baltimore holiday heap 2011

On Saturday, my shop was a vendor at my first holiday art market - Charm City Craft Mafia's Holiday Heap (AKA the reason I've been too busy to blog lately). I can't even put into words how awesome it was.

I'll admit I was a bit intimidated when I first arrived to set up - the other vendors had AMAZING work. This was a pretty big show - 60+ vendors set up at St. John's Church in Baltimore. It was the perfect location - kind of an industrial space in an old church, all strung up with twinkle lights. As soon as the doors opened at 10 am, the market was slammed. During the first two hours of the show, I actually had people lined up at my booth to make purchases, and Larry and I were juggling swiping credit cards and bagging stuff up and restocking - thank goodness he was there to help, because I could not have handled it on my own!




Within the first hour I had sold out of the Maryland ornaments. A few minutes later, all the Maryland map illustrations and new River Rock and Cairn illustrations were gone! Holy smokes! I had no idea that Baltimore was such an artsy town, and it made me so happy to see crowds of people out to support small businesses and buy handmade from local artists. Thank you, Baltimore - you all are awesome!

And thank you to my family in Maryland who dropped by to shop and say hello and to my Virginia friends who drove up to Baltimore to surprise me. You all are awesome, too and I'm so flattered to have your support!



Not only was this my biggest market yet, and first holiday market, it was also my first indoor market and last week Larry and I built a new display system for my art. It took some jury rigging (and a bit of sweating) to get it to stand up at the market - the whole thing is held up by paint cans and...duct tape! (Thank God for duct tape!) But it ended up looking great and I was especially excited about the battery-operated light display!

It was an amazing (and exhausting) day, and now that the dust has settled, I'm feeling so pumped up and inspired for the future of Funnelcloud Studio. After the last market I sold at this Fall, I was feeling unsure about continuing to sell at markets, but after this weekend's experience, I realized I just have to be selective and only attend fairs that are the right fit for my shop. I've been researching other markets and am excited about the possibility of going bigger in 2012...

I'll be a busy bee this week, as next weekend is Richmond Craft Mafia's Handmade Holiday (Sunday, December 11th from 11-6 at Plant Zero) and I'm working like a madwoman to restock my prints. Inventory is currently low in my Etsy shop, but I am reprinting and will post updates on new work both here and on Twitter when prints are available. If there's something you've had your eye on, let me know. Thanks for your patience and thanks to all who came out on Saturday!