Mama Market

This little momma was over at the Mama Market this weekend for a Saturday afternoon vendor event for ONE little BELT (our Etsy shop and family business). We shared a booth with Joelle from Simply Sweet: A Little Lady Boutique who handcrafts and sells darling headbands and hair bows. This was our first event together and were excited to pair our products. It also gave us both a chance to work on our event displays and start building up some inventory for fall sales and other upcoming events.

I had a busy week of late nights getting ready for our booth, but I loved how it came together. I feel like although ONE little BELT does well online, we are still trying find the right vendor events with our particular customer demographic. Because we have such a small niche product, my goal is always to have the best looking booth. That way I can feel confident I have done everything I can to attract the right customer.

Here is a little tour and background to our booth décor. 

We found this belt rack at a barn sale and snagged it for really cheap. I painted it and we had some vinyl cut for it. It is such the perfect thing to display our leather belts. The pictures of the boys are just color prints done at Office Max and mounted on foam core board. We duct taped them to the rack.

I also painted this old TV stand in the same green color. I got it from my friend Mandy who’s neighbor was throwing it out. It is perfect for holding random items and adding a retro/vintage vibe to our booth.  I stacked a floating shelf sideways on it to add a little more height and interest. The back of the shelf is lined in green polka dot fabric that matches the other furniture. (I love lining bookshelves with fabric or wallpaper! It adds so much for so little.)

I use a lot of baby shoes in our displays they are so tiny, cute and are a great reminder of the ages our products are geared toward. I found these great retro tennis shoes for a buck at Savers. At 2am the night before, I had a stroke of genius and filled these mason jars with twisted belts in coordinating colors. They looked really great wrapped up with twine.

I also found these tiny chalkboard easels at Michaels the other day in their dollar bins. They are perfect for writing small notes, sizes, or prices on. I used a chalkboard marker because it was such a small writing space- also found at Michaels.

I love these little mannequins I bought last year for our booths. I found them on EBay and they were very reasonably priced. They are lightweight and easy to display. They are size 6-12 months and are so fun to dress according to each event we do. Joelle even added a bow to our little girl ensemble.  I used a guitar stand and a dowel to hang them from. (Usually the dowel is black, but I guess the usual one went to a different project somewhere.)

I had little flyers printed up with our blog and our websites for customers to take. I don’t have new business cards yet for the blog or with our new logo so these flyers were a great little supplement. I handed quite a few of those out.  My belt rack on the table is made from a tutorial I found. Ours is a little taller to accommodate our longest belts.

I didn’t have any idea how to display my ties until the morning of when I grabbed this vintage suitcase (garage sale find) from the spare bedroom and added it to the pile of décor in the van. When we set up I used straight pins to pin the small sized ties across the top of the open lid so that they could be seen from a distance.The vintage suitcase is resting on another bookshelf (also garage sale find).

My brother Broch, a welder, made the small circular belt rack located next to the shelf. It works well for the tiny belts in newborn or 3-6 month sizes.

This is Joelle and I at our booth. I was fortunate enough to have my brother-in-law with me all day to set up, tear down, and grab lunch. Joelle had her daughter Lauren who was also super helpful for all of us.

Here are some of the DARLING headbands that Joelle sells for all ages. She has such cute girl’s product that goes so well with our style. We’ll definitely be doing more booths together in the future.    

If you are interested in how the event went……it could have been much better monetarily speaking. We weren’t sure if we would be a good fit, and we were right. The event was geared toward natural/organic loving moms who are into cloth diapering, nursing accessories and organic baby food- not so much baby fashion. We wish there had been more traffic as well.

I did get the chance to talk with a children’s boutique owner in Olathe that is very interested in carrying our belts and ties. Getting product into local children’s boutiques one of my goals for OLB so that was a great connection to make.

Overall it was a fun experience and it was great to meet other mom’s who own small businesses and learn how they do things. We are still on the hunt for the right event.

Any tips you have for finding the right events for high end baby and toddler products? If you own a business, where do you have the best luck selling your things? We’d love your suggestions!