Shaker Holiday Market: What Sold at the Craft Fair
Christmas crafting is one of my favorite pastimes! I work on projects all year long, but really get busy early in September. I participate in the Shaker Holiday Market every year, which runs from mid-October to mid-December.
I love seeing what other sellers offer from their booths, so I know you’ll enjoy seeing what I made and sold at this years market.
You can find posts about what sold at past shows here: 2017, 2016, and 2015. Now let’s take a look at this year’s sales.
- A vintage grater with vintage music paper star and mini wreath, $10 (4 sold).
- A vintage red level with tart tin and bottle brush tree decoration, $25.
- Tart tin ornaments, $7 each (5 sold).
- Stenciled red truck and Christmas tree sign, $28.
- “Gaudy” Christmas wreath, $25.
- Pillow made from antique quilt, $6.
“Hands to Work” signs, $18.
- Vintage yardstick trees, $7 (5 sold).
- Wagon wheel with mini wreath, $10.
- Vintage folding ruler with mini wreath, $12 (4 sold).
- Vintage thread spools with bottle brush trees, $3.50 each (14 sold). Note: I’ll raise the price next year to $4 each.
- Framed Bingo cards with mini wreath, $9 each (sold 3). Note: last year they didn’t sell for $12, so I lowered the price. I may make more for next year, not sure.
- Folding ruler with bottle brush wreath, $12.
- Toy cars with bottle brush trees tied on top, $6 each.
- Chalk painted spice cupboard, $25.
- Antique doorknob plate with mini wreath, $10 each (sold 5).
- Glitterized vintage postcard, $6 (sold 5).
- Vintage blocks with bottle brush trees, $6 (sold 4).
- A faux berry wreath, $8.
- Scrabble tile and yardstick ornaments, $6 each (6 sold).
- Basket of vintage clothespins, $10. A small crock filled with clothespins also sold for $10.
- A small oil painting of a red barn, $35.
- A Christmas diorama, $9. I lowered the price from $15 because it failed to sell last year.
- Vintage metal scoops, $4-6 each.
- Indoor Amusements, Card Games and Fireside Fun, c. 1896, $8.
- Small vintage hand broom $7.
- Vintage Bingo cards with mini wreaths, $4 (sold 11). I raised the price this year from $3.50 to $4 and it didn’t seem to affect sales.
- Wooden train with bottle brush tree, $6 (sold 3).
- Mini wreath hanging from a vintage masher, $10.
- Mini wreath on a vintage spatula, $10.
- A small basket with berries and mini wreath, $8.
- Mini watering cans with mini wreaths, $7 (only one sold!).
- Stenciled taping knife, $15.
Did you enjoy seeing some of the items that sold at the holiday market this year? I hope so! And I hope you got a little bit of Christmas inspiration. Happy crafting!
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Looks like you had a lot of sales. You had some great items in your booth!
Good luck with this year’s fair.
It was a good year all in all, Debra! Thanks for the good wishes 🙂
Diana, it sounds like a really successful craft show for you. I appreciate your attention to detail and the fact that you photographed so many of your crafts. It gives us so much inspiration and clarity on what you sold. I imagine you are happy to have participated and happy it is over! Your pieces you created are so fun and on trend, no wonder they sold well. Are you continuing to sell at the Shaker Gift Shop? Thanks for the informative post and congratulations on another successful year.
You warmed my heart today with your kind words, Laura! Yes, I’ll continue selling from the Shaker Gift Shop. They close for the months of January and February, so I’ll meet with the new manager and hash out what she’d like me to supply. Definitely my Wood Salve, which sells well there, along with my scrabble tile garden markers, and Tree of Life paintings. I guess we’ll just take it from there and see what sells well. Thanks for asking!
Great outcome, Diana. Congratulations, well done!
Thanks so much Rita!!
Very impressive sales and net. Did you detect any different attitude as far as consumer confidence this year over last? I bet your product mix had a lot to do with your success. The sweat equity you put into this project is really evident. Your items have personality others can’t duplicate. Now it’s time to get the creative juices going again. Good luck!
Thank you for all the kind comments, Rick 🙂 I actually did notice a change in my buyers this year. In the past I’ve sold quite a large number of items priced $15-$30 each, whereas this year I had very few. Most of my sales were in the $3-10 range. That said, my total sales were nonetheless higher, but my space was slightly larger and the sale lasted an extra week this year. It’s a very interesting endeavor, this buying, creating, and selling process, that’s for sure!
diana, I don’t visit every post but when I do I smile and love love love your creativity. you come up with such clever and great ideas. thank you for sharing with us all. id love to choose your workshop at the breakfast but really need to learn about oils. i’ll miss you though.
