Sorry it was a bad day. If it was nice out something else was happening!! A rodeo, all day tractor pull, graduation of some kind, twice a year swap-meet, biggest sale of the year at local store like Kohl's or Penny's, major weddings, parade, Boy or Girl Scouts all day thing at park,sat. is day lot of kids play ball at city parks & they sometimes have a picnic at noon, look through newspaper to see if any events listed, call your local Chamber of Commerce to see if they know of any major events last weekend. Of course if it was raining that could be cause or 1st really great spring day gets everyone to garden centers to buy plants, fertilize,clean out & pretty up things. 1 other thing, is sale place hard to get into, is there plenty of parking, was there clear signs pointing the way in to sale. I noticed what time you posted & it was 9:15 & any I've been in, you had to be set up & ready for business by 8 or 9 at latest. I figured this was 1st time these folks tried it. Oh, major convention in town that involved towns people? You had good assortment of product & the display in the container was perfect so if it was right day you would have done fine. Next time before you put any money out for a space, check & see if there is anything going on in community that weekend, newspapers "Coming events", library sometimes has bulletin board, college bulletin board, sometimes large church advertises on their sign in front of church "May 4 pancake breakfast 9am-1pm- community welcome!"(that could affect your sale if it was nearby) How did planners handle the lack of sales??? They should have given you back 1/2 of your table fee if they were nice folks. If it was free they should have brought in coffee & donuts at 2 pm & apologized unless it was just loaning out the room, then it would be fault of your group. Did planners have anything to say??? We had bad day at Park once & lady told us we could each set up a 2nd table to spread out our very crowded items & that helped us do little better than break even. Might see if your school has a Spring Fair & if you could be in it, some churches out here let others besides their members buy a table & usually these people are experienced & cheaper to get table than at large fair, but get there at least 30 min to 45 min early as you must be set up & ready to go when door opens or you lose sales, some folks take 1 swing through & buy & leave. Don't let all that good stuff just gather dust(hope it is well covered so won't require dusting).1 more thing- are all plates same price? Put a price card up that is cute with prices, can use flower stickers on it & use red lettering or black, something that shows up & cover it neatly with clear Contact plastic so you can reuse it(plastic wrap pulled tightly & taped to itself on back would work) Good Luck! Next time will be better!! Jan

Plastic bags may be tacky but the ones you take into grocery store mostly can't be washed or aren't & I wonder when there will be outbreak of roaches or bedbugs. They are trying to force us to use our own but we have enough trouble with people throwing garbage around, also when I shred mail I put it in 2 of those inside each other so it doesn't get all over the street, I understand that it is problem with birds but campaign to get people to stop leaving their trash & bags on mountain roads or at the beach makes more sense, it is going to cost a lot of people their jobs out here. So we are supposed to buy larger bags to put our garbage in, don't think that will work, I've found rotting beef stew in alley, try cleaning that up, I used a shovel & plastic bag.When neighbors are careless or overfill their trash so lid is back the wind often deposits bags on the streets, easier to pick up bag then have to figure out what to do with some disgusting trash like people that enter our neighborhood in middle of night & drink & leave their "Trojan" wrappers & contents on the streets. If I use the bags I have I will need help getting them in my car & will be carrying in 5 lb. flour then another trip to car to get couple of more items,when I get home, I do it at Sam's as I save enough, they aren't going to discount groceries at regular stores. The gift bags end up on streets too & larger critters could get caught in handles, don't hear complaints about them. It's not a perfect world, trade-offs no matter what you do.I'm sure someone will complain about bubble wrap too.(Yes, I recycle everything & have so much less trash than most of neighbors, no pizza boxes or TV dinners & wasteful packaging for me. Jan

In our town we have a Town-Wide yard sale on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Whatever plants, seedlings, etc. left over from our spring sales are taken to the yardsale where we set up at the Town Library. We make approximately 1/4 of our sales on that one day! We've been doing this for a number of years so we know it's successful, but I would check with others to see if plants are in demand at the craft fair. Three week's is cutting it short to get any plants to sellable size, but hey, give it a shot and if you are successful you'll know you can do it next year and hopefully you'll have a little more notice to get plants to a sellable size.

I can see where the concrete and metal ornaments might be selling pretty well after the summer we had. I don't blame you. Maybe by spring I will have forgotten. I've been watching the forecast too. It says 33 for Wednesday night. I have a few things I need to dig up before we get frost. I have some tropical milkweed and some lantana plants that I want to try to winter over in my garage or basement. I think I'm going to dig up my red glads too. They were pretty and I don't know how hardy they are. I leave my other glads in the ground but I think these are different. I should leave a couple to see if they come back.