Norton Holiday Arts & Craft Show 2015 Re-cap

Last Saturday heralded another great year at the Norton Holiday Arts & Craft Show, hosted by a local elementary school, that brings out the whole community to browse a wide variety of crafters in a warm, inviting atmosphere with festive music. Once again, I represented my lovely line, Butterscotch Alley, and shared a booth with my mother and her Balihogn shop.

As always, I was both impressed and inspired by the diverse booths around the school (we shared a room with everything from handmade signs to headbands). When I got a chance to hop up and explore, I was stoked to also discover Cassandra, our room-mate from last year's show was also there selling her awesome handmade soaps (I couldn't resist buying some--stay tuned, I'll be showing them off reviewing them in my blog soon)!

Butterscotch and Balihogn Brand crochet hats decorating the table!

Despite the worsening weather conditions (our first snow of the year!), there was once again a great turnout that didn't ease up till around the last hour, when the roads got too bad. However, this didn't stop everyone from having a great time--not only did our friends and family come out to say hello, we also got to meet tons of lovely people who browsed, bought, and chatted with us!

Hats and scarves! :)

Hand-sculpted pins, mini paintings, and earrings.

Undoubtedly my favorite part of these events is the openness of the customers and what they are looking for. Since it is our goal to make things that are different from the rest, sometimes even strange, we're used to getting tons of questions about our crafts, and I love how willing everybody is to ask and listen. The most important part, to me, is the process and purpose of these items, and the response we get is always awesome! I got the opportunity to converse with this father who bought some of my asymmetrical earrings; he told me that his daughters absolutely loved accessories and things that no one else was making or had (my perfect clients! ;D).

We were also pleasantly surprised by the amount of younger kids who came by to enjoy our items and look for Christmas presents for their families! There was one little girl who loved my mother's whimsical miniature paintings so much that she couldn't resist buying one for herself!

But of course, the most eye-catching items that were really the talk of our booth were her crocheted animal scarves, which ranged from foxes and wolves to cats, dragons, and bears (oh, my!). The demand for these has left her hands aching from so much crocheting, so make sure to like and follow her Facebook page to find out when they go up on her Etsy or Ebay!


Some new items that I brought along this time were the recently finished Nautical and Steampunk Cameos and Magnets and the Raspberry Wine boot cuffs (pictured right), as well as these adorable themed jars (Sand, Rose, Sea, and Moss) filled with potpourri and other treasures (soon to be in my shop) with charms (pictured left)!

Some items I'm hoping to look into producing? More of the shadobox style framed Butterscotch Babe art as well as looking into art prints! :)

As the crowd dwindled and disappeared and the snow piled higher, crafters started to leave their booths to check out other crafters, and my mom and I continued to crochet. Taking on the suggestion of a repeat customer from this show, I tried my hand at crocheted beanies with a drawstring for adjustable sizing (seen above)! What do you guys think?

Overall, we had an awesome time and once again learned a lot and got a lot of great feedback! I can't wait to do another show and see you all again!


Much love,
Mikey