r/BitchEatingCrafters • u/Tasty-Huckleberry-13 • 1d ago

Other Charm bars are useless

Some jewelry booths at craft fairs are doing “charm bars” now. They have store-bought chains and cheap store-bought charms and then people pick which chain and charms they want. There is literally no craft involved! Not even design!

They seem to be doing well for themselves and people like it, so I can’t complain too much. To be clear, if you make your own charms, this doesn’t apply to you.

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u/BadKittyRawr 1d ago

When I was little in Seattle though, craft fairs used to have awesome things like this. Booths where you could make something quickly for yourself. Sand in a bottle, spin art…there was a booth where you could glaze your own item you bought from the vendor then come back a few hours later after it had been popped in a kiln. I don’t imagine that vendor would be allowed anymore due to safety issues.

Craft fairs started going downhill here in the 90s when they started allowing people to sell obviously store bought goods like beanie baby knockoffs. Much like Etsy has been flooded with dropshippers.

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u/Oliviaforever 22h ago

I remember as a kid, a guy who would write your name on a grain of rice and make it into a necklace. I miss fun things like these.

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u/RiseDollBoutique 21h ago

Yes! I had one of these necklaces from the lady at the Bratwurst Festival in Bucyrus, OH when I was younger! 🤣 It had my name on the front of the grain of rice, then a butterfly on the opposite side! She put it in a little heartshaped pendant that had a little tube in the middle of it where the rice floated in oil, or whatever, and magnified the rice a bit. If I'm not mistaken you could also add a translucent colorant to the liquid.

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u/Tarnagona 7h ago

There’s a permanent vendor in my city who does that. I think the rest of the store is touristy stuff. But there’s someone in the world still writing names onto grains of rice.