Did you hear the news … They finally caught me! I’m going to jail … but it’s for a great cause — MDA!

Shasta McLaughlin of Extravaganza Crafts has been asked to go to "LockUp" to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association on April 11, 2013.

Muscular dystrophy is a disease where the muscles of the body get weaker and weaker. The Muscular Dystrophy Association raises funds for research, medical treatments and therapy, wheelchairs, and for kids with muscular dystrophy to attend MDA Summer Camp.

Artsfest '13 Fine Arts Festival
Dowell, Maryland

Art In The Park
Kalispell, Montana

Jeffco Holiday Craft Fair
Golden Colorado

Blackberry Arts Festival
Coos Bay, Oregon

Tigard Festival of Balloons
Tigard, Oregon

Made In Montana Marketplace
Great Falls, Montana

Commonwheel Artists 39^th Annual Labor
Day Arts & Crafts Festival
Manitou Springs CO

Visit Commonwheel Artists 39^th Annual Labor Day Arts & Crafts Festival in Manitou Springs, Colorado happening August 31 to Sep. 2, 2013.

Contact Julia Wright at 719-577-7700 to reserve your booth for this Juried Art Show now.  Please thank her for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Craft Show Booth Displays
Retail Success Secrets Revealed

Your art festival and craft show booth display is your brick and mortar retail store. Don't guess at art show booth displays hoping to increase sales. Don't hire professional retail designers to create show booths that sell crafts.

Now learn from professionals trained in displaying crafts for sale. Every vendor can have professional art and craft festival booths that sell handmade crafts and increase profits since retail layout secrets are available online and in books.

Power For Craft Booths
With No Electricity

Should I pay show promoters for power for craft show booths?

Do you need power in your art show booth? Need cash registers, electronic displays, laptops, or cell phones, extra lighting to highlight handmade crafts or handcrafted jewelry, a fan or heater?

Extra lighting increases sales by attracting the eye to craft show booths and allowing craft buyers to see quality and details of your craftsmanship.

The Big One Art & Craft Fair -Fargo ND

Visit The Big One Art and Craft Fair in Fargo, North Dakota happening Oct. 19 & 20, 2013.

Arts and crafts festival vendors contact Stacy and Lisa Frank at 701-837-6059 to reserve your booth now. Please thank them for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in North Dakota each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at 

The Minot Big One Art & Craft Fair
Minot, North Dakota

Visit The Minot Big One Art & Craft Fair in Minot, ND happening Nov. 1 & 2, 2013.

Arts and crafts festival vendors contact Stacy & Lisa Frank at 701-837-6059 to reserve your booth now.  Please thank them for listing their art and craft fair with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in North Dakota each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at 

Christmas Moment Gift Fair -Kennewick WA

Visit Christmas Moments in Kennewick, Washington happening Nov. 16 to 18, 2012.

Contact LaVette Mehess at 971-600-3281 to reserve your booth for this Un-Juried Art and Craft Show now. Please thank her for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in Washington each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at 

How to Display Crafts at a Craft Fair

The secret to displaying crafts at a craft fair are shared here by Erin Proctor Herb of LinkedIn group Handmade Jewelry.

Pricing Crafts Correctly Sells Crafts

As far as pricing your handmade crafts go you need something called a loss leader.

A loss leader is a handcrafted item or a few items sold at a loss. They get buyers of art through the door to your craft show booth or online craft store and getting out their wallet. After they've gotten out their wallet they are easier to sell to.

Keep a few items as loss leaders, adjust some of your prices to be more inline with the real market price (for crafts similar to yours) but not at it, and adjust the majority of the items to be real market price.

Visit Fair Market in Broadus, Montana happening Aug. 10 & 11, 2012.

Contact Sarah McGill at 406-436-2778 to reserve your booth for this Un-Juried Art & Craft Show now.  Please thank her for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in Montana each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at www.extravaganzacrafts.com.

The Big One Art & Craft Fair
Fargo, North Dakota

Don’t forget to to visit the The Big One Art & Craft Fair in Fargo, North Dakota this Oct. 20 & 21, 2012. Also reserve your booths for the shows in Minot, ND on Nov. 2 & 3, 2012 and Apr. 5 & 6, 2013.

Handcrafted arts and crafts festival vendors contact Stacy or Lisa Frank at 701-837-6059 to reserve your show booth now. Remember to tell them thank you for listing their show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Are You Pricing
Your Original Art Too Low?

Price your original art too low-You are doing yourself and others a huge disservice.

Pricing handmade crafts too low implies low quality decreasing sales. Don't wrongly assume if you sell crafts for what they are worth you wouldn't sell any.

Today while working on my site I came across this information that will help artists and crafters be more aware of tactics thieves use when stealing our one of a kind works of art.

http://abclocal.

You need to be a great salesman to make money selling arts and crafts. The problem is how do I become a great salesman without becoming the pushy salesman?

I have to admit I haven’t been the best example of a good art and craft salesman. Why, because I was always afraid of being too pushy.

Visit Omak Western and Native Art Show in Omak, Washington happening Aug. 9 to 12, 2012.

