The booth is just one of many located inside an antique mall, so to add some Sweetheartville flair and differentiate my booth from the others I hung some vintage curtain panels at the entrance. I really wanted my booth to have the feeling of a small vintage boutique, as there are no stores that cater to vintage enthusiasts in the medium sized city where I grew up. When I began my little renovation of the space, I was faced with this ugly bare plywood table, and the shelving looked the same.
I needed a cheap fix, so I covered the table with some thrifted contact paper, and "upholstered" the eight foot long shelves with one dollar a yard fabric in a dusty pink which echoes the tones in the vintage curtains at the entrance. I also used some thrifted vintage adhesive backed vinyl with gold starbursts on a couple of the shelves.
This small painted wooden shelving unit was covered in a hodge podge of ugly 80's contact paper, so I covered each shelf with some thrifted bamboo print wallpaper that I bought for a dollar at a thrift store. I attached the paper with double sided carpet tape.
My mom scored the clothes rack off Freecycle, which solved the dilemma of how to display vintage clothing.
As I mentioned, I really wanted my booth to stand out in the crowd, so I came up with some marketing ideas, one of which was to make tent cards, or "shelf talkers", as they're sometimes called in retail. The cards offer informative tidbits about certain items or trends and suggest new ways to use old things. Hopefully, they spark interest in my booth, as well as leave a memorable impression on folks who read them. I made them using a couple of illustrations of lovely ladies from some vintage ads I scanned. I cleaned up the images in Photoshop, made a simple border around the card using Publisher, and printed them on pink cardstock. I then hand printed fun, educational chitter chatter on the cards, such as, "Wondering what to do with a single vintage glass or mug? Use one that coordinates with your bathroom decor to hold toothbrushes or combs. Add a vintage touch to your desk by using one as a pencil holder, or collect a mismatched set for entertaining. Each guest always knows which drink is hers." I also made some with trivia about certain things used as decorative motifs in the past, such as owls and mushrooms, and placed them with a grouping of such items.
Another marketing tool are some hang tags I made using a different vintage image, also on pink cardstock, which I use to highlight a particular item or piece of clothing's attractiveness or usefulness. For example, I made a few and attached them to vintage dresses describing how one might best accessorize the frock. At the bottom of these tags, I printed my domain name. Oh, did I forget to mention that you can now find this little ol' blog by going to www.sweetheartville.com? Well, you sure enough can, Dollfaces.
I still have so much to do. The booth looks a little bit disheveled, so some straightening is in order. I plan to make a "Sweetheartville Vintage" sign to hang at the entrance, so that when I begin my little advertising campaign (fliers, business cards, Super Bowl airtime) folks will know which booth is mine. So far, business is pretty good, and will get better and better as word of mouth spreads, hopefully. I'll keep you posted!