April | 2024 | MowryJournal.com

The Board Chronicles is an ongoing series of articles about the adventures of Mrs M’s Handmade as a vendor at community festivals & craft fairs. Mrs M’s subsidiary, Mr M’s Woodshop, has been approved to create this chronicle for the good of vendorkind.

There is nothing like an event in your home town. Easy transport. Sleep in your own bed. Smiles from lots of familiar faces.

What could go wrong?

New Ideas

A new display for cutting boards! It only took me about 18 months to take the time to build it.
A new display for handled boards! This did not take as long, but definitely upped my game from using the cast-off crates from Mrs M’s unused display as I had been doing.
I have live edge side tables, or perhaps a coffee table, available this weekend. First time. They were made by a buddy and our local contractor, Steve Mark of Steve Mark Construction. Truly great work. Wonder if there are furniture buyers at the Home & Garden Show?

Observations

This is one of the very few events that I do a triple booth at. This means I must put up the 10’x20′ Trimline canopy as well as a 10’x10′ pop-up. I then put 13x tables in the booth to show … everything. Well, not really. Today with my built out foodie inventory, I had no room for cribbage boards, chess boards, or Magic Bottle Openers. In a triple booth, I am out of room. l think I have a problem.
Set up is on Friday, and I actually had some help. I brought in the Cat Sitter for some help, and then our contractor, Steve Mark, lent a hand since I was going to sell a couple of tables he made. Loved the help.
Before I left check-in, I was cautioned – as was everyone – that high winds were expected overnight in Santa Clarita. Keep your canopies low and weighted! I, of course, do this routinely and wind, though a real concern, is nothing that I worry about in normal conditions. The canopies went up, the weights and ratchet straps went on, and my canopies will not move.
2 other canopies were lost to wind during set up. I heard product breaking on some gusts throughout the weekend.
Hometown.
Set up was fairly simple with the help. I got it done in about 5 hours, start to finish. That left some touch ups, price signs and cracker displays to be done before the 10a start on Saturday.
One quirk of this show is that they always shut off vehicle access for Saturday morning. No drive into the site to drop off inventory on Saturday. Not a problem, just plan ahead. I have a little wheeled crate to make carrying in my electronic gear (charged overnight) and cooler easier to bring in from the parking lot. That was commented on; not everyone lets wheels do the work.
First customer was the husband of an exhibitor. I inquired about her business … she’s a medium, helps contact the departed. That was the first time I have heard that answer at any event.
An older gentleman approached, walking with a cane. “OK, here’s a quiz. What kind of wood is this?” I unfortunately had no idea. He then explained it was an Irish Shillelagh, made from a root of some tree or bush. Still didn’t know what it was!
One conversation I often have (perhaps 5 times this weekend) is … “You don’t cut meat on this board, do you?” The answer, of course, is YES. Some believe meat should be cut on a separate board – this is often due to a fear of bacteria. However, wooden cutting boards are actually naturally anti-bacterial. Research done at the University of Wisconsin and UC Davis has found that, when you infect and then test the bacterial growth on all of the different cutting board surfaces, you’ll find wooden cutting boards have less bacteria after an hour, and after a day. Naturally.
Bacteria can come from ANY food, not just meat. If your lettuce is infected with bacteria when you chop it, then anything cut on the board after that will get tainted if you are not using good clean techniques with your raw food. Without good technique, it really doesn’t matter what cutting board you use, because you can get sick.
I did this explanation, explained how to keep a cutting board clean, and the lady became a customer. I love happy endings.
Hometown.
Saturday was a day of special orders: 4 separate orders were taken, practically simultaneously. I got ‘whelmed early, and had 4 transactions happening all at once. Life gets exciting in the hometown.
Legacy customers are the best part of local events. One customer stood in the middle of the booth and said, “I have one of those, and one of those, and….”
Nothing like local.
Mrs M still has fans out there … I was asked again when Mrs M will return with her soaps and lotions and such. I have a standard answer: I don’t know. I encourage you, dear reader, to talk to her and demand she get back to making, as I am out of my soap. She formulated it just for me. A delicate flower, I am, and I need my soap.
Many people verified I was a local vendor throughout the event. My house is about 3 miles from the event site. And the logo does say it all:

Come to find out I made a mistake on the cutting board display. I knew that I wanted the dowels holding the boards upright to be 8″ apart … but I neglected to consider that a diagonal between dowels was not the same as a vertical line. Ooopsie. Good thing I make everything to be modular. The legs get smaller, the display will be perfect.
I was an hour into my strike when a lady walked up with her son and wanted to buy a cutting board. She was local … but I had the containers (already packed) right there, so I agreed to open some containers to see if any of the boards on hand would speak to her. One did.
It was my biggest sale of the weekend. You just never know when a customer will find you, and when they do, you need to be present. Had I left early, this would have never happened.
The event ended at 4p Sunday, and then my hard work began. I struck the event by myself. It is one of my largest set ups, and I didn’t find help. My bad. I finished about 8:15p, and was in the shower by 8:35p. Dinner quickly followed, and I did not move much after that. As I write this on Monday … the ibuprofen helps. Always.
Going a-vendoring is a glorious, fun thing to do … separated by long stints of very hard work. Be prepared. Always.
Those tables by Steve Mark did not find their forever home this weekend. Pictures are below. And they are still in my truck, so….
This was my 8th year doing this event. I have done it every year since 2015 … since we’re in California, the event was shut down in the covid years. Of course. In any event, in our 11th year of going a-vendoring, here are a few observations for you vendor types:
- This is the largest vendor event in Santa Clarita. Largest attendance as well.
- However, it is not necessarily the home of the largest sales for every handmade vendor. Home & Garden Shows, after all, are famous for being about … your home & garden. So having a great display of handmade goods may not be a perfect solution for you, depending on what you sell. If you are selling air conditioning services, you may think this is a much better event. Of course, their booth costs are much greater than for vendors of those handmade goods. Thank goodness.
- Be clear, I LOVE this event, and it is my top event in Santa Clarita. But is it the best event I do? Alas, no. I have better events when I am out of town … and not sleeping in my own bed. Life is full of trade-offs.
- Apparently.
- As always, your mileage will vary.
See you out there!

The Food

Best Meal: Velda cooked a steak from Jess & Jim’s Steak House in Kansas City … we get beef from there as a Christmas present. Steak for the win. Of course.
Honorable Mention: Sunday dinner was Polish sausage & mashed potatoes. Velda’s comfort food after a very hard day. Oh, and there was bourbon.

The Facts

Total miles driven: 24
# of people we met during the event from the producer: Many, as always. I knew the people at my hometown radio station long before I went a-vendoring. I worked in the radio industry for nearly 3 decades, after all!
Visits in the booth by a promoter’s representative: sure. Lots.
Returning next year? No question. See you there!