Anyone have a craft mall booth?

Have any of you fine people had a booth at a crafter's mall or marketplace? I have a couple of simple questions for you....was it a good move for you? And were you able to make enough money for it to be worth your while? That's my main concern.

I'm trying a booth out for 3 months and I'm having serious heebie jeebies about it after ONE FULL DAY. Yeah, it's like the song, "Hello mudder, hello fadder." I hope it turns out well but I'm wondering what you can tell me.

I know you ladies and even gents out there in blogland are a creative and energetic lot. I love your enthusiasm and ideas and heartfelt connections to home, family and creativity, whether in cooking, crafts, home decor, home skills or upscale recycling. You guys rock!

So, without getting into any personal/business details, how was the craft mall experience for you? Anything I should know? Any success stories would be appreciated, but also any horror stories since they are all part of the same mix.

Hoping to hear from many of you, soon.

Our Artwalk booth

We started out on Day 1 early, with our wrought iron gazebo booth ready to go....but even under the tree we needed more shade! Since necessity is the mother of invention, we swaddled the whole shebang in yards of lace and muslin, which we'd brought along as an afterthought. Good thing we did, it was 100 degrees out there! We know, it looks horribly amateurish and and stands out like a sore thumb from the road, but from the front.....



...it was the coolest, shadiest spot in the whole place! Of course, people who saw it from the back first were pleasantly surprised to see it from the front. We know this because we heard their comments all weekend long. "Cool! Look at that! This is nice!"

Here you can see some of my paintings, Christy's fabulous book wreaths and hand made letters, her garlands, some of my Halloween banners, my daughter in law's dry erase calendars and in the far corner with the black mirror, my rosette necklaces.

We had this booth LOADED with almost all our stuff. Between my daughters insane creative output and all my projects, there was alot to see in our space. Here you see the tote bag display, my paintings, crackle painted chalkboards, my muslin and burlap pillows, my trio of drawers turned bookshelves, folk art Santas and Witches, one of Christy's garlands and my daughter in law's cute dry erase board.....as I said, LOTS to see, and this is only one side.

Here's a shot of the inside, across the top of Christy's paper bows. You can just see some of the cute paper cupcakes my OTHER daughter made for us, and in the upper right, Christy's jenga block keychains.


Here's a shot of my drawers turned bookshelves, all dressed up with loads of fun stuff, including my Christmas and Halloween dolls, coast themed accessories and Halloween paintings hiding back in there. Yeah, we crammed our booth full!


Then we got out of the way and let the shopping begin! Because here is what every creative seller wants to see...interested shoppers!!


And this blue abstract tree painting went fast to another vendor. This isn't the best pic of all the details in the painting, but I'm going to paint another since I liked it so much!

The horribly hot weather notwithstanding, we had a good time, gave out a lot of business cards, made alot of good contacts and actually sold some stuff, which makes it all worth it. Certainly made our expenses back and then some. That would be a win win in my book!