Gosh, such sweet comments, Beverly–thank you! No worries about the workshop; enjoy learning about oils 🙂
Awesome, Diana! Thread spools…. up to $4, yes! 50 cents won’t break the deal. NEcklaces, YES, go up to $11 or $12. Ten dollars always seems like more…I think it’s that zero on the end! Just psychological, I’m sure. But the more something is priced, I believe the more customers believe it must be worth that ! // So, the rule is….put a mini wreath on anything and it will sell !! 🙂 Question: on the little car with eyes… you put what looks like a wreath on it, and not a tree…has a white bow…. but what is the brown stuff? // stenciled taping knife….what IS that? what is it used for ? // I have that same spice drawer cabinet, found somewhere…but a horrible gaudy paint job on it. I’ll be painting it and probably will go to my city wide yard sale with my other vintage items. Congrats on what seems to be a fantastic success!
Hi Patty, the car with the eyes is Mater the tow truck from the Disney Pixar movie Cars. He is a “vintage” hook and chain style tow truck. Hope that kinda explains…… Patricia B
Ha ha–yes, Patricia was right, that’s Mater with the wreath! I will be taking your advice next year on the prices–going up, up, up. A taping knife is used with drywall to spread joint compound between the seams. Good luck with your spice cabinet–mine wasn’t in my booth for longer than 5 minutes before it sold 🙂
This always looks like a fun show! You had a great sale…lots of nice items!
I really do enjoy this show, LInda; glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
So glad you had a great year. I think the beige ribbon on the watering cans might have just made it too drab. Perhaps a cute gardening saying—or serious one, would be more apropos.
Thank you, Sandi! Great ideas for the watering cans 🙂
Excellent, Diana! So glad your sales grew. You’ve inspired me because crafting is my first love. The past few years I’ve spent so much time on keeping my booths stocked and painting furniture that I’ve gotten away from crafting. You’ve shown that small projects can be quite successful and not too time consuming. I’just may have to steal a few of these ideas for my booths next Christmas.
Steal away, Melissa!! That’s why I write about my projects. I love seeing what readers come up with when they try one of my DIY’s 🙂
Hey Diana, congratulations on the sales. I know I’d been buying from ya’ if I was there. You’ve given me some great inspiration for some of my crafts.
Thanks Patricia! So sweet of you to say you’d buy from me and that blesses me to know that I’m a source of inspiration 🙂
Very informative, Diana. And some of your little items were so simple to make. I’m thinking of trying to make up an inventory of similar items to sell at our local Peace Center Christmas Sale next November. I’ve tho’t of doing it for years but have never gotten in gear in time. I am also beginning to design and assemble Putz houses. Am still perfecting my design but I love doing it and I have loved those little houses for forever.
So glad you had a good holiday sales-wise at the Shaker Craft Show.
Hope you are having a little sun in your parts. It’s been pretty cold and cloudy here in Michigan. I just wish it would snow! As long as it’s gotta be so cold I’d like some snow to pretty things up a bit.
Take care, keep warm!
“Simple” is my middle name, Naomi! My philosophy is that to make money at craft shows, you’ve got to keep your financial and time investment as low as possible. That Peace Center Sale sounds like a great venue to sell some crafts. Funnily enough, I’ve been making some patterns for some Putz houses myself–we’ll have to share our results next season 🙂
Since you wrote this comment, we got that huge snow storm–24″ in some places. My husband’s work shut down for the day–first time ever I think. It was super cold for a few days but it’s warmed up to the 20’s, LOL. Hope you’re staying warm, friend!
I loved seeing what sold, you had a lot of beautiful items! I do have a question, who was the artist on the barn painting?
Aww thanks Betsy–so glad you enjoyed the post. The barn painting was signed simply “St. Clair.” I don’t know anything else about it…
Great show and awesome inventory. I did a few craft shows years ago but fizzled out quickly. I love to repurpose stuff and create, but can’t seem to decide on the right outlet. It might be time to plan on setting up at the 127 yard sale and unload some of this stuff that I have accumulated. Hope you have a wonderful year!
I’m very blessed to have found this show because it’s very popular and sellers don’t have to “man” their booths, which is quite uncommon. I have found that testing the market with one or two items and being flexible about removing others has helped me grow and learn what people want. That said, I’ve made plenty of mis-guesses, as I mentioned in this post, LOL.
What an interesting post! Always fun to see what sells for the other guy. “Almost” makes me wish I had a booth again so I could copy some of your darling ideas! Glad things did well for you. I agree with the other comments that have been made, especially the one about the pricing. I guess you must keep a good supply of bottle brush trees & little green wreaths on hand since you’re using a lot of them. They really add that little Christmas-y touch so nicely.