Rise Up Designs

One of the things I genuinely love about doing markets is the people. I love meeting customers, talking about what I make, watching someone discover something they didn’t know they needed, and getting that immediate feedback you just don’t get from an online shop. The part I could live without? Packing. Loading the car. Unloading the car. Setting everything up. Breaking everything down. Loading it all again. Then getting home and realizing you still have to unload. 😂 After doing markets for a while, though, I’ve learned something that has made that process a little easier: You don’t have to take everything you own. Every market has its own personality. Something that flies off my table at one market might barely get looked at somewhere else. At another market, people may head straight for my Blind Date with a Book collection. Somewhere else, it’s gift sets, totes, bookmarks, or something completely different. So this year, I’ve started paying much closer attention. What are pe...

This weekend I participated in a smaller market at a local coffeehouse, and honestly? It ended up being a really good reminder that growth doesn’t always happen in the biggest spaces. Usually, I work larger markets with a full 10x10 setup. This time, I had to scale everything down into a much smaller 5x5 space. At first, I worried about how much I’d have to leave behind or whether it would still feel like me . But once everything came together, I realized something important: Sometimes limitations force creativity. The market itself is still growing, and this was only their second event. The first time I participated, it rained most of the day, so there wasn’t much traffic. This weekend was different. The turnout was smaller than some of the larger events I’ve done, but the conversations were meaningful, the atmosphere was relaxed, and it gave me the opportunity to really pay attention to how people interacted with my setup. One thing I consistently hear at markets is how cohesive ...