Itty bitty baskets of blooms, anyone?! Now that the garden is almost put to bed for the winter, I've been spending more time indoors playing with my dried flowers and getting ready for upcoming holiday craft fairs. After spending the summer growing, harvesting, and drying flowers here at Harvest Hill Flower Farm, it's nice to have a new creative project to work on while the garden rests. I've been experimenting with little baskets of blooms, miniature arrangements, and all sorts of tiny floral creations that I hope will find their way into someone's home this holiday season.
My goal this year is to make lots of small, affordable items that are mini, adorable, and easy to gift. Things that catch your eye as you're walking past a booth, make you stop for a closer look, and are inexpensive enough to pick up as a little treat for yourself or a gift for someone else. Think stocking stuffers, teacher gifts, hostess gifts, and those little extras you find when you're browsing a craft fair without necessarily having a shopping list. I love the idea of making dried flowers accessible in this way, especially for people who might not be looking to spend a lot on a full bouquet or arrangement.
Of course, there's a bit of a gamble involved in preparing for a craft fair. There's a surprising amount of work that goes into making products before you even get to the event. You spend hours sorting flowers, choosing colours, sourcing containers, putting arrangements together, figuring out prices, and trying to make everything look just right. Then there's the time spent preparing displays, packaging everything, and getting ready for the actual market. All of this happens before you've sold a single thing, with absolutely no guarantee that people will want to buy what you've made. It's a strange feeling putting so much time and effort into something when you really have no idea how it will be received.
I'm trying to be a little more strategic about that this year. As much as I love making big, elaborate floral pieces, I'm reminding myself that not every project needs to be a labour of love that takes hours to complete. Wreaths are a good example. They're beautiful, they make a statement, and a gorgeous wreath can be just the thing to catch someone's attention from across a room. I can absolutely see the value in having one or two showstopping pieces on display to draw people into the booth, but I'm less convinced that making a whole table full of them is the best use of my time. They're labour intensive, require quite a bit of material, and need to be priced accordingly. At a craft fair, where people are often browsing and looking for smaller gifts, a higher price tag can make it harder to turn that interest into an actual sale.
Instead, I'm leaning into the little things. A tiny basket of dried flowers might take far less time to put together, use up some of the smaller blooms and leftover stems from the season, and be much easier for someone to justify buying on a whim. If I can make a variety of these little pieces efficiently, I can offer shoppers plenty of choices without sinking all my time into a handful of expensive products. That's the hope, anyway! I'm still figuring out what works, what looks appealing, and how to balance the time it takes to make something with what people are realistically willing to pay for it.
There's also a more personal side to all of this that I think people don't always talk about when it comes to selling handmade goods. Putting your work out into the world can be surprisingly vulnerable. You can spend hours creating something you genuinely love, carefully choosing every colour and detail, only to watch people walk past it without a second glance. And when you're the person who made it, it's hard not to take that personally. When something doesn't sell, it can feel like a rejection of your creativity, even though there are so many other factors at play. Maybe the price isn't right for that particular crowd, maybe the colours aren't what people are looking for, maybe everyone is saving their money for Christmas, or maybe the right person simply hasn't walked by yet. Still, it's difficult not to let a quiet market get to you when you've put so much of yourself into the things on your table.
That's one of the reasons I want to approach these craft fairs with a little less pressure this year. Rather than pouring days of work into elaborate projects and hoping they sell for enough to make the time worthwhile, I'd like to focus on making a good variety of smaller items that people can enjoy at different price points. I can still have a few special pieces that show what dried flowers can do, but the bulk of my table can be made up of things that are practical to produce and easy to take home. Hopefully, that means less time worrying about whether one expensive arrangement will sell and more opportunities for people to find something they love.
There's something lovely about working with dried flowers at this time of year, too. During the growing season, so much of my attention is focused on keeping the plants healthy, harvesting at the right time, and getting everything dried before it loses its colour or shape. Now I get to slow down a little and turn those flowers into something new. Every little basket is a reminder of the summer garden, and I love that flowers grown here on the farm can become small gifts that someone might give to a friend, tuck onto a shelf, or bring out year after year.
I'm still in the early stages of getting everything ready, so there will be plenty of experimenting, rearranging, and probably changing my mind along the way. But for now, I'm enjoying the challenge of finding ways to make dried flowers into little treasures that are beautiful without being overly complicated or expensive. And if nothing else, I'm learning a lot about what I enjoy making, what makes sense for my time, and how to put together a craft fair table that feels like me.
So here's to the tiny baskets, the little bunches, the small floral gifts, and all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting ready for the holiday season. I'm crossing my fingers that a few of these little blooms will find their people!
Have you ever sold at a craft fair, or do you love browsing them for handmade gifts? I'd love to hear what kinds of items catch your eye when you're walking past a booth. As a maker, I'm always curious about what people are actually excited to bring home.
