Recap: Cottontown Art Crawl
+ Hops & Shops
(Sunburned & Worth It)

It's Monday morning. I have a sunburn, the time change stole an hour of my life, Chelsea was sick so I ran most of this solo, and I had one of the best weekends I've had in a long time.

Two events back to back. Saturday was my first-ever Cottontown Art Crawl. Sunday was another Hops & Shops. Combined, the weekend brought in $1,223 in sales across 14 product categories with near-zero overhead. I came home exhausted, sunburned, and already thinking about restocking. Here's the breakdown.

Before the chaos. Cottontown Art Crawl, Saturday March 7.

First time at this event and I had no idea what to expect. What I got was perfect weather, non-stop foot traffic, and a crowd that genuinely got it. The booth moved $840 on the day.

This is what "barely got a break" looks like.

T-shirts led with 15 sold, and practically everything else followed: badge reels, enamel pins, magnets, tote bags, tea towels, card skins, pet tags, stickers, koozies, keychains, patches, zip pouches, car coasters. Fourteen different product types in a single day. Total costs for the day were under $50 between gas, the application fee, and food. I barely got a break. That is not a complaint.

The rack that stopped people in their tracks. Every time.

The Cottontown crowd felt like mine — alt-adjacent, artsy, people who read the products before picking them up and had a real reaction. There were actual conversations. The kind where someone finds the exact thing you made for someone exactly like them and you both know it. I got to commiserate with like-minded people, vent, laugh, connect. That's the part that doesn't go in the spreadsheet. It's also the reason I keep showing up.

Community showing up when it counts.

Setup, breakdown, all transactions, coverage, restocking mid-day, every customer conversation — that was me, both days. Some friends came through to help with setup and breakdown and I'm not going to gloss over how much that mattered. The booth doesn't appear out of thin air. Neither does the takedown at the end of a long day when your feet are done and the time change already took an hour you didn't have.

If Saturday was a sprint, Sunday was a strong steady jog. Hops & Shops is a different kind of crowd — familiar, regular, reliable — and it delivered $383 with essentially zero overhead. T-shirts moved again (6 more), enamel pins, greeting cards, and magnets were the other standouts. A solid close to a big weekend, even running on fumes and one fewer hour of sleep than anyone needed.

A small thing I maybe buried the lede on: I'm a cofounder of Hops & Shops, and this weekend local news came out to cover the market. So in between running the booth solo on a stolen hour of sleep, I also sat down for an on-camera interview. Completely normal Sunday activity. Vendor, business owner, and media subject all at once — you just have to keep moving.

Someone woke up in the middle of the night, remembered they'd promised themselves a pet tag months ago, bought it at 3am, and went back to sleep. The tag arrived. It looked glorious on a sparkly pink collar. They posted about it. I found out about it this weekend.

"I woke up in the middle of the night... OH NO I SAID I WAS GOING TO BUY THAT." This is the whole brand in one post.

This is why you make something with a specific person in mind and put it out there. You don't always see the moment it lands. Sometimes you find out months later on a random weekend, and it's exactly the fuel you needed.

Meanwhile, online —

While I was doing the outdoor hustle, the shop was working too. 964 visits in the last 30 days, up 285.6% year over year. Etsy app traffic up 959% YoY. I say this not to brag but because it's proof that showing up consistently — at markets and online — actually compounds. It doesn't feel like it in the moment. And then one day you look at the numbers and it does.

Last 30 days. 964 visits. +285.6% YoY.

21 t-shirts across two days. The apparel rack was clearly the move and I need to restock it. Magnets, tea towels, and stickers all need replenishing too. I have notes. I'm already working on it — because No Man's Land is March 21st and I am not showing up light.

What's coming up —

Massive restock in progress. New shirts, more pins, all the things that sold through this weekend. And soon: a permanent placement at the vendor mall on Sunset Boulevard. If you want to catch the table in person before then, March 21st is the one.

The time change took something from me I'm not ready to forgive. Cottontown is going on the permanent yes list. First time there, absolutely not the last.

Hops & Shops. Sunday. Still standing.

And yes. The sunburn is real.

Sunday night. The evidence. Worth it.

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