Building a better booth

I've done a couple craft shows over the years and my set-up has always been amateurish. I want to kick things up a bit with my booth at the Riverside Arts Market. And since it's close and ongoing, it's something I can participate in on a semi-regular basis.

I'm working on a budget and I don't have a tent. If I do well enough, I'll buy one soon. But for now, I have to pray for no rain! I'm been walking through our house and scouring the storage unit for things to use in my booth. I have several categories of items and I want them to be displayed nicely. I have no desire to go out and buy new furniture or tables. I want to use stuff that we already have so that I won't have to find a place to store such items.

It didn't take me long to claim our front door catch-all storage cube unit. I bought it from a neighbor's garage sale last year and it's proven to be invaluable in organizing shoes and backpacks, etc. I figured I would use baskets and use it for my flannel cloths and unpaper towels.

My next dilemma was I needed something magnetic that was high enough to catch someone's eye...to display my photo magnets. DH and I kind of went around and around on this one. I had a vision. He had a different vision. He was going to build something for me so I was trying to let go of my vision and trust his judgment. And then I had a brainstorm moment...we could attach steel sheeting to the hidden sides of the storage cube instead of creating a new standing display. We layed it flat and then used gorilla glue to attach it. The stuff shown on top is to weigh it down to form the bond. After it dried, I applied silver duct tape along the edges so that it wouldn't be sharp in case a customer had a weird encounter with it. LOL So now it's safe.

I'm pretty excited about it! It was super cheap and after RAM, I can roll this thing back into the house and put our stuff back on it.

I also claimed a kids' storage bin thing to use as a rack to hang my hand dyed towels from. It's the white thing with bars in the above pic, being used to weigh down the steel.

Tomorrow I'll get pics up of the completed booth at RAM. :)

The next exciting thing of the day is my new color laser printer arrived! Our last 2 color printers were a HP and they are practically disposable. Never will I spend another dime on a HP printer. This one is a Brother HL-4040CDN. It's massive!! And heavy! But thanks to my amazon prime membership, I got it delivered over night for a whopping $3.99! I'm excited about it being laser, too. Those prints will hold up better and won't melt away if they happen to get wet unlike what happens to inkjet copies. The most annoying thing was how my home printed business cards smudged. Not a problem now.