A Beginner’s Guide to Fall Markets Part III: How to Incorporate Christmas Decor into Your Booth in 3 Simple Steps
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Welcome Back for the third installment of my Beginner’s Guide to Fall Markets!
Happy November Friends! Can you believe we’re done with October and almost through November? If it weren’t for Thanksgiving happening this week, I think I’d be struggling to believe it myself…But! Ready or not, November is very much here and with it comes everything Christmas, am I right? It’s like Thanksgiving doesn’t really even exist anymore, and we skip straight from Halloween to the BIG One! and like it or not, that has a direct impact on Craft Fairs & Markets. Once Halloween is done, everyone begins to transition their thinking towards Christmas, Christmas decor, and Christmas presents.
The jump from Halloween to Christmas is also reflected in the markets that take place in November and December – they tend to have a distinct Holiday theme to them. Because of this, I believe it’s in our best interest as maker vendors to incorporate that holiday feel into our booths to help our customers visualize our makes as potential Christmas presents. Plus, and I hope it’s not just me, but I feel like Christmas decor makes everything feel cozier! Christmas lights, accents of gold, and glitter, they’re all warm touches that can invoke the feelings of the Holidays.
Now, to help you Christmasify your booth, I want to give you 3 simple steps you can follow so that you can capture the holidays in your booth too!
Step 1: Determine the Holiday Feel You Want to Create
If you’ve ventured into any of your local craft stores recently, you have to have noticed that Christmas decor is EVERYWHERE. But not just 1 kind of decor, there are so many different colors/themes to choose from! Do you go Bright and Festive with bold reds and greens, and a touch of white/silver? Or do you love the classic colors of a more muted red and evergreen with cream and gold accents? Or are you drawn to a more snow-esk feel with blues, whites and silvers? Whichever way you fall, the color theme that you pick should describe not only your brand in some manner, but it should evoke a feeling of the holidays for your customers.
For me, I went with a more “girly” themed Christmas decor of rose gold, cream, and glittery gold. While this may not be my personal preference for Christmas decor (I love everything classic Christmas for my house), these are the colors that fit my brand! And I do love these colors! (If you know me, you know I have a small obsession with Rose Gold…) So when I saw these colors as Christmas decor, I knew I needed to incorporate that into my booth setup! Not only do these colors say classy elegance to me, but those attributes are ones I work to describe my product as well. So for me if was a ‘no brainer’ and I based all of my decor choices off of that chosen theme.
Step 2: Find/Create Key Pieces that Represent Your Chosen Christmas Decor
Once you know what color theme and feel you’re going with, the next step is to find the key pieces that are going to bring that feel to life! Christmas decor i.e. trees, garland stands, lights, ornaments, and wrapped presents are some (but definitely not all!) things that you can place around your booth to help bring the holiday spirit to life for your customers.
For my booth, I chose a mixture of the items I listed above for my Christmas decor. I started with a miniature Christmas tree that I decorated with mini battery powered lights and a mixture of gold and cream colored ornaments. To match that, I chose a gold, antiqued glass vase with miniature lights in it. I don’t know about you, but there is just something so inviting and warm about Christmas lights. Plus, the great thing about using battery powered lights like these is that you don’t need extra electricity for them to offer their warm glow.
In addition, the last two “big” items I incorporated into my booth setup where some fabulously glittery “HCC” letters that light up, and a stack of wrapped presents. The letters I found by complete accident at Michaels and I love the fun, holiday (and branded) feel they bring to my booth. By bringing already wrapped presents (i.e. wrapped empty boxes) that also fit my Christmas theme in rose gold, cream and gold wrapping paper and matching bows, it not only conveys a holiday feel, like presents wrapped under a Christmas tree, but it is also a nice subtle reminder to shoppers about shopping for Christmas presents. I finished off my Christmas decor with a few smaller items, including a cute little “It’s beginning to look a lot like shopping sign” where the letters are a glittery rose gold. I thought this sign added a cute, play on words sign for customers to chuckle at while shopping. I also added two smaller gold glitter bows just because I thought they were cute.
Step 3: Put it all Together
After you’ve chosen the pieces you want to use for your Christmas decor, you need to put it all together in your booth! I think the most important thing to remember here is a create a cohesive feel between the pieces you’ve chosen and the product you have to display. This may mean spreading out some pieces and grouping others together. As much as I’d love to be able to tell you exactly where and how to place things in your booth to create the perfect Christmas atmosphere, but that really is something that you’ll need to feel out for yourself. What I can do though it to tell you how I set up my Christmas decor in my booth and hopefully that can help spark some ideas for you and your booth!
To start, I decorated the front of my check out stand by hanging a garland around my Hanoverian Crochet Co sign! I won’t lie, I definitely didn’t get this perfect at my last market, but I was also mildly under prepared… it happens to the best of us right? So I’ll be taking another look at that and revamping it a bit for my next market. You could also wrap garland around a hanging rack, in the front of a table, or weave it in and out of product on a table. This is one of the reasons that I love garland, it is just so versatile! My checkout stand normally is fairly plain, so I tried to capitalize on that, and Christmasify it with not only the garland but by topping it one one side with my little Christmas tree and a golden bow tied around the top of my scarf ladder, as well as the light filled vase on the other side. I added the HCC letters to the top of one the old cherry crates I use to display my earwarmers. Lastly, the presents I placed on the bottom of my double hanging rack, under the scarves I have hanging on the bottom rack. They fit so perfectly, it was like they were made to go there! Below you can see how all of my Christms decor came together in my booth. While it may not be perfect, it definitely is a start and I can’t wait to tweek and fine tune my holiday touches!
Alrighty, well that is all of the details on how I Christmasified my booth and the Christmas decor I chose to use. I hope these tips helped guide you to doing the same for yours! Thank you so so much for reading! I’m off to go work on more market prep because #itneverends
All my love!
Katie
If you missed the first two parts of this series, check out the links below!