German Xmas Market
Hello Dearest Dreamers!
I hope that this post finds you well! This past weekend has been a long but rewarding one! I was able to participate in my first German Christmas Market with Dirtbag Ales Taproom and Brewery. This is the same place where I would participate in outside Farmer’s Markets a few summers during the summer. This weekend has definitely been a whirlwind.
I did manage to vlog a lot of this weekend’s footage… so if you’re interested in watching that, you can catch the video here.
The German Christmas Market was a three day vendor event located outside the Brewery (we just call this place DBA). The market officially started at 5pm on the 11th (Friday) and went until 2pm yesterday (Sunday). Because there were so many vendors they staggered our setup times and I was slotted to start setting up at 1pm on Friday. Luckily they provide tents and lighting for everyone, but you’re responsible for bringing everything else that you might need for this event. I spent Friday morning making sure I had all my inventory and items I would need to set up my space (I think they blocked off 10’ X 10’ spaces for everyone) and I loaded my truck up around 12:15 pm and headed out. Like I mentioned, this is a handmade local vendor event, so I wasn’t there as a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, but I was able to sell my finished projects and cards.
Thursday was my final prep day, making sure that all my projects were organized together and put away in tubs for easier set up. My craft room looked like a bomb went off in there with all sorts of stuff ALL OVER THE PLACE! Drove me absolutely batty! I recently lost my helper who would help me both prepare inventory for markets and help me run the table, so this was definitely an adjustment for me. She is fine, she just decided that she no longer wanted to help me and that’s okay. This stuff isn’t for everyone.
DBA is about a half hour drive from where I live in a neighboring town but is well worth the drive. My friends and I actually spend most Sunday morning’s here for the Farmer’s Markets when I am not running my own table. We’ll sit on the patio and we’ll also make our way around the vendor’s, saying hello to the ones we know and making some purchases of our own to support them. You can read about my first Farmer’s Market here.
Setup rarely takes me that long, especially when I don’t have to worry about setting up my tent. I think it maybe took me twenty minutes max? It helps that I keep all my stuff organized in totes and together and I am well practiced in setting up a vendor table since I’ve done it all summer. Once I set up I still had a few hours to kill before the market opened so I walked around and assisted some of my vendor friends in getting their booth’s set up.
I will always advocate for buying small and buying handmade if possible! Some vendors that I will always recommend (some ship across the county):
* Paws Anatomy homemade pet treats (Ships around the world)
* The Sudsy Nun handmade goat milk and beer soaps (website)
* Nature’s Cup handmade tea’s (also ships nationwide via their website)
* Guilty Pleasure’s Organic Soaps
* Carl’s Handmade Pens
* Sweet Goose Brownies oh my lord, these are to DIE FOR! (website)
The market kicked off with a bang at 5 p.m. Friday night and went until 10 p.m. I honestly thought I made enough Christmas cards for this event… and I definitely thought wrong. I almost ran out the first day and had to make more after each day to make sure I had enough! Lesson learned for next year… start making them in July and have a HUGE stock ready! It definitely got colder as the day wore on and the sun went down. Luckily a bunch of my vendor friends warned me about this from previous experience and I was prepared with layers of clothes to put on as it got colder. I also made sure that I brought some hot tea (from Nature’s Cup) in a thermos and it stayed warm for hours. Another nice thing is that we didn’t have to completely tear our tents down. Most of us put stuff away due to weather (or covered our tables) and had minimal setup to do the next morning. DBA also had overnight security to make sure that no one stole anything from anyone’s booths.
To participate in the German Christmas Market, we had to have a German themed item. Here is a look at my German Sunshine Boxes. Items included were a stick of local honey, pocket hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works, chapstick, two candy sticks, four pieces of German themed Chocolate, and a small rubber ducky that either wears a Durndel or Lederhousen. These were so much fun to put together and I am blessed to have my friend Noelle who helped me come up with the designs!
Saturday was the longest day for the market, officially open from 12 p.m. until 9 p.m. The nice part was that I got to shop around a little bit and see some friends that I hadn’t seen in quite a while! Like I mentioned, the Christmas cards were a hit. I even had a few custom orders placed to have done by Sunday. My sweaters and layers were definitely handy because it was a pretty chilly day all day and definitely into the evening. The vendor on my right sold empanadas and we had a blast. I brought my little speaker to play some music and we danced around when we got too cold and kept each other entertained as much as possible. This day was incredibly draining, but I sold the most stuff on this day!
Sunday dawned bright and early and the market ran from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. (which has to be the same hours for the regular Farmer’s Market). Sunday was definitely much slower, but that’s fine by me. I still managed to make sales and meet new followers. We were all thankful when 2 p.m. rolled around on Sunday and we were able to tear our stuff down and go home.
I definitely learned some things about setup and how I organize my stuff. Like I said, I learned about what products I need to make in excess for next year and have a plan to start that stuff as early as possible. I need some type of portable heater or something. Need to make like three times the card inventory as I made this year and start much earlier. I am considering rethinking how I set up my displays and might adjust that, adding more vertical space as necessary, maybe a better way to display my 3D projects. I might add an extra table as well just for more table space for displays.
This was such a fun experience. I was able to make back my table fee and still make a profit. This is important as a business owner when considering doing events like this. This is a very popular market, they had 60 vendors this year and thankfully I was the only one who made handmade cards and 3D paper projects, which is also VERY important. I can’t wait to participate again next year and hopefully do better than I did this year!
