A job well done

As I mentioned in the last post, I have a big show coming up next week. There will be two hours for 1,000 women to browse before The Taste of Home Show. The vendors will each have an eight foot table and either a wall or a curtain behind them.

Now, I already mentioned how hard it was to part with the money for the table. But noooooo.... it didn't stop there.

I've always printed up my own business cards; maybe twenty at a time. Can I print 1,000? I don't think so ......... so more money to print up 2,000 business cards. (Well, it wasn't much more for the extra 1,000 so I went for it.) Actually it was probably not any more expensive than it was for me to print my own. (Will never print my own again!)

The Froggy Radio stations are sponsoring the event and are giving each women a bag with goodies in them. Of course I was told I could put something in the bags. That got me thinking about what I could put in. My first thought was the obvious, a flyer. I checked into what it would cost to have a thousand flyers made up. The local business store charges $65 to make up a thousand black and white flyers. How boring, but I couldn't afford color flyers. They would have cost $250.

I had pretty much decided to go the flyer route until I was reading a blog from one of the artists on my metal clay forum. She recommended a couple of websites that she had used for various items. One of them was overnightprints.com. (Let me assure you though that overnight is just a name. Just like The Quilt in a Day books ....... no way can you do those in a day.) Instead of flyers, I ordered bookmarks in full color. One thousand bookmarks was around $45 (not including shipping.) So, of course I ordered two thousand. I decided that maybe people would use a bookmark (I know I do) and keep it. The flyers? I throw them out after a quick glance. So glad I found this website. The bookmarks came today (thank God, the radio station called yesterday and wanted them as they were stuffing the bags today.) UPS brought them at 9:45 this morning and I delivered them to the station by 10:00. The bookmarks are really, really nice. They're a nice heavy quality with a nice glossy coating. (The bookmark is actually a bright yellow, but for some reason it is coming up blue.)

Another site mentioned on the blog was Wilson Graphics, http://www.wilsongraphics.net. Rather than have a big empty wall behind me, I decided to order a banner. The banner is two foot by six foot with grommets. It is a heavy duty vinyl that will withstand the outside weather for up to three years. It also came today and I am very happy with it. (Except that blowing up the jewelry really shows it's porosity. ) I was worried that maybe I didn't use the best image but I think it looks pretty good. Paul David Wilson was very nice to deal with and very prompt at getting back to me. It took a little over a week (I think) to get the banner.

I highly recommend both of these sites if you have advertising needs.

The bad thing is that this whole thing is snowballing and costing me more money. Advertising is so important and I have to admit that I haven't spent much money in that department. But, I'm catching up very quickly (too quickly!) Oh well, it's only money. (Right!!!!!)