Monthly Archives: December 2014

Plaidypus Spotlight: Colorado College Arts and Crafts Fair in Colorado Springs, CO

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colorado college arts and craft fair plaidypus participation 2014 logo

The Colorado College Arts and Crafts Fair is held every year on the first (or second?) weekend of December. It’s held at, you guessed it, Colorado College, which is a small, liberal arts college located in Colorado Springs, CO. And it is a fantastic show to participate in or go to.

For the past four years Plaidypus has participated in the show, making trunkfuls of Fuzzy Fingerless Mittens, Coffee Cup Cozies, Headbands, Hair Clips and Pins, and sometimes even throwing in surprise Sweater Sleeve Scarves or bags made from neckties. It’s always been a fantastic show for us, and we always love participating.

plaidypus booth table at colorado college arts and craft fair 2014

Here’s our table for December 2014 at the beginning of the show (it was much more bare by the end of it!)

There are a number of reasons this is a great show.

First of all, I’m a little biased because I graduated from Colorado College in May and so I just really like the people who put it on. (In case you were wondering, I graduated with a B.A. degree in psychology and a minor in performance design.) For three of the four years I was a student at CC, I participated in this fair, and this year as an alumnus I did the same. So I do have a sort of loyalty bias for this fair.

But there’s more than just that to make this a great fair.

There are thousands of customers who come through this fair every year. Thousands. There are locals from the Springs, students at the college, people driving in from surrounding cities such as Denver or Boulder or Pueblo, and all those people are starting their holiday shopping. It’s a festive show to go to, whether you are selling or buying. Makes you feel like the holiday season has really begun and you can start your shopping and decorating and cookie-baking. Colorado College arts and craft fair 2014 plaidypus call to artists and about sale

If you are an artist in Colorado, this is the fair to participate in. Especially if you’re a student at the college. They give students a great deal on the table fee so that they can learn what it’s like to sell their own goods without the terror of a large fee hanging over their heads. And alumni get a discounted table fee, so the support from the school continues there. But even if you don’t go to CC nor have you ever gone there, the table fee is minimal compared to many other fairs.

It’s three days of talking to artists or customers or both and finding your own gifts for family and friends (I found some particularly good items for my family this year) and seeing what other people can do. It’s a student center packed with inspiration and artists who are willing to help you out by giving you trade tips and sometimes free yarn (not kidding, I got two huge cones of undyed wool yarn from some very nice women this year so I could play with yarn dyeing techniques).

So look out for it next year. You can find great gifts there and great people who make them.

If you want to participate as an artist, I think applications are posted in September and due by October 1 for outside parties and alumni, so start snooping around then. It is juried, so make sure the photos you send in and the descriptions you write frame your products nicely.

If you have questions about the fair, direct them to the Colorado College Arts and Crafts Program. The people there are super nice.

And if you have questions about us, you can direct those to me in a comment below or on our Contact Me page.

colorado college 2014 arts and craft fair plaidypus

Craft Shows: Pros, Cons, and Where to Start

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Plaidypus craft fair gift show booth table

Whether you’re a new artist looking to get your business noticed or a veteran artist looking to expand your audience, craft fairs can work for you. Basically, you pay money for a booth or a table and set up shop for a day or a weekend to sell directly to customers, surrounded by other artists just like you.

Plaidypus participates in around four gift shows every year: Fort Collins’ Sustainable Living Fair, Wadoo’s Annual Holiday Trunk Show, The Colorado College Arts and Craft Fair, and the Lux Center Holiday Gift Show. Some years it’s more, some years it’s less, depending on how much time there is to make product and how stressful college (about to be grad school!) is.

I love the craft fair/gift show system for a number of reasons. First of all, people love knowing where their product is coming from, what it’s made of, etc. and you’re standing there able to answer all their questions. Second, you can charge retail price instead of wholesale price for your items (for more information on wholesale and retail pricing, check out “5 Easy Steps to Figure Out Wholesale and Retail Pricing“), which means more profit for your business! Finally, your name gets put in the program, on the website, and on your booth, so you’re getting some great publicity.

Here are the pros of craft fairs in a handy list:

Plaidypus table booth at colorado college arts and craft fair 2013

Here’s me telling a friend about a scarf made from sweater sleeves at the Colorado College Arts and Crafts Fair in 2013

Pros of Craft Fairs

1. Connect directly with customers

2. Charge retail pricing instead of wholesale

3. Publicity (even if you don’t make very much money!)

There are also some risks associated with craft fairs. You need to be able to sell enough of your product to pay for your booth fee and your travel expenses for it to be really worth it (unless you’re only going so that you can get your name out there. Then it’s still pretty good marketing/publicity!) Also be aware that many fairs are juried, meaning there is a group of people who decide which businesses get into the fair and which do not, meaning you won’t automatically get into a craft fair. Finally, remember that if your fair is a little further away, you have to take off time, find places to stay, and pay for gas or a flight to get there, which may add to your overhead and make it so you need to sell more (I definitely suggest beginning with local fairs!)

