When your craft business grows to a certain level, you may start to consider hiring someone to help. For crafts, I recommend sub-contract labor before you go into hiring an actual employee. The reason is simply.: employees require things like withholding taxes, worker's comp insurance and strict guidelines from just about every government agency you can think of... If you hire someone as a sub-contactor, you can tell them how many pieces to create and when it needs to be finished. Of course, with contract labor, you cannot tell them where to be, and when to do it. You also cannot specify how they perform the work. Just that the outcome meets your requirements.

If you are applying for outdoor events now, you will need a canopy to protect your display from the weather. It's important to get a canopy that will fully surround your booth and seal-up the sides in the event of very bad weather. Make sure you also take care of security by locking down the walls as much as possible. What is your favorite canopy for outdoor craft shows?

It's the start of a new year and a great time to make sure all of your paperwork is up-to-date. Check things like fliers, order forms and business cards for information such as email/website addresses, phone numbers, price changes and shipping rates. Make sure everything you hand out to customers is current. This is a good thing to do a few times during the year to make sure your customers have the right information about your business.

This time of the year lots of people want to clear out old inventory to help keep their product line looking fresh. If you want to mark down your crafts, make sure you check with show promoters first. Many promoters will not allow sales in any form at their shows. If you have a lot of items you want to mark down, you may want to consider setting up at a flea market and simply put all of your sale items out for the event.