Letchworth State Park

I spent Columbus Day weekend at Letchworth State Park in Northwestern New York. I participated in a large craft show that takes place in the park and draws thousands of people. Sales wise the show was pretty good even though the weather was rather on the chilly side. Saturday the place was packed, I barely had time to sit down all day.


Letchworth State Park is a beautiful setting for a craft show. At one point in the park there is a spectacular waterfalls, which I have never had the time to go see. The area of the park I was in has a deep gorge lined with trees wearing their warm fall colors.

This show always amazes me by the amount of people that come to such a remote area. The first time I did the show I was totally overwhelmed when people started arriving 2 hours before the advertised show hours. Mind you I am not complaining, I just was not prepared. So this year I promised myself I would be ready, but things don't always go as planned. We made a slight wrong turn on the way to the show which put us a little behind schedule. Of course there were people already there but I managed to get the booth set up and open for business in a relatively short time. All in all the show went well and I plan to return next year.

Slow Start to the Year!

Well, my first craft show of the year did not start off with a bang. Spring craft shows are traditionally a little on the slow side, but this was well beyond a little slow. I spent the last two weekends at the Maryland Spring Crafts Show, a show that I did last year and did fairly well. This year was definitely a different story. My sales were pro bally about half of what I sold last year. The economy, the weather is too nice, the weather is too bad, other events happening same weekend.................if there is one thing I have learned doing arts and crafts shows is that
exhibitors always have a million reasons why things aren't going well. I think this show was a reflection of our poor economy. All I can do is hope the rest of the year will be a little brighter.

As always at craft shows you get to meet a lot of people. Slow shows you usually have a chance to get better acquainted with other exhibitors. I had 2 very nice neighbors, to my left was Sassy Sweets http://stores.sassysweets.net/StoreFront.bok a gentleman from Virginia who sold handmade chocolate goodies. My son and I bolstered his weekend sales by buying and eating way too many chocolate covered pretzels. Very yummy!

On my other side was Mitzi Hall of Mosaic Mitzi, from the Pittsburgh PA area. As you can see from the pictures she does a vast array of mosaics ranging from very cute small items to stunning large pieces. Mitzi is fairly new to the craft show world, this being only her 4th show, but she is not new to mosaics. She has been making mosaics for over 10 years. she also does stained glass work which has been doing for 25 years. Mitzi told me she started making mosaics because she had so much left over glass pieces from her stained glass work, making mosaics seemed the perfect answer.

Saturday evening Mitzi told me she was a little disappointed in the show, but by the end of the day Sunday seemed to have done fairly well. At least she sold more than most people. If you would like to see more of Mitzi's work take a look at her shop http://www.mosaicmitzi.etsy.com/