Earlier this year, crafty BFF and I hosted our fourth ever craft supply swap to celebrate National Craft Month. Our goal for Craft Swaps are always to support creative community, for folks to have access to supplies to try something new or find new life with old supplies. We’ve done it different ways over the years. Sharing how we did it so you can host one, too!
Location + Community Partnership
We love a creative space, and this time we partnered with Sticky Art Lab, an all-ages creative space (and where I moonlight as an art instructor)! In previous years we partnered with Makers Workspace (where Crafty BFF had a maker space!). For both spaces we had ample room for the swap, easy parking options for guests, and a community of creatives to gather.
Marketing
Most of our marketing has been word of mouth, leveraging the audiences at the different host venues. This year we also posted flyers around town.
Supply Drop Off
This year we did something different and scheduled drop-off times in the days leading to the swap so that we could better sort all the arts and crafts supplies beforehand. This proved to be a lot more work, but it made the morning of a little less chaotic. In previous years we had folks bring their swap items the morning of or throughout the day. All options worked out.
Set Up
Three of four times we designated areas for each type of craft supply. We’ve also structured it so that guests had the option to set up a booth with their items, but this “required” folks to stay around for the whole event to monitor their booth. For either method it’s helpful and fun to have signage so swappers can easily find supplies.
Clean Up
For some swaps we let folks leave all of their supplies and we donated to Sticky Art Lab, East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, and other community organizations as appropriate. When we did booths we had a leave no trace agreement with our swappers to bring everything home that wasn’t claimed.
Tickets
We’ve done tickets different ways – free tickets, charged a fee to swap or a fee to set up a booth.
It helped to have a registration page to estimate number of guests, and to collect contact information for event announcements and follow up.
The ticket fees we collected always went to cover snacks! And speaking of snacks…
Snacks
Always snacks.
Craft Station
Adding a make and take station adds to the community vibes, and I feel helps folks see the potential in the assorted art and craft supplies up for grabs. Make it open ended and approachable.
Want to join a future Craft Swap? Save the date for our next Swap at Bon Marché with California Copenhagen on Saturday, August 29. And peep my events page for more!
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