Boomers Career at Craft Shows

. You can look at booths of many different vendors to get ideas for your booth when you are ready to take the plunge.
. You can talk to vendors who are selling there and learn about how to go about getting on the program for this fair and to learn about upcoming events you can participate in. Don't worry about you seeming to pose a threat as a future competition for sales. There is a camaraderie among crafters and you will enjoy the social aspect of mixing with other creative people.
. You can talk to the people who organize the show and get a feel for how you will fit in to their next event.

Another line of preparation is booth creation. It's good if you are starting early because it will take some time and a bit of expense to get the materials together and for you to build the skills to put the booth up, take it down, move it and store it between shows. Again, your contacts with experienced craft show veterans will be invaluable for this.

Finally, but this is the most important part of your preparations is your talent and craft that you will be preparing to sell at the craft shows. You can purchase some examples of similar crafts you see doing well at the fairs you scout out. These can be templates for what you want to do. But you will impose your own creative vision on the craft so what you offer when you finally get to the craft faire will be uniquely yours and speak of your vision.

Along with these preparations for boomers second career at craft show, think about how you will customize your booth to draw customers in. From craft fairs you have attended in the past and the ones you scout, you will witness that there are certain booths that draw crowds and others that just don't seem to get the customers. So you want to make your booth inviting to customers so you will reap a good return on your effort in the form of sales.

There are a variety of ways to draw customers at craft show. From candles, to contests, to videos playing, to using music or live talent to making your craft as people watch, there are many ways you can experiment around with to draw customers. You will get a unique thrill from the sales you make each day. But more importantly, you will be expressing that creative side of you and getting that fulfillment that you had to wait to this phase of life to express. In addition to a second career, and that's a wonderful benefit of learning to sell your crafts at craft fairs.

Green is economical and it sells. So look around with creative eye and see what can be recycled and repurposed. How about beads from old newspapers, handmade vases from broken window glass and hairclips from tree bark? We all easier to part with money to add to our collection and items that display something we love. Decorated items we often use have a good chance to become a hit as well as custom personalized gifts.

Another good idea is find your signature way of personalizing items clients bring to you. Box of colored Sharpies in good hands can turn a cheap water bottle into personal kid's gift with name and cartoon-like animal or cool lunchbox from plastic container.

To shop for ideas hit a dollar store. There you can learn what can be purchased even cheaper in wholesale and often find good material for experiments. Look for simple items; those are priced low because they cost pennies to produce in 3rd world countries. Now use your imagination and some labor to give to make one of them a desirable item that can be sold at $15-$35.

Like scrapbooking? Make custom frames using scrapbooking techniques and wooden frames from a dollar store. To stay on your budget look for cheap items, like a penny or recycled items, like a magazine page. Like painting? Same dollar store might offer plain boxes that can be decorated into work of art. Have you seen those dangling boring earrings? Now add a silk rose from the next isle and a bead or two. Nicer and larger beads can be purchased cheap as necklaces at clearances or at garage sales. Salt and paper shakers are popular collectibles, and the plain wooden or ceramic ones can be turned in work of tabletop art.

All images credits: Getty at gettyimages.com