Ever have one of those moments when you feel like you are on a big roller coaster, heading upward and all you hear is “click click click, click…” ? It is thrilling and at the same time you think “What was I thinking…What kind of warped sense of fun is this? AAAAHHH!”

At the beginning of this month we attended the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon.   It was a great experience! It was like that roller coaster but on a good day when I love the thrill of the ride.

Setting up our booth

So why the delay in blogging about it?  Well… I needed to wait for life to calm a little before I could gather my thoughts. Plus, upon returning I had some health stuff to work through. So, now that we are back, I am feeling better and the house in cleaned (I don’t feel very inspired if the house looks like a tornado hit) I can now think again.

We went to the Mother Earth News Fair with one main goal. We knew that if you were going to gather the perfect group of people to try our product on, the best “focus group”, these were “our people”.  So, our goal was to get a feel for the market and see people’s reactions.

Talking to customers at Fair

The experience was wonderful. First of all the fair itself was wonderful. If you ever have a chance to go to a Mother Earth News Fair I highly recommend it. There were stages set up throughout the fair grounds and all through the day workshops took place. Over 150 workshops took place in two days. The topics ranged from natural medicine to solar power to how to make butter.

My favorite was when the stage across from our booth had a 2 part Pork Butchery Workshop. The speaker brought half a pig, put it on the table and showed the people live how to cut it up.  Afterwards, he entered the booth across from ours, put his disassembled pig parts on the table and answered questions. Love it.  Part of me was really sad I was busy and couldn’t attend workshops all day.

Usually when I attend a fair with vendors I always run into the pushy vendors or the ever present window and gutter salesman that insist on telling me about how I NEED their product. This set of vendors were not pushy and many were there to simply help educate. They were selected to represent the topics that Mother Earth News care about. Nice group of people.

Our booth was in a good traffic area. As people walked by we encouraged them try out our  quality clothespins. We got two main reactions. Either a person took it and gave a surprised and satisfying “Oooohhhh…nice” (you could tell these people used clothespins often.) The conversation followed with much talk about hang drying and their current frustrations with what clothespins are available on the market. The second reaction was “So?… It’s just a clothespin right?”. We would then show them a imported clothespin sample and let them see the differences. After showing and explaining the differences they understood… it’s not just your typical clothespin…

Out of hundreds of people stopping at our booth those two days we were very encouraged. Not only did we love the responses but Mother Earth News also picked us to be featured on their Facebook page 🙂 See the Video HERE

We also were interviewed by Wranglerstar,  a wonderful Youtube channel that focuses on Homesteading topics.

Talking to Wranglerstar at Mother Earth News Fair

Here is the WranglerStar Feature:

There were several times in that few hours that The Carpenter and I just looked at each other wide eyed.Though we have had our share of critics or doubters, this experience shouted out to us to keep at it. So, as long as people keep wanting Sturdy, Quality,  American Made Clothespins we will keep making them.

Who knew a year ago that we would be here today?  Well, God did, and I will continue to thank Him for each moment in this adventure.

Also, Congratulations to Corinne for winning the Mother Earth News Fair Raffle for 30 Kevin’s Quality Clothespins!

A special thank you shout out to my Mom who helped us out at the Fair and to The Carpenters parents who watched the kiddos 🙂

-The Frabjus Lady