Family Fest {fun?}

This weekend my boddy Caitlin {over at CarmelTurtle} and I had our first "outing" with our goods. Months ago, Caitlin was approached by the woman who was putting this "Family Fest" together, and she/we were under the impression (based off of how this lady described it) that it was going to be like a giant craft fair out at Bandshell Park and we wouldn't have to pay for a table and we could sell our goodies. So Caitlin talked to me about it and we decided that it would be way fun and a great way to get our names out there in our town!


Fast forward to the first {and only} meeting that all the "vendors" (or so we thought) sat in on to discuss the goings on of the Family Fest day. We quickly realized that not only was this NOT a craft fair of ANY sort, but we were going to be the only two people even selling anything! We later found out that yes, there would be food vendors (hot dogs, pop corn, etc) and there were a couple tables like {for example} realtors, so technically we weren't the ONLY people selling things... But still.


We got a fairly good spot in the shade, in a pretty corner, and next to a small chuch (table/spot of people representing their church. In fact, there were a LOT of churches there represented) that was giving away free balloons - which meant we got a LOT of people over by our table just because we were near the popular table *wink* {Location - Location - Location!}


The overall vibe that we got from that day was... it was NOT a buying crowd. It was a crowd of people (the whole day was aimed at families throughout ALL of Ames) that was there to play the games, get the free candy (which we thankfully had, and that actually did bring people directly to our table) and get whatever other freebies the tables had to offer.

Caitlin sold one thing right away - we got our hopes up and thought it would be a great selling day. I sold another thing awhile later to a friend of the family (she paid full price, so it still counts! lol!). I later had one more sale.

That was it. Well, and we gave away a lot of business cards (which is always a good thing).

We both had put a LOT of time, energy, and even extra money from our personal accounts just to make sure we had enough to sell that day. We were both up till 3 the night before getting ready. We were up and getting things together by 8:30 and we set up our table before 10. We stayed till after 5.

All in all, we made a couple sales, we made some friends (yay for the balloon church people!), we gave out lots of biz cards, we got some sun (ahem... I got some sun {read: burn} and Caitlin got a nice tan, as always), and we had fun hanging out together. It was not the day we were expecting, but we actually did learn a lot about having a booth/table to sell our goods, and it prepared us for the next time we do a REAL craft fair {yes, there will be a next time!}. Oh, and for quite a few hours we both felt really rich carrying around the wad of cash that we'd gotten from the bank to make change :-P

Anyway, I guess it did make my day that I got a picture with all the "characters" that were there that day ;-)

Me with Silly Sally the Clown {yes, I know I would probably make a natural clown}

What? I have something on my face?

Smyles the Dog - the Library dog

McGruff the Dog and the hottie police man!

Me with Cy - the Iowa State University mascot

Me with Sparky {from Sparks - AWANA mascot}

My niece and nephew (oh and their mama ;-)) came for awhile to check things out - they enjoyed the Kindermusik booth.

Caitlin and her awesome little man Ki who looks super adorable in the nose {grin}

My new friend {who's name escapes me at the moment} from the booth next to us - the church group giving out free balloons.

The noses brought some great entertainment {wink}

So that was our day. It wasn't a bad day, just far from what we were expecting. We probably won't do it again, but we are on the lookout for an actual craft fair - THAT will be fun :-) This day was our learning day :-) And everyone needs one of those every so often *wink*