Today I had the pleasure of selling my jewelry at an Alice in Wonderland tea party put on by a circus performer. Almost everyone was in costume and it was a lot of fun. The couple in the above picture were a husband and wife duo that came as Alice and the white rabbit.

Costumes

For my costume (on a budget) I was one of the talking flowers that Alice runs into in the story. I wore a green dress and made some simple flower petals out of foam paper and wore them tucked into my hair. I intended to have some awesome flower petal makeup done on my face, but when I arrived I realized I had forgotten all of my makeup at home--there goes my costume.

But, you have to roll with the punches. So, I told my fellow vendors that I had forgotten everything and the only thing we had was a lip-liner pencil. So since it was brand new and I didn't have to worry about how sanitary it was, I used that to draw some petals on my face. Not as cool as I had planned, but it went over well and was better than nothing.

To complete my look I had fresh flowers that I brought over from the flower shop I work at to be my fellow flowers in my Wonderland garden.

There were lots of other costumes including steampunk, superheroes, and combos of the two!
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My Setup

Today's setup was a little different because I only had a small round high-top table to set up on. It was actually kind of nice because, even though I didn't have much space, I had less to worry about. I took advantage of the table's shape and arranged my boxes in a curve and had my tall displays behind them.

Behind that, I had my flowers from the shop. In addition to complimenting my costume, the flowers were also a good way to advertise myself as a florist at the same time.

On the sides of my table I had two bar stools that I used as a little extra room. On one I had my beaded bracelets and zipper pouches, and on the other I displayed my business cards and postcards.

The Lovely People That I Met

It ended up being a fun and successful event--though it was a short one (from 11:11am-1:11pm). I met some very cool people, including my fellow vendors.

Paula and her husband own Perpetual Motion Creations. They create handmade steampunk, halloween, up cycled and many other artistic goods and they do party and event planning. They were very fun people and they even had a steampunk, old fashioned fortune telling machine that they made. Paula and I had a lot of fun talking about how vendors at different markets treat each other. We are both of the opinion that craft vendors are better served by treating each other as other members of the same community, rather than just the competition or the enemy.

I also met Dawn, of Wear Art Live Art. She was a great person to chat with as well, and she creates and teaches classes on acrylic pour art. She also takes scans of her creations and then puts her artwork onto clothing in small batches to create unique and stylish pieces that almost no one else will have.

The outfit that she is wearing in this picture is an example of her work. In addition to clothing she also had a variety of jewelry, prints, original works, and credit card holders with her art on them. If you are not familiar with acrylic pour art, you should check it out. I have not had the chance to try it yet but it seems like a really fun way to play with color.

The Reason for the Event

https://my.charitywater.org/jay-seven-1/J7-s-hatter-s-rabbit-s-tea-time

The event organizer, J7 (2nd from the left), is raising money to bring water to communities around the world. She has a big heart and wants to do good for other people. The ticket price for this event, as well as the proceeds from the raffle that we donated items for, went to Charity: Water. The link above leads to a page where she has been collecting donations towards the water charity. The following is an excerpt from that page:

Many of us have no idea what it's like to be thirsty. We have plenty of water to drink -- even the water in our toilets is clean!

But many people around the world don’t have that luxury. Every day, about 1,400 children die from diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are simple solutions like drilled wells, spring protections and BioSand filters that help provide clean water to communities around the world.

I started this fundraising campaign to help charity: water build these types of projects around the world, and I'm looking for anyone who can help me.