Last weekend, I vended at Renegade Craft Fair with my new “Bento Bar” set-up, where people could assemble their own cute, crocheted bento boxes! This was a grand experiment, since I’d never done this before ever, either online or in person, and I think people really loved it, once they figured it out :P.
The actual “salad bar” part of the display was pretty easy to put together. The base was foam core with some plastic bins hot-glued on top. The sneeze guard was kind of a whole journey. I thought I would make it out of PVC, because PVC seemed easy, but Manda felt that wood was the way to go, even though neither of us know anything about building anything. I think it turned pretty well! An important element for us was that the sneeze guard be easy to transport, so the top/guard part separates from the legs. It is sliiiiiiightly crooked, but, hey, it never fell over, and it survived!
My super favorite part of the weekend was watching people put together their bento boxes, guys, gals, grown-ups, kids, everyone!
Here are a few of the boxes that people assembled:
As luck would have it, our booth was right by an electrical outlet, so I was able to turn people’s food plushies into pins, magnets, or hair clips, right as they waited!
Here’s me with a hot dog octopus pin! My number one favorite request from someone was a french fry pin. I really need to make one for myself.
We also had a table filled with non-bento stuff and my books, plus the giant donut…!
I definitely plan to put the leftovers on Etsy. I just need some time to take pictures of everything and get them listed. I’m hoping maybe by Friday or the weekend? Eep, we’ll see!
Here’s a lil vid I put up on Instagram:
