Fanime 2014

Second year as a seller definitely went a lot smoother.

We were indoors instead of in the convention center tent, for starters. A friend (PinkLemonadeGoddess) and I shared a table rather than each get our own (since there were many less spots than last year). I didn't have to produce as much product since I still had a bunch of cozy bases from last year--it was mostly cthulhus, roses, hair clips, soot balls, and customizing cozy bases to ramp up popular stock.

I did break my most-used hook, my F5/3.75mm, which is what I use for cthulhus and the majority of the rest of my popular products. It was a stupid plastic Susan Bates one--the only F I could find when I needed one--so I wasn't terribly surprised, but I did feel like my hardcore-crochet level went up a bit as a result. I have since replaced it, also with stupid Susan Bates, but at least this one's a proper metal hook.

I found a broken wire wrack at a second hand store (missing one folding leg) that worked perfectly as an inclined plane for displaying cozies when I put felt on it so they wouldn't slip. I still had my wire cubes, which I made an arch with to have a shelf above the table (cthulhus lived up there on a tin tray). Underneath I had a three tiered wire wrack with hair clips and such, a mug with long-stem roses, and a bucket of soot balls.

The soot balls were tricky. I'd intended to make soot ball cozies with a feathery yarn I'd picked up, but it was just too difficult to work with, so I ended up buying a couple packages of small Styrofoam spheres and googly eyes. I wrapped the yarn around the balls, gluing as it needed it, then gluing the eyes on. They sold pretty well.

Cthulhus and Roses

Unfortunately, I made about a quarter to a third less than last year because I was directly next to the realistic Pokemon guy. People were constantly crowding in front of and around his table, meaning there were always people standing in front of my table, but none were looking at it.

In the end, I was left with about half a bucket of soot balls, a handful of completed rose heads that hadn't yet been made into long-stems, some hair clips, and a bunch of cozies. The two cthulhu that didn't sell were my favorite of the batch, so I didn't mind keeping them.

I did get the standard increase of activity on Etsy following the convention and managed to get rid of a little more thanks to that, but it's been pretty dead as of late so I've gone back onto Vacation.

At some point I'll move the rest of my stock, but for that to happen, I'll need to be in the same state as my product and materials.