The After Shot

Well, it's finally done!

I finally finished my booth makeover.  It has been quite a project!  It was fun, but it was a lot of hard work.  I made several trips to Hobby Lobby, Lowe's, Wal-mart and ordered stuff online, too.  I could not find the glass shelves locally at all.  I wound up ordering them online and paid more for the shipping than I did the shelves.  But, oh boy, do I love them!

I purchased eight glass blocks to use for shelf supports.  I added 2' panels of lattice to complete the lattice walls, I added a lush border of silk floral garlands around the top.  I turned my gridwalls sideways and hung them on one side of the booth.  I created new earring cards and hung those on the gridwalls.  I put lavender fabric behind the gridwalls to add some color there and to provide a back for the earring cards.  I brought out my old lavender table squares and put them back out (it has been a while since I used them).  I spray painted all of my black and white fully formed necklace busts lavender.

I recovered my dark twin towers and the smaller trio of towers with lavender fabric and spray painted the trio of candle holders.  I even spray painted the easel my books are displayed on.

I photographed four pieces of jewelry and had a friend of mine from the local art guild print them out in 12" x 12" size, (Thank you, Jim! You're a doll!) and framed them with purple-painted frames.  I spray painted the small choker bust on the table the same color of purple.

My goal with this project was to create a light and airy feeling to my booth and to definitely de-clutter it.  I have always been one to cram as much merchandise into my booth as possible, but I realize now that to give the classy gallery look and feel I need for better shows, I've got to integrate a lot of extra space.

This is fairly easy to set up.  The walls take longer than they did previously, but with less merchandise to put out, that part takes less time.  I guess it evens out.  I'm usually the last to leave any show, and I suppose that part won't change, but I am really much happier with my booth now.  It is something I feel I can be proud of.  I'll let you know if it helps me getting into better shows!

In the process of this makeover, I did find a lot of great useful information on the web:

http://bermangraphics.com/ is a site by Larry Berman, an artist who has tons of experience with shows and jury slides.  I even emailed Larry my images and he gave me some pointers on how to make them better.  I really appreciate Larry's help!  Thank you, Larry!

I also discovered http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artfestivalguide/ which is a yahoo group for art show artists.  Lots of great info there for anyone wanting to do shows!

Anyway, thanks for your patience, sorry to have kept you on the edge of your seat so long!  :)

Debby