While I sell my products online, the majority of my income is from craft shows.  This season is over, and now I'm getting myself prepared for the holidays.  I'm looking forward to Christmas trees, Yule celebrations, friends, family, and holiday treats!  It's rough doing the craft show scene when you have a full time job on top of your own business.  Thankfully, I have friends and family (including my sweetie) who step up and help me.  I am eternally grateful to their love, support, and helping hands!  It is no exaggeration when I say I couldn't do it without them.

One thing I've come to appreciate this year even more so than ever is my customers.  I had several customers return from last year, and even more who visited me and purchased from me at multiple shows this year.  One such customer even purchased my favorite piece in my inventory, but I was happy to let it go to her because I knew she appreciated it as much as I did.  Creating and then selling art can be a difficult process - I make things I love and it's sometimes VERY hard to let them go.  But the awesome customers I have make the whole process easier.

If you're a crafts person and you want to start doing shows, feel free to email me.  I'm happy to share what I've learned over the years.  I continue to learn with each show, and it's a process that's getting easier as I get more shows under my belt.  

Now that this show season is done, I'm back in the studio creating, organizing, and refilling my soul only the way that working with my hands at a creative endeavor can do.  I have more ideas and projects I want to tackle than I have hours in the day, but I'm looking forward to sharing as many of them with you as I can.

My customers make my heart swell with love.  They are amazing, loving, caring people, and knowing they use some of my work to express their kindness just blows me away.  Just in the past month, I've had a family buy an awareness ribbon for their son who survived childhood cancer, a woman buy an angel for the woman she was buying her house from because the homeowner had to sell after losing her husband of 58 years.  And most recently, I've been contacted about angels for memorial gifts for infant loss.  I can't find the words - the loss is heartbreaking and the kind gestures of strangers are so heart-filling.  I'm fairly certain the English language simply fails at the ability to express what I feel right now.

In the month that a lot of Americans choose to express their gratitude, I will express my own.  I'm grateful.  I'm grateful for the stories shared with me by my customers.  I'm grateful they reach out to me in order to express their love and kindness to others.  I'm grateful to see such beauty and caring in my fellow humans.  It's sometimes hard to remember that there is so much good in the world when we've been taught to focus on the bad.

Thank you.  Thank you all for being the beautiful people that you are.  I acknowledge and honor your wonderful hearts.

I'm in the midst of searching for and applying to craft shows throughout northern Virginia for the remainder of this year, and I'm finding some really interesting shows that I never knew about!  Mailing out applications to jurried craft shows creates the same stress and anticipation that my author friends go through when they send off a new manuscript to publishers.  The waiting ... oh the waiting! 

All of the shows I've done so far have been wonderful.  I've had such a good time at each of them.  My helpers have always been spectacular, the shopping is great, and meeting all the show patrons is such a rewarding experience. 

When it comes to picking shows to attend/apply to, it's not always easy.  It's even more difficult when two great shows are happening on the same dates.  This happens more and more the closer to Christmas you get.  The holiday shows typically start in late October and run through December.  I'm already working on Christmas, Hanukkah, and Winter related items!

I do know I'm very much looking forward to doing the Northern Virginia Christmas Market again in November.  The show organizers and other venders were a joy to spend the weekend with, and the Expo is inches away from Willard's BBQ.  Best BBQ in the area!  It's great fuel to get through the weekend.

I'll be sending a handful more applications out this week so I can hopefuly have 1-2 shows per month.  Be sure to check out my Upcoming Events page to see where I'll be.  I will be updating the page as I get confirmations from the shows, so you'll have lots of opportunites to find me and shop in person.  The next show is McLean Day on May 18th ... hope to see you there!