Frame It!

by Judith Rudolph, Holly Cottage Designs
(Thomaston, Maine)

When my local library asked me to sell my jewelry at their Christmas Fair, I agreed because I wanted to support them. But since I don’t normally do craft fairs, I didn’t have any table displays and didn’t want to spend a lot of money to buy them.

I sell my jewelry online and wholesale to gift shops, so I don’t have an ongoing need for display materials, except for a couple of neck busts and earring stands that I use to photograph jewelry for my website.

My husband, David, is a good woodworker and I talked to him about making some display cases for my table, but it seemed like a lot of work and expense for one little craft show that wasn’t likely to bring in a lot of return.

I set up my dining room table for a trial run and experimented with different ideas to display my necklaces. I know that good lighting is critical to good sales at shows and I noticed that when I laid the pieces on the table even under lights, they had a tendency to “flatten” out against the tablecloth.

When David and I had been playing around with ideas for display cases, we thought it would be a good idea to use picture frames for the tops and I had a few of those on hand. Just for the fun of it, I laid some of the frames on the table and placed some necklaces on top of them. I had removed the backs of the frames, leaving just the glass inside. Then I turned on my lights.

Wow! The necklaces really sparkled and came to life.

Another bonus was that my pretty tablecovering showed through and gave the whole table a more cohesive look.

People seemed to like being able to pick up the necklaces and hold them for a closer look so that was another plus for this display as opposed to having them in a case.

Much to my surprise, my sales at this show were fantastic. I don’t know how much my picture frames had to do with that, but I know it didn’t hurt!

Judith Rudolph
Holly Cottage Designs