I am so happy to have achieved one of my goals…to have a booth at the Equine Affaire! I applied last year but didn’t get accepted. Luckily I got in this year and was able to get a 10×10 in the Mallory South building with the clinic arena, youth pavilion, and trailers. With the help of Bethanne Ragaglia (my mother-in-law) and my husband Katahdin, we were able to set up a beautiful booth. We worked on the display for over a month before the show, setting up the space in the garage. I am really happy with how it came out, it was challenging to fit a lot of inventory into a 10X10 space while also keeping it organized. We created a wall of tee shirts, dividing each design by size and the customer was able to try on sample shirts on a handmade wooden rack at the front. I handpainted a new SandraB. Designs sign and Katahdin made us shelving to convert a screen into a shelf unit. I used wood lattice to create taller walls in the back and lucked out that my next door neighbor also had a sturdy wall. I was a little worried that they would be too unstable. The antique wood barrels and the natural edge wood counter were popular. I had a slideshow going on my computer so people could see pictures of me performing and training my horse Douwe. I met so many people who have seen me perform or know me as a dressage judge so that was really fun. We also had cute wooden toys and ornaments on display in a beautiful wicker unit that also held toddler tee shirts and youth hoodies. I handpainted wooden signs that I recycled from signs I painted last year for my wedding. Sunflowers was part of my wedding theme and I think that I might incorporate them into my booth for the future. They help represent the eco-friendly, organic materials that I use. The long-sleeve shirts were the most popular item along with the hoodies. I got hundreds of people to enter my free giveaway for a hoodie and picked the winner today. Congrats to Stacy Tofuri for winning! Bethanne and I came up with some new ideas for next time but we were both very pleased with all the compliments we got on our display. I will definitely try to get a corner space next year if possible and also try to get into the Better Living Center building which is the #1 building for vendors. Thank you to all my current and new customers for visiting my booth!
