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Your Craft DisplayYour craft display will depend on the style of home party you’ve chosen to sell your creations at. Here are some guidelines and ideas: Craft Home Show or Open House As you aren’t going to demonstrate your products, they need to speak for themselves in an attractive craft display. Keep it simple though and easily adaptable as different hostesses will have different furniture arrangements. Most will have either a dining table or sideboard you can use, so if possible try and fit your display around this.
Have a nice tablecloth or material to cover their table (and prevent scratching) and make your craft display stand out from the rest of their house – it’d be embarrassing if guests thought your candles belonged to the hostess, or worse still if they offered to buy some of her own décor items!If you don’t know where to start, imagine you’re doing a craft fair display in a booth. Just don’t overdo the elaborate touches, as you need to be able to put it up quickly. In general you will do better if guests can try on or hold your creations, so don’t make things too inaccessible. You might also need to consider lighting. Jewellery definitely benefits from extra lighting, so I always take along a bright little halogen desk lamp to make my display sparkle. You can also spotlight a top seller – experiment and have fun with it! Traditional home party style or demonstration Your craft display is less important than at an open house, but still needs to look attractive. Make sure everything you need for your demonstration is easily accessible, so you don’t have to scramble around looking for things in the middle of it. For this type of party it can work well to have your display on a table, then pass items around from guest to guest to look at, smell, etc. Mini Workshop You will probably want to set up a small craft display of finished items to show people what sort of things you make, but the most important thing is enough space for the guests to sit and work. Make sure you have enough tools to share around, perhaps in containers in the middle of a large table. It’s probably easier if each guest has their own kit of supplies to work with, rather than passing around lots of bowlfuls, but this is up to you, and depends on your craft. It doesn't have to be expensive! If you use your imagination you won't need to spend much money to create an attractive craft display. Look around your home for some original ways to showcase your items.
For my jewellery I have corkboards covered in fabric, which I stick transparent pins into. Then I just drape the jewellery over the pins so guests can easily remove it to try on and drape it back over again.
I arrange the jewellery according to colour to make the displays more attractive and keep sets of necklaces, bracelets and earrings together. The advantage of the boards is that I can either stand them up or lay them flat depending on the space available. I also use a mug tree for bracelets and elegant glasses to hang earrings that aren't part of a set on. These are just some ideas that might help those of you who want to do jewellery home parties. For greeting cards it’s best to arrange them according to occasion in separate boxes or baskets. Shoe boxes covered in attractive paper can easily do the job (handmade paper looks great). The boxes can then be passed around among the guests if that works for you.
I know you're creative, or you wouldn't be a crafter - so use your imagination and make your craft display stand out!
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If you need to add interest to a flat table display, just put some sturdy cardboard boxes under the table cover to drape or stand items on. This works for candles, bears, clothing and most other smallish crafts.
