Patriotic Theme and Selling at a Local SF Convention - Maybe...

With Memorial Day and the 4th of July coming up, I thought I'd do some red, white and blue badge lanyard necklaces. The first above uses 4mm faceted Czech crystal beads (had to use clear instead of white, but it works) and the second one features seed beads and some ovals in blue and red. Yes, that's another phone camera shot - I'm seriously thinking about getting a second camera so I don't have to either go upstairs to my "photo studio" (which reverts to my daughter's bedroom when she visits) or bring the camera down here to my work room, which, either way, means at this hour of the night, I'm bound to disturb the husband who's trying to get to sleep.

In other news, I'm seriously considering setting up at an "Artist's Alley" table at BayCon on Memorial Day weekend.

The Artists' Alley is a place for artists to create and sell their work while interacting with convention attendees. It is open to all artists, however you must actively work on your art at the alley tables (these are not dealer's tables).

So I'd take lots of beads and my tools and sit and work on new lanyards at the convention, as well as display some for sale. I think it would be a fun time. If I decide to go ahead, I'll just have to work my butt off to make sure I have enough variety of stuff to show. I'll probably work up some more matching bracelets and earrings, too. The main thing I'm worried about is that I'm not set up to accept anything but cash - I have used PayPal for my Etsy payments, so I haven't had to worry about getting a merchant credit card account. Maybe I'll visit the bank and see what that entails. Otherwise I guess I can hand out my business card and encourage people who want to use credit cards to contact me online so they can pay thru PayPal. hmmm. Gotta make up more business cards...

I have been to a couple of cons so far, and I enjoy the social aspects as well as the panels, so I'd miss out on some of that - but it's a good opportunity to see if what I'm doing has a market with con-goers, who generally seem to be supportive of artisans and hand-crafters. I'm thinking, since one has to wear a membership badge at cons - perhaps one would like a nice necklace lanyard for it? If not, the table isn't expensive to rent and the convention hotel is about 10 minutes from home, so it's not a huge investment to risk.

Yeah, I've pretty much talked myself into it. *grin*