Holiday shopping kicks off at North Iowa Craft & Vendor show

(ABC 6 News ) – The sixth annual Fall Craft and Vendor show was held at the North Iowa Events Center, sharing the weekend with the River City Gun Club’s annual Gun Show.

Organizer Lisa Canado said the dozens of mostly home-based vendors were eager to sign up ahead of the season’s busy holiday shopping weekends.

“It’s the busiest time of year for everybody,” Canado said. She organizes vendor and craft shows in North Iowa and Minnesota. “It’s been a bit of a slow fall, with the election, but people in the last two weeks have started to get out again [and] spend a little bit more money ahead of the holidays.”

Pam Rafferty, who sells vanilla extract products as owner of “You Had Me At Vanilla,” depends on seasonal craft shows for about half her business, saying during the spring and summer she’s at farmer’s markets, and takes her table to vendor and craft shows during the winter months.

“I think what I have is a unique present to give people,” Rafferty said.’ I sold a lady a five ounce bottle of it, and she told me a story that she had bought her mother some, she said that was the best present she had ever gotten, a bottle of real vanilla.”

The North Iowa Events Center will next host a Craft & Vendor show on December 14.