Hobby Holiday Retreat Round-Up

 

Let’s just start by saying what a fun experience! We were vendors at our very first retreat and not only was it a HUGE success, but it was so much FUN!

Elizabeth Trainor is the founder of Hobby Holiday and when she reached out to us to be a vendor at her inaugural retreat it was an immediate YES! Elizabeth has combined her favorite hobbies, needlepoint and mahjong, to bring like minded women together.

Planning Stage

Clearly we had products, but could we combine the two hobbies and bring in some mahjong? The answer, if Alonsa is in-charge of creative…yes!

She didn’t just design needlepoint canvases, she also designed the world’s cutest mahjong Joker tile needleminder (say that three times fast!). Painting started after the design process and Natasha even painted some of the canvases.

Then we had to design what our table would look like. Selling flat items creates some obstacles. Alonsa found some great gold display items that matched our vibe and created height. Yay! Then, while walking through Michael’s we had the idea to use a trifold board to show off some canvases and finished canvases. That’s right, we grabbed an old science project display. But, it totally worked and Alonsa added gingham ribbon to make it look cuter.

Table cloths came next. After lots of design trial and error, Alonsa designed the cutest table cloth in our Georgie and Lottie toile. It really added so much!

Inventory & the Boring Stuff

How much inventory to bring? What will sell and be popular?

We are not pros at determining this yet. The items we think will sell are not always the ones you all love. So, we decided to bring two of most of our in-stock designs plus some new holiday designs and the mahjong line. We kitted complete projects where we could - with threads and a self-finishing item.

We brought all the accessories! Project bags (more on that in a minute), needle minders, snips, and rescue kits.

Natasha inventoried it all and got it set-up in Shopify (not the correct way, but it worked for the first time!).

Events

Natasha is type A to a fault, so we got there a day early! Enjoyed a lovely dinner with Elizabeth and Alex from Lottie Lew and set-up on Sunday.

Oh, and we recorded a podcast episode in our insane room with BRIGHT RED carpet too!

Sunday was a cocktail party followed by dinner. 

Biggest highlight…we met the BEST people! Literally our new besties!

Made connections, talked wholesale, and sold so many things. Remember those kits? They went FAST! Who knew?

Monday there were classes and open stitching and mahjong. And we also were open! Mabel James Embroidery was a vendor and with the help of our new friend, Hillary, we decided to have her stitch WIP it real good on our toile project bags. 

Obsessed! Immediately sold three and had her stitch more!

Monday night was BINGO in our pjs! Of course we wore our podcast photo pjs. So fun and everyone looked so cute.

Tuesday was very chill. We packed up and visited with the friends we’d made and headed back to G&L headquarters.

Takeaways

Go to the retreat or the stitch night! Go alone, you’ll meet people immediately!

We made money! Listen, when you’re doing something like this for the very first time there are a lot of expenses. Plus we had to pay for the hotel and some of our food and a vendor fee. Then all the display things. So we were ecstatic that we ended up in the green!

Wins

Made new friends

Made wholesale connections

Connected with other small businesses

Good market analysis (what people want)

Made money

Had FUN!

Cons

Alonsa had to take off work

Things we thought would sell didn’t

We did not sleep well (we’re old - it happens)

We will 100% do this again!  In fact, we are. We’ll be at the Hobby Holiday Retreat in Jekyll Island in April. Hope to see you there!