My Craft Fair Display: Meadow & Mae fun and funky style

We have a brand new craft fair display to share with you! Meadow & Mae is our featured artisan for this display. Madeline’s unique style and attention to fun caught our eye. With bright and bold designs, her display entices shoppers to play and explore.

Tell us the story behind how you designed this craft fair display?

My focus as an artist is on bright colors and bold shapes, and I really wanted to create a space that reflected that point of view. However, it can be easy to go overboard with color and end up with a messy looking or “busy” booth. To avoid this, I decided to have a neutral sort of “base” for everything: a white tent canopy, ivory colored table coverings, and light-colored wood surfaces. This in itself made the overall display feel bright and airy, which is the aesthetic I was aiming for.

Then, I focused on sourcing stands that would look clean and neat so that my designs would stand out when they were placed on them. This meant keeping it simple with unfinished wood stands, crates, and baskets. I also found a few funky shaped stands that fit my brand well.

Then I added pops of color throughout my display, using draping cloths, a table runner with my logo on it, a colorful rug, garlands, strings of tiny disco balls, and curtains that frame the front of the tent. I kept to a pretty specific color palette for these, focusing on rich, deep colors that match my branding and contrast with the light-colored linens everything sits on. I also have a coin-operated capsule vending machine that dispenses surprise pairs of earrings. This has been a staple of my booth for about a year and a half, and I painted and decorated it to be colorful and funky so that it works along with everything else in my display. The end result is a bright, colorful display that captures my brand aesthetic perfectly.

I believe that when you see my booth as you approach it, you can tell exactly what kinds of designs you’ll find inside it. I’ve had so many customers tell me my booth looks “happy” or “friendly,” which is exactly what I was going for!

How did you adapt your design to fit the type of event you were attending?

I do a lot of outdoor juried events in the spring and summer, so I initially designed this display with that in mind. However, the placement of your booth at every event can alter the way you set everything up, so I have several different tables that I can put into different configurations based on how my booth is oriented.

If I have open space on one or more sides of my tent, I try to angle some of my items facing outward so that they’re visible as you approach the booth from different directions and so that shoppers can float around to the outside of my booth to look at things. I try to spread things out and place multiple pairs of the same earrings in several different spots so that multiple people can be shopping and looking around my booth at the same time without feeling like they can’t see all their options because someone else is in the way.

If I’m vending at an indoor event, I usually have to scale back my display a bit to fit in a smaller space. Often this means only using one or two tables, removing a few stands, displaying fewer pairs of earrings at once, and/or using fewer decorative elements. I have a curtain backdrop I can use for these events to separate my booth if it’s back to back with another vendor’s. I also always bring all of my display items no matter the type of event. This ensures I’ll have options and allows me to play around with different arrangements during setup. I’ve gotten pretty good at being flexible and fluid with my setups from event to event. 

What kinds of materials did you use to create this display?

I sourced most of my wooden displays and earring stands from small businesses that specialize in making them, and I stuck with an unfinished look so that most of the surfaces were cohesive even if they were purchased from different places. To add color, I found fabrics in a few different rich textures and shades, including some window curtains that I added a strip of velcro to along the top so that they could easily attach to the inside edges of my tent canopy. I made a garland to hang at the front of my tent using several different colors of yarn and wooden beads.

For most of my signs, I collected a variety of different picture frames that allow me to change out what is in them if I need to adjust what my signage says. I like that the frames are mismatched because it adds to the variety of colors and textures in my booth display. I also added some other fun touches with disco balls, a mirror for people to use when trying things on, and some cute decorative signage.

Please share your favorite 3 tips/secrets to designing a craft fair display

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