ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: My feet hurt!

It's the end of the day of my first vendor show. My feet are sore, I'm very tired and I learned a lot today. It was such a good day :)

First I want to thank my AWESOME Assistants. I wouldn't have made it through the day without you. Thanks so much Debbie & Jane. You guys are FANTASTIC!! :))

Also, big thanks to Al for bringing us food and drinks. You're awesome!! :)

I rented a double space so that I could set up a spot to take photos on site, which was my little fundraiser activity. 25% of the proceeds from that activity I donated to "My Sister's Place", along with the item for the silent auction (a free photo session). There weren't many takers on the on the spot portrait, but I did manage to add another $12.75 to what I contributed. Not tons, but better than nothing. :)

And here was one of the little cuties who got her portrait taken and printed on-site.

For next time, I don't think I'll try and do the portraits on-site as it took up a lot of extra space and wasn't very popular. Perhaps if there had been more kids attending? I think I'll have to just determine up front if I think it will be worth it.

I also did a draw for a complementary photo session at my booth. Congratulations to Diane H. from Woodbridge who won that! :) I'm not sure who ended up with the session from the silent auction. Once I find out, I'll post the info.

I did get a lot of people stopping by to have a look, which was great for local exposure. I just found out that there were about 350 people in attendance at the show today. Not bad for the little town of Tottenham, ON. :) I still have to go through my draw entry forms to see how many people entered. Not everyone who stopped by filled in a ballot, but it will give me a rough idea of how many visitors I had.

I almost forgot to take some shots of my booth. The space was smaller than I was expecting and at the beginning there were stacks of chairs in the corner. But with some creative adjustments, things worked out just fine.

Lara, the banner design you made for my web site looked so good as a large banner as well. :)

Here are the pics:

After looking at it now, I should have tossed the extra white sheet I had over those chairs!!

All in all it was a good day :)

I saw some familiar faces, met A LOT of new people, snuck in some time to see some of the great businesses run by women in South Simcoe, did a little bit of networking, learned a lot about being in a vendor show and had a lot of fun along the way!!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by today and also thank you to Sarah Toth and everyone who helped with organizing the event.

-- Lisa P.