beer cap earrings, way beyond. Soon I will have these books for sale right here on my little blog thing. For now, please watch this book trailer video. This alone will show you the extreme levels of awesome this book reaches. So happy to be a part of it!  

This is part two of a series of posts I'm calling (5 Steps to) Get Started Selling at Craft Fairs . Read Step #1: Find Your Shows .   Booth Display Figuring out a booth display can be a little overwhelming at first. So many options and issues to address. You might not have much product to display or money to spend. I suggest, for this reason and many more, you find a friend you can share space with. That cuts your booth fee in half, gives you less space to fill, and a helper during the show for breaks and whatnot. In time you will grow more stock and maybe a desire to fill a whole booth alone. Help and company are still nice to have. Start by looking at other vendors' displays for ideas. You can find samples of booth setups all over the web , search for "booth shot" or "craft booth" on google or pinterest. If possible, attend some craft shows and pay attention to the displays of booths selling the types of crafts you make. Take notes,

 [*Updated* 2019] Since I posted 5 Essential Tips for Craft Fair Selling , I've received some questions about how to get started... finding shows, figuring out a display, etc. Since I never get tired of these topics, I put together a list of 5 steps to get started selling at craft fairs . They got pretty long so I am splitting them into a series of posts. I hope they are helpful!  Start Selling at Craft Fairs #1:  Find Your Shows Start Your List You probably already know of a few craft fairs that happen in your area. The first step is to start a list. To organize my show list, I use my google calendar. I love Google calendar because there is room for notes, links, and you can color code different aspects (like my deadlines are code red, so I can see them easily).  When I find a potential show, I add it to my calendar along with the pertinent info including cost, type of show, web site, and whether the ap is online or has been requested. If I'm really int

I'm back on etsy posting things not available on my web site, like these beading sets. Each set comes with full strands of glass and shell beads with a pretty centerpiece. The possibilities for jewelry sets and crafty holiday gifts are endless.   

I love doing craft shows. Love it. But this season was a tough one. So much so that at the end of it all I was questioning how many shows I want to do next year. I might finally be getting too old for this. I won't get into the ins and outs of it all... but one show in particular haunts me still. There is a music festival not far from here, in the beautiful forested mountains. For years folks have been telling me I should take my clothing booth there. My booth would fit right in, it's a fun time, etc. The only thing that stopped me was the heat. Like most mermaids, I don't do well in heat. But this year I tried to do many of the shows I had been avoiding for whatever reason. So I went for it. The venue was a beautiful wooded park. I got there late in the afternoon so the heat wouldn't kill me during setup. There was a tiny slope I had to climb to haul my stuff from my van, but otherwise not too bad. I created a lovely double booth and I was happy. I did notice many

So I'm going to be adding more projects to the site soon, and wondering if there's anything you'd like to see here. Crochet patterns and techniques, beading projects, fabric printing and silk painting are on my list so far. Any ideas you would like to see in these areas? Please let me know! I want to make this fall a fun new project time at The Palace.

I'm around. I come here from time to time and sigh over how long it's been since I posted... then wonder what to post. I guess I'm having some kind of identity crisis regarding this blog. I mean, I like to post the random stuff I'm doing, with my dye work and the craft shows. But it looks like the only folks who actually come here to read it are looking for free crochet patterns. So then I think I should post a few new patterns... but I don't really have time when the craft shows are happening. And that's when I go back to facebook and talk about what I'm doing. I'll work on it. I do enjoy my little blog... but who wants to talk to an empty room? Of course, if you're really interested in my little clothing business and Mermaid adventures, you can go to the FB link right over there >>>> and read new stuff all the time. Maybe what I should do is connect these two, and start posting on the blog which will automatically post to fb. Hm. I

I thought it would be handy to have a list of all my free crochet patterns and craft tutorials in one place. So here you go!  These projects and patterns are the original designs of Bohemian Mermaid and are in all ways FREE. Go ahead and make them for sale, print and share, do whatever you like. Just please give credit to Bohemian Mermaid and link back to this blog. Enjoy!   ~Crochet Patterns~    Crochet Basics: A Handy Reference Basic Hat Beer Can Hat Erica's Tweed Cloche Easy Slippers ~Craft Tutorials~    Beer Can Hat   Making the Daphne Book   Outdoor Dog Bed Quick Recycled Notebook Painted Organza Flower (in progress) RockStar Can Tiara (in progress) ~Wedding Geekout~ Wedding Geekout  The Ring and Theme The Invitations The Clothing   The Jewels

Well, I am long winded as usual, so I'm continuing from Part 1 where I talked about tools and materials I used for the Daphne Book . Now I'll get into the process I used for developing the quiet book pages.  1. Design - I looked around the net a lot to get ideas, which also inspired more of my own ideas. Then I sat and sketched out my favorites. I thought about using different fasteners, counting, spelling, certain designs I knew I wanted to include like a robot and mermaid, etc. Very rough sketches, just to get the ideas down. I came up with 20 or so. Then I chose my favorites and decided I'd make 10 pages.   2. Refine - When I had a design I knew for sure I wanted, I would start a new page in my sketchbook and draw it out in the correct size. My pages are 9"x9" finished. I drew a 9" square and penciled my design, making changes until it was just right including all the details. I kept everything at least 1/2" away from the edges. I also consi