Kelley Pounds of Kellscreations.com blogs about her jewelry, art, and creativity in general

I’d really rather just make my jewelry and art and let the display and selling take care of itself! Of course I can’t do that, so I always seem to think about display and booth ideas just as I’m gearing up to be too busy to really do my ideas justice, and this year will probably be no exception. After three years, I’m ready to mix up my booth design. Here’s a photo of my booth from the 2009 Las Cruces Renaissance Artsfair:

Not bad. (That’s my husband in the booth). I like my sign, but I’m tired of looking at plain white tent walls, and I think my overall display is too dark. The standing earring displays need a lighter look so that potential customers can see more of the earrings from a distance and less of the display itself. And I’m thinking about giving my display pedestals (which also double as storage) an upgrade from the faux verdigris finish they have now to a faux slate or marble look, so I’ve been looking through my books on faux painting techniques.

My first show of the season, Mayfair, is Memorial Day weekend in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, and my booth will be inside the pavilion, so I’m trying to come up with wall ideas so that my booth will be clearly differentiated from those next to me. I found a great photo pool on Flickr, full of photos of displays at Arts and Crafts Fairs. Since Flickr doesn’t seem to want me to copy photos to re-post here, I’ll just provide links:

Paper Pastries has a fun and colorful booth, but the stars of this booth are the custom shelving units. Nice! I would want to shop in this booth; the shop’s name and color scheme are perfectly in sync. Photos of this booth really get me thinking about unique wall or shelving display ideas.

Blue Roof Designs is equally inviting in my opinion, but nothing like Paper Pastries. The colors are subtle and earthy, allowing the handmade books to be the focal point. But what I like best about this booth is the use of floor space. Unlike my booth, I don’t think customers would feel claustrophobic shopping here. I’m definitely going to have to brainstorm wall display ideas that will allow me to free up some floor space in my booth. Creating floor space in a 10′ X 10′ space is a challenge!

I think it’s interesting that out of all the photos I looked at, I didn’t find a jewelry display I liked very well. Hmmmm. I do know that there are usually so many jewelry artists at shows that people tend to overlook and dismiss jewelry booths, so I want to make sure my booth is as inviting as possible. I also know I don’t have a lot of money or time, so I’m going to have to find a way to refurbish things I have on hand. I have lots of unbleached linen scraps, so I’m thinking about re-covering some of my jewelry displays using linen. It’s a nice neutral gray color that will lighten the look of my booth display. But whatever I come up with will also have to complement my sign and my new business cards, which are predominantly periwinkle blue and feature one of my favorite jewelry pieces, Dragonfly Moon.

I’ll be sure to post pictures of my updated booth display after Mayfair.

The “unspeakable muse” jewelry finding included in my kit for the Use the Muse IV contest inspired a piece of art featuring a design similar to a stained glass rose window, which I used as the backdrop for a black-haired dragonfly fairy.

Unless I change my mind, the plan is to transfer this piece of art to a polymer clay shield pendant piece and incorporate some copper clay dragonflies with all the other components in the Use the Muse kit. If I get brave, I may even try my hand at enameling those copper clay dragonflies I want to make. Until then, here’s the artwork. The color scheme is a warmer blend of pastels that should go with the beads in the kit.

I also recently joined a blog called Art Cards 365, where all the art featured by members is in the collectible art card size of 2.5″ X 3.5″. I thought participating in this blog would inspire me to keep working on my art and get back into practice. Maybe if I did that, black hair–or hair in general–wouldn’t be so difficult for me to paint! The original of this piece is 5″ X 7″, which resizes perfectly to ACEO size, so I think I’m going to use this piece as a limited edition ACEO. Now I just need to think of a title!

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Here’s a picture of the kit contents for Use the Muse IV contest sponsored by Scarlett Lanson and Artbeads.com. It’s always so much fun to see what different designers come up with using the same materials. In addition to what you see here, each kit contains one special piece called the “muse,” of which there is no photo. That is half the fun of entering the contest–you don’t know what the special muse piece is until you receive your kit. It’s always a challenge, but I’m starting to put together ideas. Since we’re going into spring and summer, I think I will lighten things up with some turquoise and maybe some other color.  Still thinking . . .