This corner of my booth is filled with the animals and objects that I upcycled with paint, glaze, and silicone molds, sometimes crowns. The swan got the full rose and bling treatment.
Little houses that light up, cats, birds, ornaments, all sorts of items were redone in this way.
It’s a big gamble to spend so much time on and invest a chunk of booth real estate into a new craft I haven’t sold yet.
But making them was sooooooooo much fun, I couldn’t quit! Well, even if no one else wants them, I have thoroughly entertained myself and had joy in the process.
Another reason why I wanted something new, is that Juju has multiple vendors doing mini trees now. For 20 years, I’ve been bleaching, hand dying, glittering and crafting with bottle brush trees. I’ll still have some to sell, but I cut way back from my typical pastel forests to change things up a bit.
It’s hard to find actual sisal trees now, the newer trees are plastic instead. They also come in every color under the sun, so when other vendors use those in projects, they can just glue one to whatever they are making without the background labor of bleaching and dying that I have to put into mine.
My prices cannot compete. So it’s smart to diversify.
Well, I’ll see if it was smart. Those trees have been a holiday staple and money maker for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have trees! I just didn’t make the dozens and dozens that I usually fill up my space with.
I do love lil trees.
And still love dying them, and using them in different ways. (These are all sisal trees)
(This is one of the new style/non sisal trees I mentioned, can you tell? I tried a few too, since my faves are rare now.)
Our sale is this upcoming weekend so I’ll guess I will find out soon if I made the correct choices in what to offer up to our shoppers.