Here’s that list again in, well, list form:

Cons of Craft Fairs

1. Need to sell a lot to pay for the booth fee (booth fees that I’ve seen have ranged from $75 to $1000, depending on the popularity and location of the show, so have a maximum in mind for how much you will pay in case you don’t make the money back)

2. Many are juried

3. Travel expenses and time (plane tickets, gas, hotels, and time off)

So before you decide whether to do a craft fair, remember that sometimes you won’t make as much money as you would selling wholesale to a retail business (I’ll make a separate post about that, soon!). But also remember that it might still be worth it to get your business out there. And you may as well try at least one to see how it goes.

There are many local fairs that you can find that are easy to get to, don’t cost very much (many of them know that they get beginning artists in) and aren’t super big. If you are going to apply for craft fairs, look them up months ahead of time. If you want to do a Christmas craft show, start looking in July. That’s right, some get filled up that quickly. And even if they don’t, it’s good to know ahead of time when everything is due and what you’re going to need to apply. It gives you time to get your materials together and plan your season. Searching for craft fairs gift shows plaidypus blog

Finding craft fairs can be a little tricky. Most of the time I pretty much google “gift fairs” or “craft fairs” plus the area I’m looking to sell in. So, I live in Colorado, and I can look up “gift fairs Colorado” and sift through a lot of websites until I find one or two that I can apply for (even if they aren’t juried, you need to send in an application with descriptions and often photos of your product).

The other, more reliable way to find craft fairs is to know people who participate in them already. I personally know a lot of artists who make the majority of their profit from craft shows. I know most people probably don’t have those connections, but the longer you’re in the business, the more connections you will make within the craft world that can give you tips and tricks for your business and for craft shows. You may already know someone who knows someone, and that is a connection worth looking into. (Seriously, don’t worry about asking for help.)

Felted Wool Coffee Cup Cozy product description by plaidypus

You don’t have to describe it in this much detail. I would say, instead, “coffee cup cozies made from felted wool sweaters.”

There are a few things that almost every application asks for. Here’s a short list in case you want to have everything on hand ahead of time:

Craft Show Application Checklist

1. Product (know what you will sell and describe it)

2. Photos (take photos that show off the product well. Pretty photos are more likely to get you into a juried show)

Plaidypus recycled upcycled felted wool sweater coffee cup cozy

I might use this as my representative photo of a coffee cozy. It’s uncluttered and shows the item in use.

3. Fee budgets (know how much you can pay for booth fees and have that money ready)

4. Information about your business (name, address, phone number, general statement covering what it is you do, previous shows attended if any)

If you have these things, you should be good to go for most shows. Some may ask you to send in physical copies, including CDs with photos on them, while other will allow everything to be online. Try to find the fair with the highest turnout rate of customers within your budget, because the more people who attend the event, the more potential people to sell to.

And if you have any questions that I didn’t answer about craft fairs, comment and I’ll either edit this post or create a new one! Plaidypus and Wadoo Exhibitor Booth for Sustainable Living Fair 2011

A Most Excellent Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe

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Saving the Planet with Snickerdoodles
snicker doodle cookies by plaidypus
I’ve heard snickerdoodle cookies can go one way or the other. I have only made them maybe twice (this will be the third time). And they went the way I wanted them to go. Either I am a secret kitchen goddess or this is one fine recipe. It’s probably the latter. I baked these to use up the leftover topping from my Spiced Apple Pie Cupcakes (which I highly recommend making) . I figured I should recycle more often in my life and this was the perfect chance to help save the world. Basically I just tossed a lot of cinnamon (maybe 2 teaspoons worth?) into the mix and it suddenly became a snickerdoodle topping.

The real snickerdoodle topping is literally sugar and cinnamon, so a little extra flour and butter and spices wasn’t going to be so bad. And, spoilers, it was awesome. Here’s the actual cookie recipe, though.

Snickerdoodle Cookies
Ingredients: 
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

For the topping, if you aren’t, you know, using leftover apple spice cupcake topping plus cinnamon, I recommend about two tablespoons of sugar per two teaspoons of cinnamon (which is a 3:1 ratio in teaspoons, in case you need to keep adding more topping). But if you want it heavier or lighter on the cinnamon, it’s all up to you!

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix butter, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl
3. Combine flour baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients.
4. Chill dough (I learned from a friend that that’s how they become softer and puffier. Otherwise they flatten out more than you want them to. Unless you like flatter cookies, then don’t chill). The recipe asked me to chill the baking sheet, but I didn’t because there is no room in my fridge or freezer for such a thing. You can do this if you want for 10-15 minutes.
5. Roll out about 1 inch balls of dough and roll them around in the topping mixture, then put on you (possibly chilled) baking sheet.
6. Bake for 10 minutes.snicker doodle cookies by plaidypus
When you take them out remove them ASAP from the pan so they don’t keep cooking. That way they’re softer. Unless you like cookies crispy. Then do what you want.
7. Enjoy. The first time I used this recipe, I had never made snickerdoodles and had only had them a handful of times, so I was pleased with the outcome. They were soft and puffy. I didn’t have photos from the first time I made these when they were so perfect (because we were too busy hrowing flour at each other and watching youtube videos), but here’s how they turned out from this batch (I think they still look pretty delicious).