The Handmade Market

Ok, so you want my highlights? Well, my favorite things included jewelry by Metamorphosis Metals and the photography of Mikel Robinson. His light box photos are luminous and dreamy. Here is an image of them in an installation. I am trying to figure out where we'll put a group of three in our house (are you reading this honey, trolling for Christmas ideas for me?)

What did I buy? A kiddie tee from Sarah Holsapple (see above and visit her at etsy), a painting from Merideth Steele, and some delicious cookies. I was looking for a few shirts for my husband but I went too late in the day and his average, most-popular size was all sold out everywhere.

The tote bags we gave out were a hit, too. I hope to see lots of those non-disposable bags used at the grocery stores and retailers of Raleigh. They are nice and thin, so they can crunch up really small and just be right there in your purse when you need it. I put one in my purse today.

We (meaning Ornamentea and Panopolie) were the 'Gold Sponsors' of the Handmade Market. I really support and am amazed by the talent in all the Handmaidens. Many of them have strong connections to the stores and I didn't have to think for very long when they asked me to sponsor them. As a business, we struggle with how to spend our advertising dollars. We can do ads in the daily paper, phone books, local magazines and weekly papers, national craft and trade magazines, or on line. We can mail out post cards to our mailing list or buy names. All of those are generally expensive and maybe don't work at all. There is so much advertising everywhere, so many ads competing for your attention, my attention. Lately, well for the last year at least, we are trying to spend our advertising dollars in smaller chunks. We are doing year book ads, high school newspaper ads, buying pages in the programs for the local theater and dance performances and doing things like the Handmade Market. It may not work any better to do this than to do an ad in Bead&Button, but it at least it seems like it makes more of a difference to put a reusable tote bag in your hand or pay for a page in a high school year book.