Pop Up Recap: Easter Bash @ Yuengling Mansion, Pottsville PA

Hello Beautiful People, 

Thanks for stopping by! This past Sunday, 4/13/2025, I had the pleasure of being a vendor at the Frank Yuengling Mansion in Pottsville, PA. It was about a 2 hour drive from where I live in Baltimore, Maryland, but it was an easy drive up 83. 

The weather was absolutely perfect for the event, not too cold or too warm, but it was a bit windier than I anticipated so alas, the pink tent stayed in my car. I had a new product that I'll briefly mention later in this post that sold well, and once again my two best sellers were my Craft Kits and the "I'm VERY Stressed Candle." 

(Listen, I know that looks super photoshopped and that's because it is; I'm still working on these labels and can't commit to putting them on my jars yet lol)

I've been noticing more and more crochet vendors at the events I've been attending, and today was no exception. There were maybe 10 vendors at the event and at least 4 of us were selling some type of crochet product. 

Besides oversaturation, the other issue is that some of the crochet artists I've been seeing are not valuing their time to make products, they are only covering the cost of their materials and then maybe adding on a few extra dollars to make a profit. That not only undervalues their own labor, but it also makes it look like I'm overcharging for factoring in the cost of my labor.

I sell these turtles for $20, and they take about 45 minutes to make. If I pay myself $15 an hour (which would break down to $11.25 for 45 minutes of labor) and it costs $3 materials to make it, it costs about $14.25 to make each one, leaving me with $5.75 net profit. 

The sweetest 9th grader was at the table next to me also selling crochet amigurumi, and her turtles were probably twice as large as mine. She said it takes her about 4 hours to make one, and she was only charging $20.

 

With her permission, after I explained that I'm also a high school entrepreneurship educator, I showed her that even if she only paid herself $7.50 per hour (the minimum wage in PA where she lives), she would need to charge $30 for her time working on making the turtle and wouldn't even cover the cost of her materials. 

While yes, all the money goes in her pocket, I explained that if she had an employee, she would be LOSING about $15 for that turtle to pay her employee and to buy the materials to make it in the first place. She seemed hesitant to up her prices, but her dad was very encouraging and agreed that she works hard and deserves to charge what it costs to make it. 

In a perfect world, I would be able to scream from the rooftops to every crochet creator (and artists in general) out there that you need to pay yourself for the time you spend making products, but since I can't do that prior to my markets to get every single person to value themselves properly, I'm making the decision to pivot away from making amigurumi and start playing around with what I'm selling to further niche down. 

 

I feel like I'm still figuring out my niche and what I want to sell. I know I want it to be true to who I am: bright, colorful, kinda weird, and social justice/sustainability centered. 

 

I currently achieve that by making sure that every single scrap of yarn I use in my crochet doesn't go to waste by using scrap yarn to make scrap-yarn products or for smaller pieces as stuffing in amigurumi, but as I work through my current stash of blanket yarn I think I want to pivot toward using more natural fibers, upcycled materials like frogging thrifted yarn items to make new works, making yarn out of tshirts, and so on. 

Something that sold pretty well despite it being a literal day-before decision to add to the market was my latest product: "Blind Dates with a Book!" 

These did way better than I anticipated!  I sourced them from my leftover stash of children's books in my basement from teaching Kindergarten, my local library had a book sale, and I had a ton of books on my shelf in great condition that I know I will never read again. 

 

Each were wrapped up and had a very vague summary put on the front of them, and voila! 

 

Are they the fanciest looking Blind Dates with a Book? Absolutely not. This week I'll be working on making printed description cards so it's not in my scritch-scratch handwriting lol 

For my next event, I'm going to try doing a "bundling" option, where you can buy a blind date book, a book mark that was upcycled from a book that was literally falling apart, and a candle.

I'll also have a kid's option where instead of a candle you can pick a "snuggle buddy" and buy an amigurumi friend to go with your book and bookmark. 

Another thing I tried out to help get people over to my table was offering them a free Easter egg with a surprise inside each one! It cost me about $0.50 to buy and put a piece of candy in each egg, but it resulted in an extra $100 in sales that I genuinely don't think I would have gotten otherwise because people were glancing from afar when I'd offer them a free egg. Now I'm brainstorming what I can do like that at my next event to help drive traffic! 

 

Other ideas I'm working on for my next market include: 

1. Upcycled tshirts that have crochet patchwork, sleeves, etc. 
2. Customizable/interchangeable options for your Amigurumi
   1. Today I'm going to try out the MORE Baby Potted Friends Pattern from TashaBee Creations 
      1. I'll have a review blog on that one coming out later this week or early next week!  
3. Matching hats for you and your amigurumi friend and/or adult/children's matching hats.
4. More accessories made from upcycled materials. I have old magnet paper I used to use to make sight word cards when I taught Kindergarten to put on my chalk board, so I think I'll use that to make fridge magnets out of old book pages. 

So here's where I need your help:

• What do you think about these new offerings?
• Do you want to see them available on the website as well?
• Do you want a behind the scenes look at the creation process of these various products?
• What else would you like to see for sale at my next pop up or on my website? 
• Am I asking too many questions or too much of you and it's giving you anxiety and now you need a very large glass of wine to survive this new-found pressure?
  • Bestie if this is the case maybe go see a therapist, your mom and I are worried about you.

If you made it this far, thank you SO MUCH for reading my 7am pre-ADHD medication spewed ramblings and for being a part of making my entrepreneurial dreams come true <3 

I genuinely love you (as a friend), 

Kelly Casey