I've been having a good old think about how best to take the world of Mrs Stokes this year. I started off with a street stall in Union Street in the centre of Bath, which I had to pay for everyday and which demands 6 day a week attention. I really enjoyed it, but it was very hard work and the figures didn't really add up to me becoming a millionaire any time soon so Mr Stokes wondered if I'd be better off using my time to promote www.mrsstokes.com and www.thesecretteaparty.com and of course www.itsdarlingfair.co.uk. I'm still thinking about trying Union Street again though, now that the weather is drier and warmer, the city is flooded with tourists and now that I have a van!
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| My stall at the show - loved the larger size, so liberating! I had some non-vintage things there too, like novelty watering cans (right of pic) as it was a Garden Show and I didn't come across any vintage equipment |
For the next few months I'm going to try selling at various fairs instead and try and boost my website which has been sadly neglected over recent months. My first fair was this weekend in Bristol in Broadmead, called The Garden Life Show.
Now, I have to admit I did have cold feet about this one, as it was quite expensive to do and it slowly dawned on me that actually it wasn't really a fair or a show at all, but street trading in Bristol's forgotten high street (everyone goes to Cabot Circus now). And I was right, in a way, because no-one who came to my stall seemed to realise that there was anything special going on at all - they all kept asking what was happening. So it was quite disappointing that the organisers (Bristol Evening Post) hadn't really spread the word, although being one of the organisers of the It's darling! fair, I can sympathise. Sometimes you can go really heavy on promotion and still people don't seem to know about it.
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| The main event - Mrs Stokes' China Teasets |
It wasn't all bad though. The people who did come through were really lovely, bought things (always good), took my card and seemed geniunely interested in what I was doing. For me one of the best things about the show, though, was that I had a huge space (10ft x 10ft) which when you usually sell on a 6ft by 2ft table was just genius. I also managed to persuade the guy from Lazy Lawns, an artificial lawn company, to give me an off cut of lawn to make it look like my stall was on grass in the middle of the city.
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| Check the artifical lawn |
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| These Red Riding Hood picnic baskets were really popular |