Contact Ester Hinger at 509-422-2826 to reserve your booth for this Juried Art Show now.  Please thank her for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

List your art and craft fairs in Washington in The Extravaganza Craft News at www.extravaganzacrafts.net/promoter.

Art of Turning Lookers into Buyers
at Craft Shows

Just as creating arts and crafts is an art, getting a looker to buyer at a show is an art. Encourage lookers to imagine themselves at home using or wearing your product.

Every person is bombarded with advertising/marketing materials for hundreds if not thousands of items every day. They may need or want handcrafted arts and crafts but don’t have time to sift through all the information they see to find the ones they need.

Art and Craft Show Booth Etiquette for Artists and Crafters

From the perspective of both a show promoter and artist one thing craft vendors at art and craft shows do that bothers me is not including the legs of their displays into the size of their booth.

Having legs of art festival displays sticking into the aisles and booths next to them is hard for show promoters, dangerous for customers and inconveniences craft show vendors in booths nearby.

Introduction to Artisan Blacksmith David Robertson

David is a 44 year old blacksmith who grew up just outside Hamilton Ontario Canada. He has always been an artist who developed his talent for blacksmithing in college, and sold his work at shows to pay for school.  He has had his own blacksmith business 20 plus years.

David wrote the book How to Be Successful in Your Craft Business which I can’t wait to buy for myself after reading this powerful interview.

What does Real Estate have to do with selling arts and crafts?

The way I see it your art or craft show booth is kind of like trying to sell a house. If you try to sell an empty house people can’t see in their minds what the house will look like when it’s all finished, painted, furnished, and decorated. You will also have a hard time trying to sell a house that is full of clutter, people can only imagine that the rest of the house hasn’t been taken care of well. They will see that the house will be too much work and cost too much money.

Want to get your Art or Crafts noticed and mentioned by Celebrities?

You know those swag bags that celebrities get at The Oscars,  Emmys, and The Golden Globes?

Artisan Group helps you by getting your handcrafted artwork into them.

Be sure your work is high quality as you wouldn't want a celebrity to pick up your piece for pictures and have it fall apart. Make your packaging exquisite as presentation can make a big impression.

Are you committing the Seven Deadly Sins that kill sales for artists and crafters? Are they actually deadly sins?

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day.

Week one I worked on catching up on left over unfinished projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Week two I learned new things about my email marketing to keep my messages from being flagged as spam.

Don’t forget to to visit the Commonwheel Artists 38th Annual Labor Day Arts & Crafts Festival in Manitou Springs, CO this Sep. 1 to 3, 2012

Handcrafted arts and crafts festival vendors contact Julia Wright at 719-577-7700 to reserve your show booth now.  Remember to tell her thank you for listing her show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in Montana each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at www.

Help Your Art or Craft Show Customer
Get What They Want

How many times has someone trying to help you hurt your chances of getting what you wanted? Has someone with good intentions tried to help you reach what they saw as your full potential but actually stood in the way of reaching your dreams? Has a pushy salesman stood between you and the car you wanted trying to sell you a different one?

Help buyers of handmade crafts who have an idea what they want, find it and sell it to them.

Reasons Art Festival Customer Won’t Buy

Customers won’t buy art from you if:

• They don’t know where to find your handmade craft.
• They aren’t prepared to buy now. For instance they weren’t expecting to see a handcrafted product they wanted so they don’t have money right now.
• They don’t know what you are selling.
• You aren’t selling what they want.
• Your handcrafted art is hard to get, the wrong price or poor quality.

Places to Look for Art & Craft Shows
A Getting Started Guide
for Beginning Artists or Crafters

How do I find craft shows in my town?

Looking for art and crafts shows occupies large amounts of time for craft show vendors selling crafts at shows. One time saving hint: knowing where to look for art fairs and festivals, and craft shows is key to saving time.

For the longest time the only place to find quality shows was attend a craft show and talk to vendors about festivals they attended.

Buyers at art and craft shows love to hear the story of the person creating the crafts.  They love to feel that they know person they are doing business with and that they are doing business with a real approachable person.  This is an important part of the trust building process that must go on between a buyer and seller.

A craft blog (short for weblog) is a great inexpensive way to share your story with buyers at the markets, both before and after they attend craft shows.  There are many different providers of free blogs including WordPress.

7 Habits of Highly Successful Crafters

1. Take risks-Highly successful people know you can’t get any where without some risk.

2. Make quick decisions. They know that you can start out in a direction and if they don’t like the results they can correct their course and head for another destination.

3. Don’t pass up opportunities. Successful crafters know opportunities don’t disappear they are snapped up by others.

Holiday Happenings Craft Show
Great Falls, Montana

Visit Holiday Happenings in Great Falls, Montana Nov. 19 & 20, 2011.

Arts and crafts festival vendors contact Nanc or Rachel at 406-590-0042 to reserve your booth now.  Please thank then for listing this show with The Extravaganza Craft News.

Want more information on this and other art and craft fairs in Montana each month subscribe to The Extravaganza Craft News at