Saturday, October 12, 2013

My Stall Makover

I have been doing markets for a long time...Lately I took a critical look at my display and decided I really need a makeover!
I found these in our barn, hidden away under years of dust and neglect. They are Depression Era Furniture that had been passed down through my husbands family.
These had all been handmade by my husbands grandfather in the early 1930's.
The small chest of drawers had been made from a kerosene chest.  The middle piece is an old fishing box, and I just love the roughly made stool.

So I spent some time cleaning away the grime, and just very lightly painting and restoring...but trying to leave as much of the rustic look and patina as possible. And then I made display inserts and turned them into this!

To give my stall a whole new look I also made added brown tablecloths laid on a diagonal, to help break up all the black.  And I made all new signage in warm browns instead of the bright colours I had before.
And I also bought this beautiful large shelve display ...it folds up easily for transporting, and looks so fabulous and eye-catching. It also has lots of wrought-iron swirls which ties in nicely with a lot of my other jewellery displays. It's like it was made for my market stall!

We were at the Bull&Barrel festival yesterday, and it was our first time setting up my newly made-over stall. 
I had first set it up how I had played with it at home, but after it was all in place I realised that it was all wrong...the people were coming in a different direction and I had a wall blocking the view.
So, much to my husbands annoyance, we quickly flipped the layout and re-arranged the tables and displays so that my stall was more visible to the passing traffic.
And thank goodness we did! 

I discovered a far better layout...we put the new large stand right at the front, with colourful dangling earrings and a blue glass 'Bargain Bowl' and pretty translucent glass flowers.  The whole look was so eye-catching.
Then I put my best selling Unique 3D necklaces next to the large shelf display, and people just flowed into my stall.  I was amazed! 
We had such a fabulous display.  I had so many compliments on how my stall looked, from customers as well as my fellow stall-holders who have seen my stall before and noticed the difference.
It took a whole week to do the make-over, but I am so pleased I did...I just LOVE it!