Friday, December 14, 2012

Renegade Craft Fair SF: this weekend!

It's been an incredible few weeks in Seattle & Portland. I'm taking this show on the road one last time. We plan to close out the year by leaving our hearts (and our candy) in San Francisco!

You'll find us in booth #85.


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Holiday Shipping Reminder

I'm driving to San Francisco for the Renegade Craft Fair, so there's no shipping between December 13-17. Many items offer expedited shipping speeds if you need them. Shipping resumes December 18th, and December 20th is the last day I'll be accepting new orders before Christmas.

Thanks for your understanding, and Happy Holidays!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Introducing the Box Set - 22 Flavors

Customers sometimes ask for an easy way to purchase all 22 of our gourmet lollipop flavors at once. I'm happy to say this stylish box set successfully debuted at Crafty Wonderland last weekend (shown below) and is now available from This Charming Candy's Etsy shop too.

all 22 of our gourmet lollipops!
Lollipops are snuggled into a glossy white box with a clear lid, which is fastened with stickers. It's ready for gift wrapping, or for immediate installation in your candy drawer at work!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Portland Stockist: Presents of Mind

Lovely people of Portland, if you missed us at Crafty Wonderland -- or if you've already eaten all the lollipops you got there! -- never fear. Presents of Mind has been stocking many of our flavors for the past year and we delivered another big order to owner Seasons last weekend. Head on over to 3633 SE Hawthorne Blvd for your fix.



Huzzah!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Craft Booth Design, part 1: Checkout

This season, I was faced with different booth sizes in each craft show:
  • 8 x 8 at EtsyRAIN
  • 10 x 10 at Urban Craft Uprising
  • 10 x 5 at Crafty Wonderland
  • 5 x 10 at Renegade Craft Fair SF (i.e. the left or right half of a 10 x 10 space)
I worked with the super talented Matthew Parker (of Matthew Parker Events) to redesign my displays for maximum flexibility and am pleased with how it has worked out. We made three major upgrades and one minor enhancement for this year. This post is about the first major upgrade.

Dedicated checkout area
This summer at Renegade SF, I was impressed with the Poppyhearts booth design, particularly her dedicated, obvious, clear checkout counter. I've often struggled to manage the "back of the house" stuff in an organized way - like where to stash my purse, where to keep shopping bags for customer purchases in easy access, and where to keep my cashbox so it's not visible & in the way.

The solution was under my nose the entire time: I own a bookcase whose shelves fold up and whose sides fold around, so it packs flat. It's heavy though. My friend Heidi of Max & Co. Postcards kindly altered one of my custom TCC-pattern tablecloths from Spoonflower to fit snugly around three sides of the bookcase (the secret ingredient is Velcro to hold the cloth to the bookcase!) and voila! Here are some shots of it at home, where I was playing around with the setup:

The bookcase shelves are prefect for holding all the essentials during the craft show!

I've got Velcro tape on bookcase, and Velcro sewn in to the cloth. Perfect!

Matthew created a simple yet elegant sign for the front of the bookcase: lightweight gator board with a vinyl This Charming Candy sticker. It ties to the bookcase via black satin ribbon.A white tray provides additional privacy for the cashbox and is great for displaying credit card logos to reinforce the idea that this is where to pay for your candy. Nice, huh!

Here it is, in action, at Urban Craft Uprising:
This Charming Candy craft show checkout counter... 



... at Urban Craft Uprising. Setup still in progress at this point.
That final picture hints at what my next posts about this year's booth upgrades will include...  stay tuned!

Friday, December 7, 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Seattle Stockists: Tasty, Charly + May, Portage Bay Goods

In case you weren't able to attend the Seattle craft shows I participated in, fear not. Many shops in town carry This Charming Candy's gourmet lollipops! Recently I've had the pleasure of visiting a couple of our retail partners around Seattle to restock their stashes.

First up: Tasty Art Gallery in the Greenwood neighborhood! I was happy to get to see the amazing art installation for the Fairy Tales and Fables show. It's a great shop, one that is very supportive of alternative artists - and we're proud to be included there.

Lollipops by This Charming Candy, featured at Tasty Art Gallery
This Charming Candy lollipops on the counter at Tasty

Meanwhile, in the Queen Anne neighborhood at the top of the hill, modern gift shop Charley + May features an entire "candy bar" in one corner! Shop owner Lauren has assembled a well balanced variety of specialty, novelty, nostalgic, and local independent confections to choose from. And she tells me she's already got some devoted customers who keep returning for our lollipops. Yay!

Candy bar at Charley + May in Seattle, WA
The candy bar at Charley + May

Finally, we're thrilled to have a presence in the Fremont neighborhood, a.k.a. the Center of the Universe, at the super charming Portage Bay Goods shop. I love their tagline: "The gift shop for the thoughtful procrastinator!" This bright and cheerful shop even beckons to you on a rainy day, like the day I took this picture when I met shop owners Lauren & Shalene:

Portage Bay Goods now carries This Charming Candy lollipops
Portage Bay Goods stocks variety packs and individual lollipops, and about a bazillion other awesome things.

See our Stores page for more shops around Seattle and the US. Is there a store in your town you'd like to be able to buy This Charming Candy lollipops from? Mention it in the comments or send an email!